A non-profit organization that provides student-athletes with scholarships and mentorship for post-graduate education launched on Jan. 1, 2026. Behind the foundation is an Omaha native who wanted to give back to her community.
Darya Kaboli-Nejad is the founder of The Soraya Foundation. She attended Skutt Catholic High School in Omaha, where she played softball and knew she wanted to play at a highly touted college. After high school, Kaboli-Nejad traveled to the West Coast to an Oregon softball camp. There, her work ethic and confidence earned her a spot on the team as a walk-on.
“I knew after high school I wanted to do something big, and I knew I needed to go play softball somewhere big,” Kaboli-Nejad said. “I went up to the coach after the camp was over, and I said, ‘I know you don’t know who I am. My name is Darya, and I want to play on the softball team, and if you let me, you will not regret it.’”
After years of battling for playing time, it was time for her to get on the field for her senior season. However, she tore her ACL a few weeks before the start of the season. At that moment, she understood that softball was only a stepping stone for her dreams of becoming a lawyer.
Due to her playing sports throughout college and suffering an injury in her senior year, it was hard for Kaboli-Nejad to get the scores she needed to get into the law school she wanted. After improving her score on her third try at the test, she was accepted into multiple schools before enrolling at the University of San Francisco School of Law, where she graduated amongst the top of her class.
Now, Kaboli-Nejad works as a corporate M&A attorney at Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett LLP, a top-ranked firm in the world, based in New York, while also collaborating with the Oregon athletic department to reconnect with the community. That’s when The Soraya Foundation came in.
The Soraya Foundation is named after Kaboli-Nejad’s mother, Azita Soraya, who inspired her daughter to live up to her maximum potential. The foundation honors her mother’s story.
Soraya moved from Iran to the United States alone as a young woman in the hope of a better future. When Soraya got to the States, she worked hours on end to provide for her family.
“She started from the ground up, working two jobs, giving everything she could,” Kaboli-Nejad said. “She had an aesthetician business set up in our basement, and then she would get the cash and turn around and pay for my batting lessons.”
In Iran, it wasn’t normal for women to thrive in sports. Soraya wanted her daughters to be bold, fierce and play every sport possible.
“She wanted it to be sports because she knew how much this country offered for women in sports,” Kaboli-Nejad said.
Kaboli-Nejad wants to leave a lasting impact on athletes like her mom did on her. That’s why Kaboli-Nejad partnered with former collegiate athlete, Gwen Edwards, attorney Jada Allender, and Oregon’s associate athletic director, Katie Harbert, to assist her.
However, much of the work is done by volunteers and mentors. Volunteers can assist with various tasks, including website development, social media management, advertising, and marketing, among others. Mentors can join the team as a supporting figure for the scholarship recipients during the duration of the graduate study. Mentors have to have been through graduate studies programs.
Currently, Kaboli-Nejad has welcomed multiple members of the J Blue marketing school at Creighton to serve as interns.
The application can be found on The Soraya Foundation website. More information and updates can be found on their LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.