Results: NFTE has worked with nearly 350,000 young people from low-income communities in programs across the U.S. and around the world.
Target demographics: Schools in low-income communities where at least 50% of the students are eligible for free or reduced price lunch.
Programs: Network for teaching entrepreneurship ("nfte") served approximately 35,000 middle school and high school students in more than 1,000 schools in under-resourced communities across the u. S. During the 2016-2017 school year. Nfte served an additional 40,0000 students outside the u. S. By leveraging partnerships with other educational/youth development organizations to offer programs in mexico, germany, belgium, israel, india, china, ireland, and singapore. Overall, nfte was active across 19 different geographic regions/metro areas in 9 countries. Students in nfte programs learn how to develop a business plan and how to market their business concept. Many students then go on to compete in regional and national business plan competitions. More than 14,000 nfte students from over 200 u. S. Schools participated in nftes national youth entrepreneurship challenge events during the 2016-2017 school year, competing for a total of $160,000 in prizes awarded specifically to invest in their business or further education. Nfte designs, develops and publishes curriculum; trains public/ charter school teachers to teach nfte courses; and works with teachers to facilitate the experiential learning model. Teachers across the u. S. And around the world deliver the nfte curriculum, and nfte offers a variety of professional development opportunities for teachers, including webinars, live training sessions, and peer-to-peer coaching events. In addition, nfte develops assessment tools and conducts research to improve the effectiveness of curriculum. During the 2016-2017 school year nfte conducted a pilot for the entrepreneurial mindset index (emi), a new tool for measuring mastery in core domains identified as critical to entrepreneurial thinking. The emi, which was developed in collaboration with researchers at the educational testing service (ets), is a resource for teachers and students in nfte programs and is embedded in the nfte curriculum. Nfte also piloted the pre-emi classroom report, a resource to help teachers understand the entrepreneurial mindset of a particular class and see how that class compares to other classes across the u. S. Nfte leverages classroom teachers to deliver the nfte curriculum. The benefit to nfte is that teachers are paid by their respective school districts. The challenge for the organization's contributors and assessors is recognizing the economic value of those teachers is excluded, in tax reporting, from the measurement of expenditures related to program efforts. The teachers are essential to meeting the organizations mission, thus the economic value ($3 million plus) must be factored into any assessment of the organization to have a true comparison with other organizations.
