Causes: Children & Youth, Education, Employment, Job Training, Youth Development, Youth Development - Business

Mission: The eight inner-city youths that were hired to design YouthBiz in 1992 wanted more than a paycheck. They wanted to learn transferable job skills along with developing leadership and academic skills to take them further. More importantly, they found a place where being and feeling safe became a reality. Today youth from the inner city neighborhoods surrounding YouthBiz are at high risk of academic failure, lack business skills, and lack leadership techniques. The youth YouthBiz services attend 14 diferent schools in the Metro area. The schools in this community have dropout rates of 32-60% which perpetuates the curent problem that half of the residents over 25 drop out of school before receiving a high school diploma. Students in this area then struggle with issues of poverty, low grades, unemployment,low attendance, and high dropout rates. YouthBiz works with these students to cope with the external factors with its programs teaching youth long-term transferable skills. All graduates receive a refurbished computer as well as earn stipends or incentives.

Programs: Youthbiz inc advances the social and economic empowerment of youth by providing academically enriched after school and summer programs to middle and high school students from denver's inner-city neighborhoods. The organization's long term-goals are to 1). Broaden economic opportunities through a focus on entrepreneuial education, 2). Support the educational goals of youth by increasing high school graduation rates, and 3). Equip youth with the tools and understanding needed to addess community issues and strengthen individual leadership capacities.