The Warren Miller Freedom Foundation's Young Entrepreneurs Program is a ten-week curriculum aimed at giving students (grades 6-12) the opportunity to learn how to start their own business! They develop a plan, learn basic business vocabulary, discuss and practice marketing, customer service, record keeping, networking, problem solving and ethical business practices. Each class is supervised by a Mentor who guides the Young Entrepreneur students through the ten weekly lessons. Building relationships is an important part of any classroom or business and this is an intigral part of the Young Entrepreneur Program. Mentors keep the classroom active with a minimum of weekly lecture, written activities, and hands-on experiential learning. The students are encouraged to role play, actively challenge their classmates, research and map the business needs of their communities and, most importantly, use their talents to find a business they can enjoy and grow. Each week the students end the class with a challenge to meet a specific business goal for the upcoming week.
Students in the Warren Miller Freedom Foundation Programs start a service or sales business within the first two weeks! Thus, the classroom discussions may be based on their own personal experiences in addition to the written weekly lesson. Typical classroom sessions are two hours, once a week, with each class beginning with a review of the previous session. Students record their business progress weekly by refining their business plan, and setting new goals. The program may be offered as part of an established business curriculum or in an after school or community center setting.
Each session covers:
Goals for the week
Business topics for discussion
Journal topics for reflection
Business vocabulary
Activities based on the WMFF Student Guide
A weekly challenge.
Once the Young Entrepreneur Students have an opportunity to market their own businesses in a safe and helpful environment, that’s when the fun begins. A new and profitable world opens up! Most young people do not get the opportunity to study entrepreneurship in their regular school curriculum and this program fills that gap with fun, facts and 'real world' experience. Our goal is for entrepreneurship to be a word every student understands, appreciates, and practices as an important part of the business community.
Starting a Young Entrepreneur program in your area is easy! Just click here to find out how.
