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Key Partners
Status
Start year of the initiative:
2014 – still ongoing.
Next steps of initiative:
The programme will be piloted in five markets in the United States and then expanded internationally based on best practices and lessons learned.
Impact
Country(ies) of impact:
United States
Number of people impacted annually:
480 participating girls
Time to intended impact:
Less than 2 years
Metrics:
- Number of girls participating
- Number of participants who create a business plan
- Number of GGEP programmes offered
- Number of female volunteers engaged
- Number of new partnerships established in support of GGEP
Benefit to organization:
- Direct benefit to organization
- Indirect benefit to organization
Key Partners
Status
Start year of the initiative:
2014 – still ongoing.
Next steps of initiative:
The programme will be piloted in five markets in the United States and then expanded internationally based on best practices and lessons learned.
Impact
Country(ies) of impact:
United States
Number of people impacted annually:
480 participating girls
Time to intended impact:
Less than 2 years
Metrics:
- Number of girls participating
- Number of participants who create a business plan
- Number of GGEP programmes offered
- Number of female volunteers engaged
- Number of new partnerships established in support of GGEP
Benefit to organization:
- Direct benefit to organization
- Indirect benefit to organization
Global Girls Entrepreneurship Project
Submitted by MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth
Objective
To help high-school girls in low-income communities develop an entrepreneurial mindset through female mentors, business and leadership skills that spur innovation and exposure to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers.
Overview and Main Activities
In partnership between the MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth, the Coca-Cola Foundation and the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), the Global Girls Entrepreneurship Project (GGEP) targets girls in high school. The initiative is being implemented in five U.S. markets during 2014-2015 and will expand internationally in the following years, reaching girls worldwide.
Key programme components include:
- Mentoring Sessions: Sessions with women business owners and female volunteers include STEM-focused coaching, career panels and technology workshops. A strong network of female business leaders is being cultivated to serve as role models and coaches for participating girls. Emphasizes participation of female employees, leveraging various employee groups, including MasterCard’s Young Professional networks and Women in Technology (volunteer roles within the project are open to all regardless of gender).
- Girls Innovate: Provides opportunities for entrepreneurial thinking, imagining and creating as part of NFTE’s World Series of Innovation. Participants brainstorm and create submissions in response to one of seven online innovation challenges. Working with volunteers, students turn their innovative ideas into formal proposals, using their submissions to compete for prizes.
- Girls Tech-Entrepreneurship Summer Camps: A two-week intensive learning opportunity where participants learn about personal discovery, leadership, and teamwork through interaction with leading technology businesswomen volunteers. Curriculum emphasizes women-owned business, technology and career planning, and girls have field trips to local tech companies and learn from STEM panel discussions. Each girl develops a business plan and the camps culminate with business plan competitions.
The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) is the global leader in youth entrepreneurship education with active programmes in 12 countries that have served over 560,000 youth worldwide since 1987. By teaching the entrepreneurial mindset, NFTE provides young people with tools and attitudes to overcome adversity and address future personal, economic, community and global challenges.
Success Factors and Challenges
Most critical success factors:
- Project-based programming based on NFTE’s 27-year expertise in experiential entrepreneurship education
- Partnerships with key companies that value programme impact and provide funds and volunteers
- Relationships with schools and other NGOs for support on expansion and recruitment
Main challenges:
- Designing a flexible, high-quality programme that meets market needs and maintains core standards
- Recruiting students for rigorous out-of-school time programming
- Engaging volunteers to participate in low-income neighbourhoods on weekends and schooldays
Recommendations for Others
Explore ways to build on successful programmes to target a specific audience and leverage the leaders in networks to provide much needed intellectual and human capital. In addition, it may also be helpful to secure a local GGEP champion, both within the teacher/youth educator community to support student recruitment and within the local women business leader community to support female volunteer recruitment. The programme achieved some success with this when done informally and will be attempting a more formal arrangement in one market to determine whether it can be expanded further.
Replicability and Scalability
How easily could other organizations implement this initiative?
Difficult: Other organizations may not have the same level of expertise, a strong network of partners, and buy-in of key stakeholders.
How easily can this initiative be expanded to include a larger number of participants?
Easy: Scalability can easily be achieved by increasing the number of activities in a specific region and/or the geographic footprint.
About the Organization
Website: www.nfte.com
Sector: Non-Profit
Size (number of employees): Up to 1,000
Headquarters: New York, United States
For Further Engagement
Contact name: Shawn Osborne
Contact position: CEO
Email: [email protected]