BUILDing the Dream through Entrepreneurship
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
Young Men at Risk: Transforming the Power of a Generation competition.
BUILD turns youth from under-resourced communities on to college by providing real-world entrepreneurial experience and academic support.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Year the initative began (yyyy)
1999
YouTube Upload
Project URL (include http://)
Plot your innovation within the mosaic of solutions
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Culture of no accountability: Neither society nor men at risk act accountable to each other
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Create credible choices and opportunities
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic:
Culture of low expectations: Neither society nor men at risk maintain high expectations for academic achievement.
Name Your Project
BUILDing the Dream through Entrepreneurship
Describe Your Idea
BUILD turns youth from under-resourced communities on to college by providing real-world entrepreneurial experience and academic support.
Innovation
Describe your program or new idea in one sentence.
BUILD turns youth from under-resourced communities on to college by providing real-world entrepreneurial experience and academic support.
What makes your initiative uniquely positioned to create change in your community?
BUILD uses the experience of entrepreneurship as a vehicle to re-engage youth who are disconnected from traditional school and propel them toward better academic performance in high school and, ultimately, college aspiration and attainment. We meet our students where they are—in their schools, in their communities, with their families and friends—to create a counter-culture where student achievement, high school graduation and college admission are “cool”. We are one of the only programs with a long-term commitment to our students. We are with them every step of every year of high school.
Our biggest challenge is maintaining our high-touch model as we scale. Our program requires significant staff, volunteer and mentor resources to achieve our commitment to help 100% of our students gain access to higher education - and we have been able to deliver on this commitment every year since our founding.
Describe how you organize and carry out your work?
Through 4 year-long progressive programs, BUILD reinforces traditional reading, writing, and math skills while helping students develop teamwork and leadership skills. Students’ access to mentors, our homework club and other resources facilitates and accelerates academic achievement, which leads to increased college admissions, creating economic opportunities and greater self-sufficiency for our students.
Freshmen attend BUILD 7-10 hours/week in the classroom, learning basic marketing, finance, and strategy skills. Students form business teams, work with mentors and develop business plans to present and defend in an annual competition.
Sophomores meet after school in BUILD’s Youth Business Incubator for 3-6 hours/week with their mentors and BUILD staff. Teams begin operating their businesses, learning negotiations, business ethics, and more. Students commit to achieve, by their senior years, grades that are suitable for college admission. 2.0 GPA required to stay in BUILD.
Juniors continue running businesses while learning more about college selection and preparation: essay writing, interviewing, financial aid, and test preparation. BUILD also organizes and leads students on college tours. 2.7 GPA required to stay in BUILD.
Seniors’ focus shifts to selecting and applying to colleges. With BUILD’s College Counselor, they identify schools, write admissions essays, prepare college applications, and package their BUILD experience into a portfolio.
What is your plan to scale and expand your innovation into your community and beyond?
BUILD plans to scale and expand through the creation of autonomous incubator sites across the country. We currently operate Youth Business Incubators serving East Palo Alto, CA, Oakland, CA and Washington, DC. To meet demand, we will open a second incubator in Oakland, CA in the 2009-2010 school year.
We are currently investigating other under-resourced communities and plan to open 8 more incubator sites by the end of the 2016-2017 school year. The criteria BUILD uses to select a new site location are:
– Community need
– Availability of potential site director
– Bandwidth of executive team and staff
– Community and school district support
– Financial resources
– Local political landscape
– Competitive environment
– Compatibility with growth plans
What other resources, institutional, or policy needs would be necessary to help sustain and scale up your idea?
We would also need teachers who are interested in teaching BUILD, and available to be trained in our 9th grade in-school curriculum. School districts who are willing to devote teachers, supplies and classroom space are also key to the success of this program.
Impact
Describe your impact in one sentence, commenting on both the individual and community levels.
BUILD helps our students build their self-esteem and confidence to achieve a college education—providing future leadership and positive role models for their communities.
What impact has your work achieved to date?
There are currently 146 young men out of 374 students in the program, and we are expecting to serve nearly 500 students next year. Every single BUILD program graduate has graduated from high school and been accepted into college.
Number of individuals served
651
Community impact
We currently work with 11 partner high schools and expect to serve 15-17 partner schools next year. Districts from around the country are requesting the BUILD program, since they have seen the success that comes with using the experience of entrepreneurship as a vehicle to re-engage youth who are disconnected from traditional school. In East Palo Alto, our first incubator site, the city recently funded an after-school bus to shuttle BUILD students from their schools to the Youth Business Incubator.
Society at large
BUILD’s strategy to address America’s dropout epidemic is born out of our three-tiered vision: to address the devastating education disparity in the US, to change the face of higher education and, ultimately, to radically transform impoverished communities nationwide from the inside out.
What measure do you use to gauge your impact and why?
BUILD’s current evaluation, accountability, and internal and external feedback mechanism is a relatively straightforward Microsoft Excel database in which we maintain a detailed list of objectives, goals, measurement tools and success criteria for our entrepreneurship program. BUILD’s success metrics include: student recruitment and retention; written and oral aptitude; business and public-speaking attitude and efficacy; and mentor recruitment and retention. BUILD has created customized written, oral and multiple-choice pre- and post-tests for our in-school Entrepreneurs 1 (freshmen) students to test specific business skills and terminology, attitudes towards college, and public speaking skills. However, the ultimate measure of BUILD’s systemic success is having our students succeed academically.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative currently being financed and how would you finance further expansion and/or replication?
BUILD is currently financed through foundations, corporations and individual gifts. To finance future expansion, we are exploring fee-for-service models, franchise fees and government funding. For example, one of our partner school districts will begin funding BUILD E1 teachers in the 2008-2009 school year. Previously (and for other school districts), BUILD provided an annual stipend for a high school teacher to teach the BUILD E1 program. We have also expanded our development staff to expand our outreach to new foundations and to expand our individual major donor program.
Provide information on your current finances and organization:
• Annual budget: (with drop down menu allowing them to select denomination and then we convert anything not in US$ to include it as a 2nd number) $2.4M
• Annual revenue: $2.5M
• Sources of revenue (please provide percentages if known): Foundations (69%); Corporations (15%); Individuals (16%)
• Number of staff (3 boxes: full-time, part-time, volunteers): 19 full-time; 2 part-time; over 160 volunteers
Who are your potential partners and allies?
BUILD’s potential partners and allies include:
• public school districts, for delivering the BUILD E1 program
• other college prep programs in our community, to provide as many college access resources to our students
• college admissions officers, to educate about the effectiveness of our program and the qualifications of our students
• professionals, business people and entrepreneurs in the community, to provide mentoring, business-plan judging and other support to our students
Who are your potential investors?
BUILD’s potential investors include: government agencies, public school districts, local corporations, successful individual entrepreneurs, foundations and other funders in the communities we serve.
The Story
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story.
BUILD was founded by Suzanne McKechnie Klahr in 1999. As a volunteer in low-income East Palo Alto, CA, it Suzanne realized that local entrepreneurs needed direct representation, as well as access to the networks and institutions that allow people to economically transform their businesses, families, and communities.
BUILD was founded to encourage local students to develop their own small businesses and extend traditional entrepreneurial education far beyond the classroom. Involvement of local business and community leaders in mentoring and support of the students and an operating youth business incubator are central and distinctive components of the program. BUILD uses small business development as a vehicle to move students from under-resourced communities into competitive academic and professional settings. We have found that our students become role models in their communities, influencing peers and creating lasting systemic change.
Over the past eight years, BUILD has grown dramatically from four young men to close to four hundred students, expanding from its original site in East Palo Alto to operating two youth business incubators serving East Palo Alto, CA (the largest in the nation) and Oakland, CA. We will have our first students in Washington, DC in the 2008-2009 school year. Our results to date are incredible: 100% of BUILD’s graduates have finished high school and enrolled in college, even while matriculating through schools with drop-out rates of 40%-70%.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material.
Suzanne McKechnie Klahr founded BUILD in 1999 with a public service fellowship from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom. As BUILD’s CEO, Suzanne speaks nationally on social entrepreneurship, venture philanthropy, new models of providing legal services to the poor, and poverty alleviation strategies. In 2006, she was elected to the prestigious Ashoka fellowship for the most forward-thinking social entrepreneurs. In 2007, she received CBS-5's Jefferson Award. Suzanne serves as a trustee of the Skadden Fellowship Foundation and on the board of the Glow Scholarship Foundation. She is a faculty adjunct at Stanford Law School, teaching "Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship," and she holds a dual degree from Brown University and a JD from Stanford
 | 207 weeks agoJoan Sanger said: Reggie and Barbara, we have an online assessment tool for them to begin being matched with a business model, if they are suited for ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 207 weeks agoJoan Sanger said: Reggie and Barbara, we have an online assessemnt tool for them to begin being matched with a business model, if they are suited for ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 221 weeks agoBUILDing the Dream through Entrepreneurship has been chosen as a finalist in Young Men at Risk: Transforming the Power of a Generation. |
| 229 weeks agoReggie Kellum said: Hello Barbara, I love what you all are accomplishing through BUILD. Keep up the great work. I'm curious to know if you utilize a ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 232 weeks agoDana Frasz said: Hello Barbara, Its great to see your entry in the competition! You have set yourself a very big goal of having 100% of your student ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 235 weeks agoRod Hsiao said: Thanks for your comment. BUILD students create whatever type of business they want to. We've had teams sell everything from t-shirts and ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 235 weeks agoMe Myself said: How can I view your YouTube video? about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 236 weeks agoTito Llantada said: Dear Barbara -- I realize academic excellence and achievement is the ultimate goal of your program, but I'm curious to learn more about ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
