{"id":9725,"date":"2015-10-27T05:35:30","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T10:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=9725"},"modified":"2015-10-19T08:54:07","modified_gmt":"2015-10-19T13:54:07","slug":"engaging-businesses-with-school-entrepreneurship-programs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2015\/10\/engaging-businesses-with-school-entrepreneurship-programs.html","title":{"rendered":"Engaging businesses with school entrepreneurship programs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9720\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/EntreEd-Beliefs.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9720\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9720\" src=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/EntreEd-Beliefs-300x140.png\" alt=\"EntreEd believes a lot of the same things we talk about here, starting with anyone can be an entrepreneur.\" width=\"300\" height=\"140\" srcset=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/EntreEd-Beliefs-300x140.png 300w, https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/EntreEd-Beliefs-800x373.png 800w, https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/EntreEd-Beliefs.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-9720\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">EntreEd believes a lot of the same things we talk about here, starting with anyone can be an entrepreneur.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I attended the EntreEd Consortium Forum in Oklahoma City with the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.entre-ed.org\/\">National Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The session on engaging businesses with school entrepreneurship programs generated a lot of interesting thoughts for me as a business owner sitting in on a discussion among educators.<\/p>\n<p>Businesses are desperately interested in skills in the workforce. It&#8217;s a natural connection point. But schools often get business people on a list or committee, but never give them something specific they can do. Too often, the only involvement of businesses is in meetings. And as a business person, I can tell you that the worst thing you can do to me is involve me in a bunch of dull meetings.<\/p>\n<p>Give businesspeople\u00a0things to do, a program of work, easy to dos. Some suggestions from the educators:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ask them for trends<\/li>\n<li>Have them review your curriculum to help you better clarify your understanding of curriculum<\/li>\n<li>Ask them for real life examples that match lesson plans<\/li>\n<li>Give them chances to employ kids. Work-based learning opportunities<\/li>\n<li>Ask them to share how they got where they are, education it took<\/li>\n<li>Ask for financial support<\/li>\n<li>Serve as speakers and panel members<\/li>\n<li>Evaluate presentations, give input on projects<\/li>\n<li>Serve as judges at competitions, mock events<\/li>\n<li>Host on-site visits, tours, interviews<\/li>\n<li>Help translate terms between education and industry<\/li>\n<li>Help connect your requests with business realities<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Some of the benefits to employers from getting involved in entrepreneurial education include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Address workforce skills gaps<\/li>\n<li>Access to emerging leaders<\/li>\n<li>Personal growth opportunities for their staff<\/li>\n<li>Community recognition as a business involved with education<\/li>\n<li>Give them volunteer assistance with their business projects<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are good ways and bad ways to ask business people to get involved in entrepreneurial education. Rather than make the first time they hear from you a request for a donation or to join a committee, follow these steps.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Make the initial contact just getting to know each other<\/li>\n<li>Continue with more contact to make the ask<\/li>\n<li>Follow up and keep any promises you make<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Before you ask for money, have a business plan for where that money is going. Show them what you&#8217;re doing. Have kids show their skills by helping with the ask. Build relationships with businesspeople\u00a0first.<\/p>\n<p>Especially in small towns, there should be strong connections between businesses and schools. I hope these ideas will help increase the number of towns where that is true.<\/p>\n<h2>Bring students downtown<\/h2>\n<p>If you want to connect business owners with entrepreneurship programs, get in there among them. Stafford, Kansas, is in a county with a population of approx 5,000. Their schools bring entrepreneurship students out of the school building and into downtown, where they operate their own businesses and work on other real-world business projects.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to my interview with Natalie Clark, who explains about the student entrepreneurship programs at the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/staffordseedcenter.com\/\">SEED Center<\/a> in a downtown storefront in Stafford.<\/p>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-9725-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Natalie-Clark-on-student-business-in-a-downtown-storefront.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Natalie-Clark-on-student-business-in-a-downtown-storefront.mp3\">https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Natalie-Clark-on-student-business-in-a-downtown-storefront.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p><strong>About my coverage:<\/strong>\u00a0EntreEd provided me with a media pass to cover my registration for the Forum. I paid for all my other expenses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I attended the EntreEd Consortium Forum in Oklahoma City with the\u00a0National Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education. The session on engaging businesses with school entrepreneurship programs generated a lot of interesting thoughts for me as a business owner sitting in on a discussion among educators. Businesses are desperately interested in skills in the workforce. It&#8217;s a natural [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":9720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3,8,20,19],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/EntreEd-Beliefs.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9725"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9725"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9736,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9725\/revisions\/9736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}