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About NFTE

Background

In 1987, NFTE was founded in New York City by Steve Mariotti (a former business executive and entrepreneur) while he was a public high school teacher in the South Bronx. In 1994, the NFTE-Greater Washington division opened in Washington DC with a 2-year seed grant from the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation. In the past 15 years, NFTE-Greater Washington has grown from reaching 200 students to providing nearly 20,000 youth with the life and entrepreneurial skills needed to become active participants in our community. Since 1987, NFTE has worked with nearly 232,000 young people. NFTE currently operates programs in 22 states and 13 countries outside the U.S., and has over 1,300 active Certified Entrepreneurship Teachers. For more information, visit www.nfte.com.

Who We Are

NFTE's mission is to provide entrepreneurship education to young people from low-income communities. NFTE's vision is that every young person will find a pathway to prosperity. NFTE's strategy for achieving this mission:

• Partner with schools, universities, and community based organizations
• Create innovative and experiential curricula
• Train and support teachers and youth workers
• Provide supportive alumni services

Our Programs

NFTE has served nearly 20,000 students in the Greater Washington, DC area, including Washington DC, Prince George's County, MD and Northern Virginia, with the NFTE award-winning “mini-MBA” curriculum of 80-100 hours of classroom time programming. In addition to using the curriculum, students can receive seed capital to launch their companies; have a NFTE trained and certified entrepreneurship instructor; and write and defend a basic business plan. Top students compete locally and nationally through NFTE Regionwide and Nationwide Competitions.

A Proven Model

Research has shown powerful connections between NFTE's program and increased school engagement among hard-to-reach youth, as well as increased interest in attending college. In a recent internal evaluation of NFTE students during the 2007-2008 school year in the Greater Washington, DC area, the following outcomes were found:

• 93% started a business plan
• 81% completed a business plan
• 65% presented a business plan
• 23% started a business
• 73% answered “Yes” when asked if the NFTE course changed their future plans for education, career, and interest in running a business

NFTE has partnered with Harvard Graduate School of Education on our evaluation efforts. The data collected from the Harvard study indicated that youth entrepreneurship programs may be particularly effective at keeping students from low-income backgrounds on the academic track and can be a force in driving them toward high achievement and leadership. We found that nationally, NFTE students' interest in attending college and job aspirations increased by 32% after completing the course.

For nearly 15 years, NFTE-Greater Washington has worked with school systems and community-based organizations because we strongly believe in our youths' inherent potential. NFTE aims to teach young people to identify individual pathways to their own prosperity by way of the following guiding principles:

• Entrepreneurship can be taught. The NFTE experience helps nontraditional learners, and those at-risk, to develop their individual skills and talents.
• Entrepreneurship connects young people to school, community, and the workplace. The NFTE experience involves hands-on, interactive learning that is relevant to the real world.
• Entrepreneurship empowers young people from low-income communities. The NFTE experience helps young people explore new opportunities and build a vision for their own future.

LEARN MORE ABOUT NFTE - Greater Washington

For more information contact: Jeff Reid at jeff.reid@nfte.com.