Young Entrepreneurs Society Inc

What it reported doing in 2012

BizVenture Series: provides entrepreneurship, business and invention exposure, education, experience to youth through an annual 5-month cycle of challenges, activities, events and programs. With BizTour, we interacted directly with over 800 youth at school assemblies, workshops, classroom presentations, and tabling in cafeterias and career fairs. 63 youth then signed up on the program website to test their business knowledge and readiness by taking a BizQuiz. 13 entered their idea for a business, non-profit or invention in the BizIdea or the BizPlan contest. Next, they exhibited and pitched to volunteer judges at our Youth Business Expo event, attended by 50 people. Besides cash prizes sponsored by local firms, 4 youth won scholarships to our 6-day summer BizKamp, where they learned how to turn their idea or plan into an operational business. For one youth, needing individualized support, we offered advising, mentoring and referrals through our BizLaunch service. In addition, 12 youth spent a day taking a BizTrip to NY, NY meeting successful young entrepreneurs, seeing sights, and buying goods wholesale, which they sold independently and under our BizTent at an area July 4th celebration. 42 you earned money helping people in their communities with odd jobs, thanks to our free advertising and support program, the Odd Job Squad. There were no substantial changes in the program in 2012. We have continued to strengthen our partnership with Community Action Youth Programs (CAYP), who have been committing staff, AmeriCorps members and other resources to the effort. In 2013, the program will be presented jointly by both agencies. We have repositioned it by changing the BizTour, BizQuiz and BizQuiz dates (Feb. 15-April 15) and the Expo date (April 25) to synch better with school schedules and interest levels (which wane closer to summer vacation). We've also made the BizPlan contest a part of BizKamp. We are now leading with the "BizIdea Challenge" brand instead of "BizVenture Series" and "contests" to reduce dissonance in messaging, and have developed a more youth-friendly logo and website - now fully integrated with Facebook - to encourage them to participate and use their social networks to both build participation among peers, towns and schools but also to improve the quality of their BizIdea entries by offering incentives for them to gather ratings, comments, likes and shares. We have reduced our outreach print pieces from three to one: a 5"x5" 2-sided color card. We have developed a 2-sided "guide" that youth, with help from teachers or parents, can use to develop, test and write up their ideas prior to entering them on the webpage. There is also a new email and attachment for school principals and another for prize sponsors. The partnership with CAYP also offered the chance to expand the program from 30 towns to 50 by adding Hampshire County, where there is a large youth population, more colleges, and more businesses to solicit for sponsorships. The Expo will be held at UMASS, Amherst to introduce non-college age youth to a college campus, where they will interact with participating college students. We think principals, parents and teachers will also be more inclined to participate if their students are able to make a pre-college visit to a college campus.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 87.3%; rating input score 87
• Program expense ratio: 87.6%; rating input score 88

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 0.3%; rating input score 47; 47th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 4.19; rating input score 81; 81st percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
• Officer compensation ratio: Limited

Growth

• Program expense growth: -23.5% per year; rating input score 0; 24th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: -27.8% per year; rating input score 0; 20th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 15.4% per year; rating input score 100; 76th percentile among comparable filings