WHAT IS JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT?
Junior Achievement (JA) is the world’s
largest organization dedicated to educating students about work
readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy through experiential,
hands-on programs. Junior Achievement programs help prepare young people
for the real world by showing them how to generate wealth and
effectively manage it, how to create jobs which make their communities
more robust, and how to apply entrepreneurial thinking to the workplace.
Students put these lessons into action, and help strengthen their
communities.
PURPOSE
Junior Achievement’s purpose is to inspire and
prepare young people to succeed in a global economy.
PROGRAM REACH
Junior Achievement reaches 9.7 million students per
year in 379,968 classrooms and after-school locations. JA programs are
taught by volunteers in inner cities, suburbs, and rural areas
throughout the United States of America and in 122 countries around the
world.
VOLUNTEERS
Junior Achievement's
330,000 classroom volunteers around the world come from all walks of
life and include business people, college students, parents, and
retirees. These dedicated individuals are the backbone of the
organization.
PROVEN SUCCESS
JA is one of a few global
nonprofits to use independent, third-party evaluators to gauge the
impact of its programs. Since 1993, independent evaluators have
conducted studies on JA’s effectiveness. Findings prove that JA has a
positive impact in a number of critical areas. These results are
available free upon request. Summaries of the findings also are
published in the JA Programs section at
www.ja.org.
A BRIEF HISTORY
Junior Achievement was founded in 1919 by
Theodore Vail President of American Telephone & Telegraph; Horace Moses,
President of Strathmore Paper Co.; and Senator Murray Crane of
Massachusetts. Its first program, JA Company Program, was offered to
high school students on an after-school basis. In 1975, the organization
entered the classroom with the introduction of Project Business for the
middle grades. Over the last 30 years, JA has expanded its activities
and broadened its scope to include in-school and after-school students.