Launch a Youth Entrepreneurship and Wealth-Building Program

Young people growing up in poverty rarely learn how to build wealth. Most schools do not teach investing. Entrepreneurship feels like something that happens somewhere else, to someone else. The earlier a young person learns to earn, save, invest, and own, the less likely poverty is to follow them into adulthood. A community-run youth entrepreneurship program does not just teach business skills. It changes how young people see themselves and what they believe is within their reach.

To Get Started:

• Identify a program home and recruit youth: Work through schools, community centers, or after-school programs where young people already feel comfortable. Build on existing relationships rather than asking youth to show up somewhere new and unfamiliar.

• Teach real business skills through real practice: Show young people how to identify a problem, create a product or service, set a price, and find a customer. Real practice builds real confidence. Simulations and worksheets alone do not.

• Provide seed funding through a pitch process: Create a small fund that youth can apply for through a simple business pitch. Even $100 to $500 can launch a real microenterprise and take participants through the full cycle of ownership from idea to revenue.

• Teach investing and wealth building alongside entrepreneurship: Cover saving, compound interest, and long-term investing. Help participants open custodial investment accounts where possible. These lessons land harder when young people watch actual money grow over time.

• Connect youth to business mentors: Pair participants with adults who have started businesses or built financial stability. Mentors provide honest guidance and real-world context that classroom instruction alone cannot replicate.

• Celebrate results and track long-term outcomes: Host an annual pitch competition or community market day. Record business launches, income earned, and financial independence achieved over time. That long-term data tells the real story of whether the program is eliminating poverty or simply filling afternoons.

Best Practices / Innovative Programs:

• Nonprofit Organization

  • Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) has provided entrepreneurship education to young people in under-resourced communities since 1987, combining business planning, financial literacy, and pitch competitions that connect youth to real mentors and market opportunities. Their outcomes data consistently shows improvements in academic motivation, financial confidence, and career readiness, and their programs now operate across seven U.S. regions and internationally.

  • BUILD operates in Washington D.C., the San Francisco Bay Area, and Boston, using real entrepreneurship projects to build motivation, teach business fundamentals, and prepare young people from low-income communities for college and lasting financial independence. Their model shows how entrepreneurship can serve as a catalyst for academic engagement and long-term economic mobility.

  • Junior Achievement USA reaches millions of students annually through hands-on financial literacy, workforce readiness, and entrepreneurship programs delivered largely by volunteer instructors from the local business community. Their curriculum gives young people direct exposure to real business thinking and financial decision-making at an age when those lessons are most likely to stick.

  • Lemonade Day teaches young people to plan, start, and own a business through a structured, community-based curriculum covering earning, saving, sharing, and reinvesting profits. Their simple and replicable model has reached hundreds of thousands of youth across North America and is designed specifically for community organizations to implement without large budgets or staff.

  • Future Founders immerses middle school, high school, and young adult participants in entrepreneurship experiences that build both business skills and ownership mindset. Their programs range from school-based entrepreneurship bootcamps to a national fellowship for young founders from underserved communities, taking participants from idea to revenue-generating business.

• Educational Institution

  • Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!) partners with local Chambers of Commerce to run a yearlong entrepreneurship program for students ages 11 to 18, taking participants from idea generation all the way through a live business launch and investor pitch. Their Chamber partnership model makes the program accessible in communities of many sizes and connects youth directly to local business networks.

• Business

  • Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses provides practical business education, access to capital, and support networks for small business owners across the country. For communities running youth entrepreneurship programs, the 10,000 Small Businesses model represents both a strong example of business-backed entrepreneurship education and a potential pathway for graduates of youth programs to access as they grow their businesses into adulthood.

• Philanthropic Organization

  • Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is one of the leading funders of entrepreneurship education in the United States, supporting programs that teach young people from low-income communities how to start, grow, and sustain businesses that generate lasting personal income and neighborhood opportunity. Their research on what works in youth entrepreneurship programs is freely available and widely used by program designers across the country.

  • W.K. Kellogg Foundation funds youth development and economic opportunity programs that build the skills, financial knowledge, and confidence young people need to achieve independence and break the cycle of poverty permanently rather than temporarily. Their long track record of community-centered grantmaking makes them a strong funding partner for neighborhood-based youth entrepreneurship initiatives.