Award for Going Above Income Youth Attending the Minnesota Business and Beyond in Their Drive to Provide Educational Venture Summer Program
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ANNUAL REPORT 2017 bestprep Inspire. Educate. Connect. About Us Our Mission: BestPrep prepares students with business, career, and financial literacy skills through hands-on experiences that inspire success in work and life. BestPrep envisions a community in which every Who We Serve: Minnesota student is college prepared, work ready, and career bound. Our programs provide students with: We believe all Minnesota Business Skills: BestPrep equips students with students benefit from business skills that help them achieve success experiential learning personally and professionally. Practicing interviews, that supplements their learning how to be a leader, and developing a classroom curriculum. personal brand are skills that all students can use in their future careers. Our programs are available to students in grades 4 – 12. Financial Literacy: BestPrep ensures that students An estimated 43% of can make sound money management decisions and students served in our take control of their financial future. Participating programs come from low- in stock market simulations, learning how to create income backgrounds. a budget, and understanding credit and taxes gives students a real-world perspective on becoming BestPrep understands the financially capable. importance of accessibility and, through the support Career Exploration: BestPrep empowers youth of our donors, we offer all to envision life after high school and understand programs at low or no cost steps they can take to prepare for success. to students, teachers, Students are introduced to careers through in-class and schools. presentations, email mentors, and workplace tours that highlight career fields and paths. Dear Friends, We’re proud to share with you the 2016-17 Annual Report which highlights the growth and accomplishments that BestPrep has achieved during the fiscal year. A key focus area this past year was the development of Cloud Coach, which entered its second year of the pilot phase. Applying the successful structure of our eMentors email mentoring program, Cloud Coach targets the lagging graduation rates in Minneapolis and St. Paul public high schools through one-on-one online mentoring. Utilizing trained business volunteers, the goal is to strengthen student motivation to succeed in school and beyond. Renowned education and youth development research nonprofit Search Institute partnered with BestPrep to create a program curriculum designed to inspire students to “Think Forward and Act Now” by identifying career aspirations and the steps students can take now to help their dreams become a reality. This past year, BestPrep’s programs remained in high demand. We set out to grow our participation with AVID schools and further align with the Minnesota Department of Education’s World’s Best Workforce Plan. By growing and strengthening our partnership with schools and educators, we continue to provide opportunities for students to be work-ready and career-bound. New this year, BestPrep is now able to track volunteer hours through our Salesforce CRM database. Our organization mobilized more than 4,600 volunteers who provided 65,000 hours of service toward educational opportunities for Minnesota students. We are so grateful to all who have supported us to accomplish our mission of educating students with the business, career, and financial literacy skills necessary for success. Best Regards, Todd Schnobrich Robert Kaitz 2017 Board Chair, Sept 2015 – Aug 2017 President and CEO Cargill BestPrep ANNUAL REPORT REPORT ANNUAL 1 “BestPrep’s programs provide a new approach to business education. I learned how to network, be a leader, and how to work well in diverse groups of people, as well as the need to plan for my financial future.” – Mahima, East Ridge High School School Year Programs CLASSROOM PLUS eMENTORS Inspiring students to create a vision for Equipping students with the knowledge and skills the future through career exploration. needed for success in school, career, and life. About the Program: About the Program: eMentors pairs business Classroom Plus offers classroom presentations, volunteers with high school students to participate mock interviews, workplace tours, and career in an eight-week email mentorship. days at local companies. 2017 Program Highlights: 2017 Program Highlights: • We held three Classroom Plus Career Days • We engaged six new companies in eMentors: at Cargill, UnitedHealth Group, and U.S. Bank, Venture Bank, Schwan’s Bloomington, Renewal engaging more than 250 students from by Andersen, AllinaHealth, Wings Financial Credit predominantly AVID programs and Union, and CharterPoint Wealth Strategies. low-income backgrounds. • We partnered with United Way to offer • We conducted mock interviews at 17 schools, eMentors to Information Technology and impacting over 1,600 students. Business classes at Burnsville High School, • Hundreds of students took part in one of nine White Bear Lake High School, Humboldt High workplace tours coordinated across the state. School and to high school students in the • The new Teamwork presentation was given to D3 program at Minneapolis Community and more than 760 students. Technical College. • Our Content Creation Committee created a • eMentors and Cloud Coach mentor training Personal Branding presentation, which is now videos were created with help from Thomson widely available. Reuters and implemented this school year. 2017 Program Impact: 2017 Program Impact: • Students: 16,150 • Students: 4,841 • Teachers: 152 • Teachers: 145 • Schools: 91 • Schools: 87 • Companies: 57 • Volunteers: 608 • Volunteers: 3,952 • Volunteer Hours: 3,323 • Volunteer Hours: 52,513 2017 ANNUAL REPORT REPORT ANNUAL 3 “BestPrep opens up a new path for students that helps them develop the skills necessary to succeed in the professional world while they are still in school.” – Eduardo, Bloomington Kennedy High School School Year Programs FINANCIAL MATTERS THE STOCK MARKET GAMETM Motivating students to make sound money Teaching students about economics, investing, management decisions and become and the importance of a long-term savings financially savvy. strategy. About the Program: About the Program: Financial Matters offers classroom presentations Student teams invest a virtual $100,000 in the focused on understanding credit, budgeting, stock market while also building fundamental insurance, taxes, and more. knowledge of the global economy. 2017 Program Highlights: 2017 Program Highlights: • We partnered with Robbinsdale Cooper High • We saw an increase in participation both in the School and Patrick Henry High School to offer total number of students participating and the Financial Matters presentations to all 11th and number of teams participating. 12th graders during their Advisory periods. With • Minnesota had national level winners in the help of 35 volunteers, more than 1,500 InvestWrite, including 1st, 2nd, and 5th at the students were impacted. elementary level and 6th at the high school • We hosted Financial Literacy Alley again this level. More than 9,600 essays were submitted year at the Minneapolis Public Schools STEM nationally. Expo, impacting 2,600 eighth grade students • We continued strong participation in over the course of the day. Minneapolis and St. Paul Public Schools with • The Content Review Committee updated the students from 16 schools participating. Money Matters and the Budgeting Matters • Through a grant from the SIFMA Foundation, presentations. materials were developed to help promote • The Content Creation Committee created and the program including a library of documents piloted Income Tax Matters. showing how the program connects to state education standards. 2017 Program Impact: • Students: 16,319 2017 Program Impact: • Teachers: 159 • Students: 16,193 • Schools: 89 • Teachers: 281 • Volunteers: 220 • Schools: 238 • Volunteer Hours: 1,788 • Volunteers: 75 • Volunteer Hours: 360 2017 ANNUAL REPORT REPORT ANNUAL 5 “BestPrep taught me the importance of understanding myself, exploring my passions, and building my own future. It was my first opportunity to receive mentorship, network, and learn from business professionals.” – Maddie, St. Michael-Albertville High School Summer Programs MINNESOTA BUSINESS VENTURE (MBV) TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION WORKSHOP (TIW) Igniting students’ passion to achieve success Empowering educators with technology tools and develop career aspirations for the future. and business exposure to prepare students for today’s workplace. About the Program: About the Program: MBV is a week-long camp bringing Minnesota high TIW is a four-day workshop helping K-12 educators school students together to create a business plan enhance their curriculum with classroom-friendly and learn about career options and financial literacy. technology skills. 2017 Program Highlights: 2017 Program Highlights: • In the post-program survey, 97% of student • Two Technology Integration Specialists led participants confirmed that they would Short-Term Action Teams (STAT) to refresh two recommend MBV to a friend! areas of the Technology Integration Workshop. • We formed new partnerships with Cristo Rey The STATs focused on presenters and the Jesuit High School and both the Century curriculum delivered during the workshop. College and Metropolitan State University TRIO • We partnered with staff from Minnesota State programs to enroll a large number of students Colleges and Universities to lead a session on who attended the 2017 camp. College and Career Readiness that addressed • For the eighth year in a row, MBV was selected