Impact campaign

Junior Achievement-Rocky Mountain Impact Campaign October 2017

simplifying IT

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Shifting from encouraging teachers to select any program off our menu to a truly consultative approach, guiding the teacher to the program that will best meet the needs of his or her students.

Evaluating the classroom environment before sending in the volunteer to make sure it is conducive to learning and that we are setting the volunteer up for success.

Becoming experts not just on our curriculum, but on the developmental needs of our students to make sure that they experience our programming exactly when they need it – when it is relevant and applicable to their lives and to the curriculum they are learning in school.

Working harder to train and place our volunteers, making sure that they are supported and capable of meeting the needs of their students.

At the Junior Achievement-Rocky Mountain (JA) Board of Directors retreat in May 2017, the organization committed to a bold new direction for JA. Historically, we’ve measured our success by counting the number of students who participate in our programs on an annual basis. This metric has served us well as we built critical mass and established credibility among the education and business communities.

However, we’re now at a point where we have granular information about each program’s efficacy. Thanks to this data, we are empowered to make a more significant difference in our students’ lives by shifting our primary metric to student outcomes (knowledge gain, skills development and behavior change), rather than just the number of students who participate in our programs.

JA staff worked over the summer to determine how we can improve student outcomes, and have developed a guiding principle that will fundamentally change how we deliver programs. We are calling it “The Right Principle.” It is a simple idea – delivering the right program, at the right time, in the right environment, with the right volunteer.

Each element of “The Right Principle” includes a number of integrated strategies that will be tracked through precise metrics outlined below.

RIGHT PROGRAM  Evaluation data supports program efficacy  Delivery methodology is effective for target audience  Program fidelity standards are uncompromised  Program is aligned to student population RIGHT TIME  The program is deployed at the ideal time in a student’s educational development  Concepts taught are foundational and age appropriate, or niche and aligned to student interests  Students can apply and leverage what they learn immediately RIGHT ENVIRONMENT  Teacher embraces program and actively supports volunteer  Teacher has adequate classroom management skills  Number of students in the classroom is reasonable for grade level and physical space  Instructional time is adequate to absorb program activities  Calendar timing does not impact student engagement RGHT VOLUNTEER  Has completed program specific training requirements  For niche programs, meets minimum content specialization expectations  Willingly commits to investing minimum preparation time

To evaluate our progress towards implementing programs that elevate student outcomes, we have created definitions and rubrics to assess each program experience, and whether it meets every element of “The Right Principle.” We’ll no longer present student outreach numbers as the primary indicator of our success; instead, we’ll measure the number of students who were served in alignment with the quality principles outlined above. This transformative approach will guide our work throughout the region.

JA programs that meet all of these criteria will be qualified as “Peak Performing.” We believe that 39% of the programs JARocky Mountain currently implement meet this standard. Our goal is to increase the percentage of peak performing programs from 39% to 80% and number of peak performing programs from 2,070 to 4,000 by June 30, 2020.

We are confident that our new focus will ultimately help us achieve our strategic goal of allocating limited financial and volunteer resources to achieve the highest possible impact for the students we serve. We also believe in the long term this will increase the satisfaction and retention of our valuable educators, volunteers and staff.

Specifically, each element of “The Right Principle” includes a number of integrated strategies that will be tracked through precise metrics.

To increase the number of students who are engaged in JA programs that meet these quality standards and achieve elevated learning outcomes, JA-Rocky Mountain needs to raise $10 million by June 2019 to make the following investments: Experiential Program Development and Implementation Jobs of the Future (Mobile or Fixed) JA Finance Park (Mobile) Collaborations like Denver Start Up Week JA You're Hired JA Launch Lessons

Rigorous Evaluation Classroom Observation Visits Real-time Program Implementation Surveys Volunteer Engagement Assessments Teacher Engagement Assessments

Technology Customer Relations Management System Volunteer Hub Online Training and Program Support Tablets for JA Finance Park Tablets and Connectivity for Blended Program Implementation Staff Connectivity Staff Competencies and Processes Education Development Curriculum Development Consultative Sales Change Management Job Function Documentation Organization Efficiency

1445 Market Street, Suite 200 Denver, Colorado 80202 Info@JAColorado.org │ 303-534-5252 www.JAColorado.rog