A Note from Junior Achievement of Northern New England

Dear JA Friends,

On behalf of the Board of Directors and Staff of Junior Achievement of Northern New England, it is a pleasure to report on our impact from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021.

The pandemic continues to challenge our educational and business partners. During the 2020-2021 academic year, we responded to schools’ needs as they resumed mostly in-person instruction, welcoming students and teachers safely back to school while addressing learning loss. Our corporate partners remained committed financially, but faced their own limitations in allowing employees to deliver JA lessons in person. We are grateful for our partners’ continued commitment throughout the pandemic and their willingness to find ways to move forward.

Despite the difficulties of the year, we remained resolute in our commitment to our new strategic vision to close the wealth and opportunity gaps for youth in our impact communities (currently Boston, Brockton, Chelsea, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, Quincy, Somerville and Worcester) by creating middle school to career pathways, igniting youth entrepreneurship and preparing financially savvy youth. We are proud of the impact we made during these continued challenging times, including increasing programming within our impact communities by 19% from the prior year as we focus our and our partners’ limited resources where the need for our mission is greatest.

At the same time, our big ideas became reality with several new projects. We piloted our middle school to career pathway in summer 2021 with four college-enrolled alumni securing paid internships at Accenture in Boston, providing them an excellent experience to develop critical professional skills, explore career interests, and earn income while helping Accenture identify highly qualified, motivated and diverse talent. One alumnus was offered a full-time job at Accenture when he graduates college in May while the others, still in college, are securing additional paid internships with Accenture and other JA partners in summer 2022.

Our partner RSM generously donated approximately 2,000 square feet of space at its headquarters in Charlestown where we are building the JA Innovation Center @ RSM. JA students will soon benefit from this beautiful center with top technology, a space where they can learn JA lessons from business mentors while launching and operating their own startup companies. The Center will honor JA alumnus and benefactor Bill Schawbel, who participated in Junior Achievement while in high school in Boston during the late 1950s and has remained committed to our mission for over sixty-five years.

Importantly, we continue to make progress to better reflect the impact communities we serve. Our staff is the most diverse in our 70-year history, our board of directors includes 35% women, and, for the first time in our history, over 20% people of color. We remain committed to leveraging the most diverse volunteers possible for our students while investing with businesses owned by people of color. We continue to strive to be as inclusive an organization as possible and look forward to reporting on our progress in the future.

We appreciate your partnership in our critical mission, especially at this moment of tremendous change. We cannot do it without you. Thank you.

Radhames Nova President and CEO and Eddie Perkin, Chief Investment Officer, Equity – Eaton Vance Chair, Board of Directors