Project Description
Introduction
Beyond the Scoreboard’s mission is to teach financial literacy and entrepreneurship to urban youth athletes between the ages of 10-17 using life lessons from sports. Our work is focused on entrepreneurial spirit and life skills that fit the purpose of the grant provided by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). It directly responds to one of the most significant educational issues affecting youth, especially in the urban athlete population, who have fewer avenues for professional development after engaging in sports.
According to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)’s Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), the work needs to be a planned, purposeful effort to build youth’s life skills and entrepreneurial abilities in sports. Our focus is on giving financial and entrepreneurial education to urban youth through the power of sports. We are aligned with the NOFO’s needs in the following ways:
- Intentional Skill Development: Our courses help young people apply the same sports skills — from working together to being consistent — to business. For instance, in our mentorship and workshops, we coach participants on translating their athlete experiences into entrepreneurial contexts and promoting the entrepreneurial mindsets the NOFO emphasizes.
- Comprehensive Financial Literacy Curriculum: We have a curriculum that touches key topics like budgeting, assets vs liabilities, and stock market basics, all in the vein of preparing for life skills. Not only does this help youths know how to make better financial decisions, but it also helps youth use these skills for their personal and professional lives.
- Engaging After-School Programs: Beyond the Scoreboard offers after-school enrichment through fun activities such as investment competitions and entrepreneurial workshops. We can reach urban young people who aren’t educating themselves and teach them skills that will help them excel in life, thus delivering on the NOFO’s demand for enrichment programs.
- Data Collection and Evaluation: We are committed to implementing a data-driven approach to evaluate the effectiveness of our initiatives. We use pre-and post-test assessments to gauge change in life skills and entrepreneurial attitudes, which meets the NOFO’s demand for effective evaluation mechanisms to guide program redesign.
- Community Partnerships: Our organization works directly with local businesses, schools, and civic leaders to ensure our participants have a positive experience. This network solidifies our programs, offers ample learning opportunities, and shows we can mobilize community resources.
Problem Statement
Studies suggest that youth engaged in sports typically have critical points of inquiry at 11-15 that cause them to reconsider. Young athletes underestimate the impact of their athletic training and can become disengaged and even deviant once they leave professional sports. It’s never been more urgent for intentional programming that draws on the skills developed in sports: discipline, collaboration, and drive. With limited research focusing on the causal relationship between sports participation and entrepreneurial mindset development, our project aims to fill this gap and contribute significantly to youth development outcomes.
Program Components
- Curriculum Creation: We will provide a complete curriculum that intersects financial literacy with entrepreneurship instruction. We will cover budgeting, assets and liabilities, investment concepts, and property basics. We will develop an experiential learning model with activities — entrepreneurship competitions, budgeting workshops, and investment games — that concretely translate skills from sports into business contexts.
- Enrichment Programs: We will have enriching sessions like guest speakers, mentorship programs, and field trips to the companies in town. It will be an interactive learning process where students will be exposed to practical experience of entrepreneurship and budgeting.
- Premeditated Skill-Building: Since special skills such as entrepreneurial mindsets are best taught when the skill-building process is intentionally guided, we will build intentional programming to achieve these goals with the addition of exercise. These systematic entrepreneurial classes will help young people learn something useful and create an environment where they are encouraged to follow their entrepreneurial instincts.
- Evaluation and Feedback: We’ll have a strong testing mechanism in place to determine the success of our code. We’ll collect the data we need to constantly evolve our projects as we use pre-and post-tests to measure participants’ life skills and entrepreneurial outlooks.
The Empowering Future Leaders program works with youth 10-17 from urban areas who risk turning away from sports or other less successful career paths. We make it accessible to all, ensuring that voices and experiences of all kinds are included in our programming. We’ll also build community collaborations with schools, institutions, and businesses to build a collaborative network that multiplies our impact.
It is a youth development initiative that utilizes sport as a creative platform for learning financial and entrepreneurial skills. We use purposeful learning experiences and structured enrichment to create knowledgeable and brutal youth and build communities where young athletes bring their sports-related abilities into the world to improve their futures. This alignment with the NOFO’s mission ensures that we remain focused on making a lasting impact on our clients’ children. In this revolutionary initiative, Beyond the Scoreboard is set to empower the next generation of leaders to transcend the scoreboard into business and personal success.
Project Objectives
The “Empowering Future Leaders” program aims to equip urban youth athletes aged 10-17 with essential financial literacy and entrepreneurial skills by leveraging the lessons learned through Sports.
Project Outcome
The Empowering Future Leaders program is intended to teach life skills, financial education, and entrepreneurial mindsets to urban young athletes ages 10-17. The success of this program corresponds to the Program Goals and Objectives set out in Section I of the Program Description, namely, translating sports-related competencies into functional skills for life and work.
Project Approach
The Empowering Future Leaders initiative from Beyond the Scoreboard is designed to help financial and entrepreneurial literacy in urban youth athletes (ages 10-17). This initiative is aware of the specific concerns that children — especially unaccompanied children who can be vulnerable to trauma, loss of parenthood, and abuse as they make their way into the US. The program’s goal is to prevent abuse, neglect, trafficking, and other forms of exploitation by understanding these needs and establishing a safe environment for those children.
Project Plan and Timeline
Empowering Future Leaders is a program designed to train youth athletes from the urban core (10-17 years old) in financial literacy and entrepreneurship through structured programming that builds on the athletic experience. It will encompass a 12-month, with workshops, after-school enrichment activities, community engagement, and an evaluation process.
Reach Out to Us
Turn athletic discipline into valuable skills that go beyond the game. Explore financial literacy and entrepreneurship. Contact us today to take the next step.