MEMORANDUM

Date:January 11, 2007

To: Michele Sites, Pennsylvania FBLA Facilitator

Subject:Pennsylvania FBLA-Junior Achievement Partnership

Michele, regarding our recent communications and our December 11, 2006 meeting around a formal partnership between Pennsylvania FBLA and Junior Achievement regional offices throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I wanted to provide you with a revised version of my original memo of November 22, 2006. As you know, Junior Achievement and FBLA chapters around Pennsylvania and the United States have worked together periodically to provide FBLA members with volunteer and community service opportunities to enrich their participation with FBLA and to provide Junior Achievement with a source of volunteers and additional programs.

Most recently the combined Junior Achievement chapters throughout Pennsylvania discussed this idea and the vote was unanimous to pursue a formal relationship with Pennsylvania FBLA. Regarding our discussions with you and Bruce Boncal, I agreed to take the lead in developing a memo that hopefully will lead to a formal agreement of understanding to be executed by both organizations.

Proposal

JA-Pennsylvania (consisting of regional chapters located in Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, Erie, Harrisburg, Johnstown, Lancaster, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Reading, Scranton, Stroudsburg and York) agrees to the following:

  1. JA-Pennsylvania would provide FBLA chapters with information on volunteer opportunities encouraging individual FBLA members (or chapters) to adopt JA programs in local elementary schools. JA-Pennsylvania would provide on-site training for FBLA members including all program materials and program insurance.
  1. JA-Pennsylvania would provide FBLA chapters with additional program opportunities for FBLA members to enrich their academic and professional development. These would include, but are not limited to:

▲JA Titan – This high school program introduces critical economics and management decisions through an interactive simulation of seven required, volunteer-led activities. Students apply their knowledge of business as they compete online in the highly competitive industry of the fictional Holo-Generator™.An optional JA Titan competition between FBLA chapters could be introduced provided there were a sufficient number of chapters participating in the program.

▲JA Personal Finance – Another on-line program, JA Personal Finance helps students make informed decisions about the effective use of income to reach personal financial goals. The program consists of 8 required volunteer-led activities.

▲JA Success Skills – This program focuses on developing students’ interpersonal effectiveness. Through an assessment, the students identify the strengths and unique potentials of their interpersonal skills. They examine how their interpersonal skills can be applied in the workplace, and practice their skills in a variety of activities, including mock job interviews. They begin work on a skills portfolio that they can carry with them into the workplace when seeking employment. Eight required volunteer-led activities.

Note: Any of these programs can be modified to fit within an after-school program or extra-curricular activity like FBLA. While JA Chapters around Pennsylvania provide similar programming/curriculum, chapters on occasion modify existing programs to fit within certain school district parameters and/or the support provided by the local business community.

  1. JA-Pennsylvania would solicit funds from local corporations, foundations and state government to underwrite the cost of administering this partnership along with the creation of a JA-FBLA Pennsylvania Scholarship Fund. This scholarship fund would be used to assist FBLA members with tuition assistance to continue their education after graduating from high school. While terms will need to be discussed, it is JA-Pennsylvania’s intention to secure a $500 scholarship for every 10 PA-FBLA JA participants.JA-PA and PA-FBLA would collaborate on the application/selection criteria and supporting documents. The JA-FBLA Scholarship Fund would need to be developed to provide a number of scholarships on an annual basis.JA and FBLA would need to collaborate on possible funding sources.
  1. JA-Pennsylvania would participate in PA-FBLA local, regional and state conferences as presenters and facilitators of workshops and training sessions that focus on the details of this partnership. This would include training/orientation for PA-FBLA chapters and their members to serve as JA volunteers, training PA-FBLA adult leadership on serving as JA program volunteers and “train-the-trainer” to certify PA-FBLA delegates on serving as JA liaisons with individual chapters or regional representatives.
  1. Local JA-PA chapters would be assigned by region according to PA-FBLA chapter alignment.
  1. Local JA-PA chapters would also serve as communications liaisons with area schools to assist with membership/chapter development in areas underserved by PA-FBLA.
  1. JA-PA chapters would provide other promotional opportunities through local press releases and media announcements.
  1. JA-PA would provide PA-FBLA with any other information upon request.

PA-FBLA agrees to assist JA-PA in the development of this partnership as follows:

  1. Disseminate information about the partnership to all PA-FBLA chapters and affiliates on a regular basis.
  1. Assist JA-PA with gaining access to all PA-FBLA chapters and adult leadership.
  1. Encourage chapter participation in Junior Achievement activities through trainings and workshops conducted at various PA-FBLA functions and events.
  1. Assist with training PA-FBLA members and adult leaders with various program elements of the partnership.
  1. Suggest Junior Achievement as an “organization of choice” regarding any fundraising projects sponsored by FBLA. Any income generated from such activities would be designated to be used solely to fund this partnership and the proposed scholarship program.

As we discussed, a timetable for implementing this partnership is proposed as follows and conducted on an annual basis:

MarchApproval at State FBLA Meeting

Apr 30-May 2FBLA State Conference – Hershey Lodge (Main Day is May 1)

JA would facilitate workshops to share the content of the program

Jun-SepIndividual chapter meetings to present information to members

Oct 20-21State Leadership Workshop – State College

JA would conduct training sessions for member participants

Oct-DecJA Fall Program Schedule

Jan-MarJA Spring Program Schedule (Training Sessions)

MarchAnnounce details of JA-FBLA Scholarship

JuneScholarship winners announced

Please review this memo and feel free to comment or propose any changes as you see fit. Again, once we agree to the general terms of this partnership, I would suggest using this document as the basis for a formal Memorandum of Understanding between our two organizations.

Finally, I have drafted a two-year budget that estimates potential program participants, program expenses and scholarships over the next two-year period. As discussed, we will pursue possible funding from both public and private sources. This will be critically important to providing an on-going program between JA and FBLA.