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One of the biggest favors DECA activities provide to your classroom is connections to
the business community. Your students can learn a lot about business from your curriculum,
but until you form relationships with businesspeople, work with them, and use their resources
to enrich your classroom, that knowledge goes nowhere. The minute members engage the real
world of business, motivation increases and members will start seeing the steps toward their
chosen careers.
- What kinds of involvement are possible?
- Work placement is a big part of the picture.
- Job shadowing and internships also help give students the big picture to chart their dreams by.
- Working with the local Chamber of Commerce and service groups like the Rotary, the Lion's Club
and others can pay big rewards to your group.
Some chapters belong to the Chamber of Commerce. Many pay visits to make presentations
that explain what your chapter does. Not only do your chapter officers and other members
learn from this interaction, but young people in their DECA blazers who are articulate and
active in business related projects are very impressive.
- You can offer to do work for the Chamber to help with their projects:
- Help them run a charity event.
- Help them with projects they are undertaking to improve the business possibilities
in your community.
Once you help businesses out, with marketing research, promotion activities, or whatever they need, you will be on much firmer footing when you want to ask them for help. Business relations are a two–way street.
- Some Competitive Events lend themselves to working with businesses.
- The Marketing Research Events are done in partnership with a real local business.
- The Creative Marketing Project Chapter Team Event can be conducted to help a business solve a problem or improve its operations.
- The Public Relations Project can also team with a local business to meet their needs.
- The Community Service Project also allow your members to join forces with businesses that support the cause they are working for.
Form a Business Advisory Board
You can get a lot of mileage out of a business advisory committee. As you form your
business relationships, you can capture interest and help from a well–organized business committee.
- What can a business advisory committee do for you?
- Visit to help with classroom exercises or to speak to the class.
- Publicize your chapter's activities in the community.
- Contribute financially to the chapter's work, including providing scholarship funds.
- Advise student competitive events projects.
- Judge competitive events.
- Review instructional materials for technical accuracy.
- Provide equipment and facilities for specialized training needs.
- Provide tours, field trip experiences, speakers, and judges.
- Contribute resources or use of resources and facilities available in their businesses.
- Compare student performance standards to business/industry standards.
- Review your marketing/business program goals and objectives.
- Help with liaison work with the rest of the business community.
- Provide job shadowing and mentoring.
As you put together your group of business advisors, remember that DECA has
done groundwork for you in getting corporate support. Look over the list of corporations
who serve as corporate supporters on DECA's National Advisory Board. (See the complete
list of NAB companies at www.deca.org/nab/index.html.) These
companies know the value
of working with your program.
The companies of DECA's National Advisory Board furnish scholarships for advisors and
student members; they sponsor and judge competitive events. They advise the organization
and help lobby for it. They even conceptualize new initiatives, such as the successful
Executive Mentor Program that operates as part of the Senior Management Institute at the
annual International Career Development Conference.
- Tips on using your advisory board:
- Create a program of work for your advisory committee.
- Hold regular meetings, but only if there is work to do.
In other words, don't waste their time. Always recognize their help. Spotlight them at a chapter function where school officials are present, so they know the school at large is aware of their work.
Send them thank–you notes, or better yet, send a letter recognizing their contributions to the business partner's boss. That goodwill lasts a long time.
What kinds of people should be on your board?
| Advisor Judy Commers, who is unusually gifted at business community relations, provides the following list as a sample of those she has enlisted: |
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An ad agency representative |
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School guidance counselors |
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Former students |
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Bank officers |
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A college professor |
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An offsite vocational director |
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A representative of a local manufacturer |
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An accountant |
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A representative from Otis Spunkmeyer |
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A representative from Pepsi |
| Your list will be different, but Judy's may give you an idea of the spread of talents and opportunities you can gather together for your own board. |
Business Advisory Committees for Project Help
Retired advisor Jay Walker, whose chapter was highly successful at written team events, has remarked about the utility of business advisory committees that meet during the space of a project. These committees focus on that project, rather than the rest of the DECA program.
"An advisory committee will enhance student projects and focus students on a topic that is functional (without you having to do all of the work)."
Speaking of the committee's work, Walker said, "They provided guidance, goal&38211;setting, funding, media contacts, classroom speakers, editing assistance and promotional material."
"The advisory committee gives credence to your project, promotes your chapter in the community and provides a valuable testimony to your administration. If you are committed to your students and have clear and defined goals for your DECA chapter, please consider organizing a group of adults who might just be frustrated teachers!"
You can access this complete article, with its concrete suggestions, at www.deca.org/pdf/busadcom2.pdf.
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