The Powerful Impact of Lemonade Day on Youth and Adult Mentors: First in a Series Showcasing Results of 2017 Lemonade Day Impact Study
By Steven Gordon, Lemonade Day National President
"A hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in the bank...but the world may be a better place because I made a difference in the life of a child." -Forest Witcraft
I am proud to report that Lemonade Day has a positive, profound impact on Lemonade Day alumnae who are now in grades 5 through 12 in the United States and Canada. Fortunately, I have evidence to support my claim that Lemonade Day has made a measurable social and emotional difference for more than 1 million children – as well as for millions more caring adult mentors -- since Lemonade Day was launched in Houston 10 years ago.
Earlier this year, with support from a Rice University second year MBA student, Lemonade Day’s national leadership team surveyed youth entrepreneurs to assess the effectiveness of Lemonade Day. Lemonade Day measures impact in a variety of ways. Lemonade Day is one of a select list of nonprofit programs that incorporates all aspects of the 40 Developmental Assets into our program. In 1990, The Search Institute(www.search-institute.org) created The Developmental Assets – which are 40 research-based, positive experiences and qualities that influence young people’s development. These Developmental Assets help youth to become caring, responsible, and productive adults. Over time, studies of more than 5 million young people consistently show that the more assets young people have, the less likely they are to engage in a wide range of high -risk behaviors and the more likely they are to thrive. When youth are exposed to more of these assets, they are more likely to do well in school, be civically engaged, and value diversity. However, the average young person experiences fewer than half of these 40 assets. Lemonade Day incorporates attributes of all 40 assets, including Empowerment, Planning and Decision Making, and Positive Values, which make Lemonade Day participants more likely to thrive.
In addition to assessing impact from the Lemonade Day Business Results and Mentor Survey, Lemonade Day’s national leadership team developed a new survey to find out more about the longer-term impact of Lemonade Day on past participants. The Impact Survey was intended to assess the impact on youth’s future goals, hopes, and attitudes, along with their entrepreneurial motivation. By looking through other nonprofit impact reports and findings, we decided that a good way to show program strength is to find metrics that can be compared between those engaged by the nonprofit and those not engaged. In this case, it would be those who participated in Lemonade Day compared with other American youth. Working with Joe Daly, National Lemonade Day Board Member and a Director at Gallup, we devised a survey to correspond with questions Gallup is asking youth in their polls. That way, Lemonade Day could also ask participants the same questions and find out if Lemonade Day kids answer the questions any differently.
In my blogs that will be posted over the next several weeks, I will go into greater detail about the methodology of these surveys and share highlights of the results.
Stay tuned. I am confident that you will be impressed!
Click here to view our Impact Study:
https://lemonadeday.app.box.com/s/u1epaofeif98fqxqkqanvukvqrdiq8qb
About Lemonade Day
Founded in Houston in 2007 by Michael and Lisa Holthouse, Lemonade Day is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching every child across North America the business and financial skills that are the key ingredients of entrepreneurship. By learning these skills early in life, children will be better prepared to be successful, financially healthy adults. Through our fun, hands-on program Kids K-5 are empowered to start their very own business—a lemonade stand—and experience the feeling of earning real money, using 100% of their profit to spend, save and share based on their own goals.
Lemonade Day is in 62 cities throughout the United States. Over the past 10 years, we have served more than 1 million kids in our kid entrepreneur programs and in 2016 alone, 101,000 kids participated in Lemonade Day.
Visit LemonadeDay.org to learn how to participate in Lemonade Day in your city.
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By Steven Gordon, Lemonade Day National President
"A hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in the bank...but the world may be a better place because I made a difference in the life of a child." -Forest Witcraft
I am proud to report that Lemonade Day has a positive, profound impact on Lemonade Day alumnae who are now in grades 5 through 12 in the United States and Canada. Fortunately, I have evidence to support my claim that Lemonade Day has made a measurable social and emotional difference for more than 1 million children – as well as for millions more caring adult mentors -- since Lemonade Day was launched in Houston 10 years ago.
Earlier this year, with support from a Rice University second year MBA student, Lemonade Day’s national leadership team surveyed youth entrepreneurs to assess the effectiveness of Lemonade Day. Lemonade Day measures impact in a variety of ways. Lemonade Day is one of a select list of nonprofit programs that incorporates all aspects of the 40 Developmental Assets into our program. In 1990, The Search Institute(www.search-institute.org) created The Developmental Assets – which are 40 research-based, positive experiences and qualities that influence young people’s development. These Developmental Assets help youth to become caring, responsible, and productive adults. Over time, studies of more than 5 million young people consistently show that the more assets young people have, the less likely they are to engage in a wide range of high -risk behaviors and the more likely they are to thrive. When youth are exposed to more of these assets, they are more likely to do well in school, be civically engaged, and value diversity. However, the average young person experiences fewer than half of these 40 assets. Lemonade Day incorporates attributes of all 40 assets, including Empowerment, Planning and Decision Making, and Positive Values, which make Lemonade Day participants more likely to thrive.
In addition to assessing impact from the Lemonade Day Business Results and Mentor Survey, Lemonade Day’s national leadership team developed a new survey to find out more about the longer-term impact of Lemonade Day on past participants. The Impact Survey was intended to assess the impact on youth’s future goals, hopes, and attitudes, along with their entrepreneurial motivation. By looking through other nonprofit impact reports and findings, we decided that a good way to show program strength is to find metrics that can be compared between those engaged by the nonprofit and those not engaged. In this case, it would be those who participated in Lemonade Day compared with other American youth. Working with Joe Daly, National Lemonade Day Board Member and a Director at Gallup, we devised a survey to correspond with questions Gallup is asking youth in their polls. That way, Lemonade Day could also ask participants the same questions and find out if Lemonade Day kids answer the questions any differently.
In my blogs that will be posted over the next several weeks, I will go into greater detail about the methodology of these surveys and share highlights of the results.
Stay tuned. I am confident that you will be impressed!
Click here to view our Impact Study:
https://lemonadeday.app.box.com/s/u1epaofeif98fqxqkqanvukvqrdiq8qb
About Lemonade Day
Founded in Houston in 2007 by Michael and Lisa Holthouse, Lemonade Day is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching every child across North America the business and financial skills that are the key ingredients of entrepreneurship. By learning these skills early in life, children will be better prepared to be successful, financially healthy adults. Through our fun, hands-on program Kids K-5 are empowered to start their very own business—a lemonade stand—and experience the feeling of earning real money, using 100% of their profit to spend, save and share based on their own goals.
Lemonade Day is in 62 cities throughout the United States. Over the past 10 years, we have served more than 1 million kids in our kid entrepreneur programs and in 2016 alone, 101,000 kids participated in Lemonade Day.
Visit LemonadeDay.org to learn how to participate in Lemonade Day in your city.
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