Working Together to Empower Young People to Own their Futures
Ready to make a difference? Sign up to volunteer with us and participate in our organization's transformative activities.
Invest in Communities
Make investments in the communities you serve through corporate gifts, gift matching, in-kind support, program development grants, support for high-need schools, event sponsorship, and more.
Engage Your Employees
Engage your employees through skills-based volunteer opportunities including mentoring inside the classroom, coaching at leadership events, judging competitions, performing community outreach, and more.
Transform the Next Generation
Take your commitment to empowering youth to the next level by helping VE embark on big, ambitious projects and build capacity to deliver the transformative VE experience to more students and schools.
Employee Engagement Opportunities
Competition/Trade Exhibition Judge
Use your industry experience and deep understanding of current industry practices to evaluate and give our students valuable feedback on their work.
Competitions take place across the country and test students’ business acumen as well as their professional, presentation, and research skills.
Volunteer individually or as a corporate team to evaluate business plan, marketing plan, website, elevator pitch, and company newsletter competitions, social media marketing strategies, as well as human resource practices, sales pitches, and much more!
Many of our competitions are virtual so that you can judge from the convenience of your home or office!
VE provides judge training resources for competition and event judging.
VE provides judge training resources for competition and event judging.
Mentor a Class
Give our students real-world insights by serving as a classroom mentor at one of the 450+ schools near you.
Mentoring a class offers volunteers a meaningful opportunity to help shape and develop the VE business, guide and refine student work (business plans, marketing plans, and presentation skills). As a class mentor, you have the opportunity for a continuing engagement where you will be able to observe student development over the course of a semester or a year.
Your time commitment can be worked out with the teacher.
VE provides onsite or online training training to individuals and corporate teams who mentor a class.
Host an Event
Host one of our Leadership, Tech Talks, or Winning Women events at your company, have your employees participate in the event as panelist or speaker, and allow our students to begin building their professional networks.
VE will collaborate with you on the event program.
Review Curriculum
Help us review our VE curriculum so we can ensure that our instructional materials remain relevant and aligned with current industry trends and practices.
We invite Industry experts from various sectors to review elements of the curriculum and provide feedback on our efforts to develop the skills and competencies that colleges expect and employers demand.
Ready to Make a Difference?
Volunteer with us to participate in our organization's transformative activities.
We’re in Good Company
Ceros • KPMG • Morgan Stanley • PIMCO • Quantic • TD Bank
Postsecondary Partners
The VE Partnership Experience
New Partnership with Intuit Helps Teens Develop Career and Financial Readiness Skills
At the start of the 2018-19 school year, Intuit and VE launched a new partnership to provide QuickBooks Online and Design for Delight to every VE class in the U.S. As part of its efforts to mentor VE students, Intuit invited students from James Logan High School in Union City, California to connect with business leaders at its QuickBooks Connect event in San Jose, where Intuit CEO Brad Smith shared his leadership and business insights with VE students.
HSBC Enables VE Program Expansion to Prepare More Students for Careers
HSBC and VE have been working together since 1999 to prepare students for meaningful careers. Through this partnership, HSBC has provided job readiness training support, direct funding to schools, and support for VE’s Youth Business Summit and HSBC employees have served as competition judges and classroom mentors. In 2018, HSBC made a $750,000 two-year grant to support the expansion of VE’s program to an additional 150 U.S. schools. The grant also lays the groundwork for VE to expand into additional school districts at a critical moment when business and educational institutions are eager to implement effective strategies for preparing students to develop meaningful careers.
New York Life Foundation Bolsters VE’s Commitment to Middle School Students
With support from the New York Life Foundation, VE launched the VE-JV Career Academy, a two-year program that enables 7th and 8th graders to develop technology and entrepreneurial skills by starting and managing business ventures. The Career Academy also engages students in competitions and both after-school and summer activities that build 21st Century skills in business, communication and technology. In addition to providing financial support, New York Life hosts business pitch competitions for VE-JV students and its employees serve as classroom mentors. As of 2019, the middle school program serves 3,000 students from school districts in New York City, Los Angeles, and Broward County, Florida.
Deloitte’s Longtime Partnership with VE Generates a Multitude of Opportunities
VE’s 18-year partnership with Deloitte has had a profound impact on every facet of the program. Deloitte employees conduct an ongoing classroom mentorship program with weekly classroom visits to New York City VE firms, regularly participate as VE competition judges, host VE events, such as an annual CEO Day during which top Deloitte executives interface with the CEOs of VE’s New York-based firms, and offer pro-bono consulting work, which has included the creation of the VE Career Readiness Framework and recommendations for strengthening VE’s talent strategy and performance management system. Over the years, more than 50 VE students have started their professional careers at Deloitte as a direct result of this partnership.