Junior Achievement History

History

In August 1916, a committee called 'Boys and Girls Bureau' was formed with a view of raising funds for entrepreneurial activities that helped support the community. Junior Achievement was founded by Theodore N. Vail with this view in mind.

Junior Achievement is a non-profit organization that started as small business club to help the boys and girls in their careers. Junior Achievement is an organization that aims at educating the youth to develop their entrepreneurial qualities and helping them in becoming financially independent.

The organization was noticed by global leaders during the First World War, when the Boys and Girls Bureau committee that consisted of 22 members managed to raise $250,000. In February, 1920 the Boys and Girls Bureau was renamed as Junior Achievement Bureau. Since 1920, the Junior Achievement Bureau has been consistently raising huge amounts to contribute efficiently to the society.

In the early days of the Bureau, it targeted students between 8 to 12 years. In the year 1928, Horace Moses felt that students from 8 to 12 were too young to be molded for an achievement program. This is when he recommended that the target audience for Junior Achievement should be shifted from 16 to 21 years.

It was felt that this particular target audience was matured as well as flexible and could be trained for financial literacy. Thus the journey for Junior Achievement began. Since 1928, Junior Achievement has embarked on the journey of creating awareness and interest amongst the youth towards creating businesses that can develop economical abilities of the youth and help in boosting the community economy.

Junior Achievement headquarters were established in 1925. Over a period of time, Junior Achievement has spread its wings globally. Today it has 382,637 classroom volunteers. These volunteers share their experiences and help the students in gaining exposure about the real challenges in the business world.

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