Run by alumni who went through it.

A business class that keeps score

DECA is a high school program in marketing, finance, hospitality and management. Students learn how a business actually works. How a product gets priced, how a hotel fills its rooms, how to read a balance sheet. Then they have to go use it. Every member picks an event: selling something, running a case, writing a plan for a real company.

The competition is the point. Everyone starts at district. Place there and you go to state, win at state and you go to internationals against students from across the country and around the world. At every level the judges are working business professionals. All of that costs money: travel, registration and materials.

And why it's separate

The chapter belongs to the school. We don't. We're a separate nonprofit, and our job is to raise the money the chapter can't raise on its own: sponsorships, the Craft Fair, donations from families and neighbors. That money goes straight back out to conference fees, travel, lodging, attire and competition materials. Being separate is what makes gifts tax-deductible, lets us publish our own financial records, and keeps money raised for DECA with DECA. The adviser and the students run the chapter. We fund it.

Every board member competed for this chapter

Ask us anything about where the money goes.