Junior Achievement Reaches GuideStar Platinum
Portland, OR — Junior Achievement of Oregon and SW Washington today earned the Platinum GuideStar Nonprofit Profile Seal of Transparency, the highest level of recognition offered by GuideStar, the world’s largest source of nonprofit information. By sharing metrics that highlight progress Junior Achievement is making toward its mission, the organization is helping donors move beyond simplistic ways of nonprofit evaluation such as overhead ratios.
"In accordance with our long-held belief in being transparent about our work,” said John Hancock, “we are excited to convey our organization’s results in a user-friendly and highly visual manner. By updating our GuideStar Nonprofit Profile to the Platinum level, we can now easily share a wealth of up-to-date organizational metrics with our supporters as well as GuideStar's immense online audience, which includes donors, grantmakers, our peers, and the media."
To reach the Platinum level, Junior Achievement added extensive information to its Nonprofit Profile on GuideStar: basic contact and organizational information; in-depth financial information; qualitative information about goals, strategies, and capabilities; and quantitative information about results and progress toward its mission. By taking the time to provide this information, Junior Achievement has demonstrated its commitment to transparency and to giving donors and funders meaningful data.
Junior Achievement seeks to expand student outreach numbers annually, while providing hands-on, experiential educational opportunities. Demand for our volunteer taught K-12 In-Class programs continues to grow. Additionally, the organization has started and continued to expand programs like JA BizTown and JA Finance Park, which blend teacher-led classroom instruction with a four and a half hour simulation experience. These programs involve high “contact hours”, or hours of program instruction, for each participation.
"I encourage you to visit our profile on GuideStar to see what we're all about," added John. “We’re thrilled that our GuideStar Platinum Nonprofit Profile and its associated benefits help us better communicate our organization’s exciting initiatives at a global scale."
Junior Achievement of Oregon & SW Washington
Junior Achievement inspires and prepares young people to succeed in a global economy through hands-on programs that promote work readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy. Established locally in 1950, JA is an affiliate of Junior Achievement USA, which has worked for nearly a century to provide economic and financial education for K-12 students. This year, more than 4,000 volunteers will teach JA programs in more than 1,700 classrooms, serving over 44,000 students in Oregon and SW Washington. Visit www.jaorswwa.org for more information.
About GuideStar Nonprofit Profiles
The GuideStar database contains a profile for every tax-exempt nonprofit registered with the IRS. GuideStar encourages every nonprofit to claim and update its profile at no cost to the organization. Updating allows nonprofits to share a wealth of up-to-date information with the more than 8 million people who visit GuideStar to learn more about nonprofit organizations each year. Updating also allows nonprofits to share information with the more than 200 philanthropic websites and applications that are powered by GuideStar data. To reach a given participation level, organizations need to complete all required fields for that participation level. The GuideStar participation levels, acknowledged as symbols of transparency in the nonprofit sector, are displayed on all updated participants' profiles in the GuideStar database.