A year-long commitment where you will advise, support and guide a YES company. As a mentor, you will engage and challenge the students, and act as a sounding board for their strategies and ideas.
A shorter time commitment where you are "on-call" to answer any questions and share insights with YES companies on an ad-hoc basis. If your schedule allows, you may like to make some school visits to lead a session in your area of expertise. While this is less time consuming than a year-long mentor, you are still able to be involved in the students' YES journey.
Come along to a Kickstart | Tīmata session in your region for where you can speak with a variety of YES companies about their business concepts at the start of the YES programme. It’s a quickfire round of mentoring where you’ll act as a sounding board for the ideas of several YES companies in a short space of time. You can volunteer as a Speed Coach regularly or as a one-off, with each event requiring roughly a 3hour time commitment.
We always need volunteers to judge at YES events whether it be at pitches, Regional Finals or the National Finals and there are opportunities to do so throughout the year and right across the country.
What's required?
• Judge and provide feedback for YES teams at events such as the Pitch, EIA weekend, Regional Finals or National Finals
• Location dependent
• One-off or regularly
• Approx. 3 hour commitment
Other areas you can volunteer:
You can also judge at one of our Feeder Experiences for our younger students:
We have so many events throughout the year that could always do with a few extra hands on deck as general helpers.
EIA is an intensive 3-day experience where 80 of our most passionate YES students come to Wellington to compete in two business challenges. As an EIA company mentor, you will help the students come together as a team to best utilise their group dynamic. From you, the teams will need guidance through the content of their business case and feedback on their ideas. However, it is important for an EIA mentor to know when to provide direction, and when to stand back from the team's work.
Many people know of our flagship programme, The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme, where senior secondary students form companies and operate a business with real profit and loss.
However, this is just one of the many enterprise and innovation programmes that we run for students to provide authentic and engaging learning experiences to help them leave school better prepared for the real world. Additionally, we offer opportunities for students to develop a global entrepreneurial mindset through international trips and projects.
We love what we do, because we’re equipping today’s students to become tomorrow’s leaders, changemakers and disruptors! But we need your support, and every dollar counts.
If you would like to support our vision by donating please visit our Givealittle page
Naming Rights for an industry-specific award: arts and culture; sales and marketing; Māori business; Pasifika business
We have sponsorship opportunities for all events: Entrepreneurs in Action; New Zealand Business Hall of Fame; It's Business Time Conference
Sponsor the 3-day challenge as the principal national sponsor or fund a Rangatahi Business Challenge in your region
Sponsor industry-specific events (e.g. the BP Business Challenge or the Growing NZ Innovation Challenge)
We're always open to hearing new ideas on how you can help us - just get in touch. We'd love to hear from you!
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