Rural youth tend to view their local area as a fine place to grow up, but not as the place to create a bright future for themselves. The long-standing pattern of rural students moving to the cities once they’ve left school has resulted in overcrowded urban areas and dying small towns. Continuing this rural out-migration furthers one one’s best interests.

REAL helps students create new jobs by building on the untapped economic opportunities in their own backyards. Students are encouraged to view their communities as attractive places in which to continue to live and work after graduation. Accordingly, one of REAL’s key goals is to help capable students understand that the option to stay in their own local area can be as attractive as the traditional option of leaving.

When implemented well, the REAL program can produce a variety of community benefits. First, and foremost, it results in better educated students who possess a variety of valuable thinking, communication and technical skills. Have more capable students with a greater appreciate of the local community can only improve the quality of citizenship and leadership shaping the area’s future. Student enterprises also generate new economic activity, new jobs and an expanded tax base for the community. Although most of the businesses created will be small, their cumulative impact over a period of years could be significant. Beyond the measurable economic gains, the “critical mass” of local entrepreneurial activity spurred by REAL can increase a community’s sense of optimism about its future. And, of course, bringing schools and communities closer together benefits everyone.

No! REAL’s cardinal rule is that student-operated ventures do not directly compete with existing local businesses. It would be foolish, both economically and politically, for public schools to be involved in a program that undermines the local business community. Instead, REAL students are taught and assisted to find way of bolstering the local economy and community.

Every rural community, no matter how poor or depressed it may seem, has within it untapped or overlooked economic opportunities. REAL students learn how to identify, evaluate and develop a wide range of promising venture ideas. Sometimes this involves creating a business that provides a product or service local people previously couldn’t purchase conveniently. At other times, students create and “export” or tourist-oriented enterprise, i.e., one aimed at capturing new dollars from outside the community itself.

Some of the initial student-operated ventures had to close. Doubtless, this will continue to be true in the future. However, it is expected that the success rate for REAL’s student-generated enterprises will be at least as good as the rate for the economy as a whole. Businesses commonly fail for three major reasons: they are poorly planned, badly managed and/or undercapitalized. During the years students are in the program, REAL takes steps to counter each of these problems. Students must produce and defend a detailed and comprehensive formal business plan. They learn the fundamentals of good management, not only in the classroom, but also in the “laboratory” of their own small enterprise. And, they do not begin operations until they have secured adequate start-up capital. This initial financing comes in part from REAL’s Revolving Loan Fund, in part from their own cash and in-kind contributions, and in part from other local sources. New business creation is inherently risky, but REAL’s courses, teachers and technical assistance greatly reduce these risks.

The answer for most students is YES! However, the REAL program is not designed for, or open to, most students. Instead, this opportunity is reserved for those individuals who have exhibited the potential to benefit from what REAL has to offer, and who are likely to succeed. That is why REAL has an application and screening process for students. That also is why REAL teachers place an emphasis on selecting students who genuinely want to undertake the REAL challenge and who have shown themselves to be doers.

Of course, REAL students are not expected to “sink or swim” entirely on their own. REAL teachers assist participants on a daily basis. Teachers, in turn, are supported by the REAL Enterprises program consultants - as well as by you and other community support team members. Many students have risen to the occasion and performed exceptionally well. This entrepreneurial training and work experience - as well as the chance to do something meaningful in the real world - often bring out unexpected levels of maturity and responsibility among participants.

Again, running a business full-time immediately after graduation is not required of REAL students. For some students, becoming business operators right away is perfectly appropriate. For others, it will be years before they are ready to take full advantage of the training and assistance they have been given through the REAL program.

You are not being asked to serve as “window dressing” or a “rubber stamp” for the REAL work in your community. Similarly, you will not be asked to waste your valuable time going to endless meetings that lack purpose or direction. The most important point to understand is that you are being asked to play an active role in the life of the local REAL program. To assist you in playing this role well, REAL offers all local community support team members the opportunity to participate in special orientation and training activities. The rights, roles and responsibilities of CST members are discussed in detail during this orientation process.

In practical terms, a CST member performs three absolutely essential functions: 1) serving as a mentor for REAL students; 2) acting as an advisor to, and colleague of, the REAL teachers(s); and 3) working as an advocate for the local REAL program. The precise ways in which CST members operate varies from community to community. This means you may interact primarily with the REAL call as a while, with a small group developing a particular enterprise, or with an individual student. Nonetheless, the three basic roles for CST member are the same, and equally valuable, at all participating REAL sites.

There may be times and circumstances in which you might choose to increase the level of your involvement by entering into a joint venture or partnership agreement with REAL students. Although this has not yet occurred at any of the local sites, REAL certainly is open to exploring such a proposal. In such a case, the primary concern would be to ensure that the REAL students involved will be playing an active and genuine ownership role within the proposed enterprise.

Under normal circumstances, the answer is NO. REAL’s community support team members generally are not financially at risk should the student ventures they are assisting go out of business. Students, too, have more protection by being in the REAL program than do “regular” entrepreneurs. However, they are at risk of losing at least their own personal investment. Of course, the level of risk changes then CST members opt to invest their own money, or to co-sign student loans. Moreover, REAL cannot offer any protection to CST members who act illegally, or who otherwise abuse this position of trust. In practice, however, no SCT members have lost a penny thus far because of the closing of a REAL student-operated business.

As an IRS-approved education organization, REAL does not make a profit either on the student businesses it helps to create or on the assistance it provides to local sites. Any money earned by, or donated to, REAL goes to improve the program, enlarge the loan fund and expand to new sites. Staff salaries and operating expenses are paid from membership fees, private grants and public allocations. The staff and board members of REAL Enterprises are committed to rural school and community improvement, and enjoy contributing to the future of our nation’s rural youth. We hope you will share this feeling, too.

An invitation to serve on a REAL community support team is intended as an honor and a compliment. It is recognition of all that you have done in the past to earn your current status as a community leader. It also is a statement of faith in your willingness and ability to share your expertise and your insight with a group of very special students from your local area. Being a CST member is not always easy, but we hope you will find it a rewarding and worthwhile experience.