Youth-led nonprofit · Houston, TX

Students teaching kids how money works.

BizBuddies volunteers run hands-on workshops in elementary classrooms, covering saving, budgeting, and wants versus needs, ending with kids pitching mini businesses of their own. Our lessons and booklets have reached more than 200 students in Houston and Uganda.

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A BizBuddies volunteer standing at the front of an elementary classroom, teaching a wants-versus-needs lesson to seated students
A BizBuddies volunteer teaching wants vs. needs at The Village School, Houston.

The program

What a workshop looks like

A BizBuddies volunteer leading a lesson while students raise their hands

  1. Warm up with a question

    Every session opens with something kids already have opinions about, like what would you buy first, so money feels like a conversation before it feels like a subject.

  2. Learn the basics

    Volunteers walk through saving, budgeting, and wants versus needs using examples kids actually argue about: new shoes, an iPad, a house.

  3. Run a mini business

    Groups invent a product, set a price, and sell to classmates. Paper money changes hands. Some of them negotiate harder than adults.

  4. Take it home

    Kids leave with a simple savings plan of their own, and pretty often, plans for their next business.

Where we've been

From Houston classrooms to a school in Uganda

In Houston

We piloted our workshops at The Village School, teaching elementary classes in person: games first, worksheets second, and a classroom marketplace to finish.

In Uganda

With Empower Education, we wrote a financial education booklet and sent copies to a school in Uganda, putting our lessons in the hands of students we may never get to meet. See the collaboration

Students reached
200+ across Houston and Uganda
Partner organizations
Empower Education & The Village School

What people tell us

In their words

“Financial literacy is usually hard to teach at this age, but BizBuddies made it exciting and easy to understand.”

Teacher, community partner

“I liked the game where we ran a lemonade stand! I want to make my own business now.”

Student, grade 3

“This is the first time I've seen my child truly understand budgeting.”

Parent

“The activities kept our students engaged from start to finish and made entrepreneurship feel possible for everyone.”

School counselor

Bring BizBuddies to your classroom

We're a small student team and we answer every email. Tell us about your school or group and we'll figure out a session together.

Email us