You may serve on one of California DECA's many committees. Committee members help plan events, offer ideas for improvement and pool their resources with other members to make DECA better than ever.

California DECA's high school chapters finance most of their activities through fundraisers. Most chapters use the fundraising activity as a learning experience, organizing the students into teams, selecting products or services, identifying responsibility, and reporting on results. Chapters are continuously searching for new and innovative fundraising programs. California DECA is a great market for businesses that seek to offer fundraising programs in high schools.

California's DECA members are highly motivated, results oriented students with strong academic credentials; this is the type of student that colleges and post-secondary institutions want. Many colleges have found DECA to be a great recruiting resource. A recent study found that 86% of graduating DECA members plan on attending college. Typical DECA members have the work experience and community services as part of their DECA experience.

One of DECA's most successful tools for creating local linkages is the Employment Partnership Program. The components of this program combine the promotion of your company and/or products to young people and assist with the recruitment of DECA members for appropriate jobs withing your organization. Each component of the program serves to reinforce both concepts while building strong, effective, local partnerships between store managers and local DECA advisors.

School-based enterprises (SBEs) are effective tools that are used to help prepare students for the transition from school to work. For many students, these school stores provide the first work experience; for others, they provide and opportunity to build management, supervision and leadership skills. While some in the education community have only recently discovered the value of school-based enterprises, marketing educators and DECA advisors have used them as a powerful teaching tool for more than four decades.

Scholarships are often times a great motivator for a student to decide to attend college. DECA's scholarship program provides about a quarter of a million dollars each year. More than 50 corporations provide scholarships through the DECA Scholarship Program. DECA, Inc. administers the program based on guidelines set by the donor and freeing the company from any potential compensation issues.