Navigating the Real World, Inc. (NtRW) helps people in their teens and 20s deal with important life decisions and challenging circumstances.  NtRW does this by bringing them the perspectives of people with recent, relevant experience directly related to their personal priorities and prospective future paths.  These include the voices of people in their 20s and of people who hire and supervise new employees. NtRW helps young adults increase their success at getting and holding jobs, finding satisfactory careers, getting education and training that moves them forward, and dealing with challenges, financial matters, and living on their own. NtRW is a Maine nonprofit 501(c)3 organization.  

NtRW is building the organization in Maine to develop the technology, to test and refine our systems and operations for marketing, content development and student participation, and to determine what is appealing and effective with our member audiences.  What we prove to be worthwhile will then be rolled out more widely.

Dimensions of the problem: 

All too often young adults are making critical life decisions with little solid information and little experience-based input from people who have been down the roads they are contemplating.  

Among young adults from middle school through college most of their significant relationships are with their peers while their relationships with individual adults are mostly fragmented, brief and narrow in focus.

Schools tend to prepare students for the next level of school, not for life after schooling is completed.  And there is little or no guidance for young adults after they leave high school and face many real life challenges for the first time.

Success rates in high school, community colleges and other post high school programs are unacceptably low overall and worse for economicallydisadvantaged. For example, SMCC’s 3-year graduation rate is 19%.  USM’s 6-year graduation rate is 35%. 

Due to the high costs of post high school programs and the resulting increased borrowing to cover these costs, many students are leaving school with debt in the $40,000 to $100,000 range and even higher.

The lack of alignment between majors of study and career opportunities results in the situation where even completing post high school programs can lead to no particular advantage in the job market. 

Mentoring is recognized as very valuable when done well, but logistically challenging to accomplish effectively. 

Our Approach: 

Using current technologies – interactive Web site, Facebook, print and DVDs – to communicate to Maine’s young adults

Collecting,
organizing and distributing good information and advice from a wide range of people with recent experience directly related to the issues and decisions that Maine's teens and young adults face.

Publishing across multiple media – including the web, e-publishing, social networking, video and print.

Involving teens and 20s in all aspects of our operations. They help select the topics included in our publications, evaluate the information provided for each topic, recruit, interview and rate experience contributors, choose topic experts, devise tools, design interfaces, choose organizations to feature, edit written, audio and video contributions, recruit other members, report locally, sign up sponsors.

Reaching and serving ALL young adults in the target age range. This means establishing relationships with the students of alternative programs, special education providers, vocational schools and students who take technical offerings at regular high schools, as well as with those who are college bound. 

Partnering with a wide range of organizations to tap their expertise in content areas, in organizing, in technology and in reaching prospective members.  (Mitchell Inst., Jobs for Maine Graduates, high school classes, colleges,etc.)

Focusing our offerings, our themes and messages so that they reinforce the value of evaluating choices and potential avenues in light of these priorities, and seeking out the advice of people with related experience – through NtRW or otherwise.    

How We Do Business: 

Being lean : We use student volunteers, volunteer content editors, college students, student interns and AmeriCorps members to fill labor-intensive content development and recruiting functions.  

Becoming self-sustaining:  We will become fully self-sustaining within two years of founding. With a substantial member base and cross-media publications NtRW will appeal to sponsors.  With a local presence in communities, NtRW will be able to localize and regionalize sponsorships and advertising.  The technology, structures and techniques that we develop and refine can be put to use in other states and nationally with little additional
development expenses

Using open source technology and off-the-shelf modules such as Drupal. Limit custom development as much as possible.  Contract for development work and limit what we do internally.  Make use of Facebook – and other environments that evolve with substantial followings. 

Drawing on wisdom and experience of our technical advisory team when we plan and contract for technical development and devise major technology plans.  And getting advice from our business supporters regarding the communications, publishing, operations and marketing dimensions of what we do.