John Dodd is a disciple of free enterprise. Now he wants to spread the gospel.
Dodd is president of the Wingate-based Jesse Helms Center Foundation. As part of the center’s 20th anniversary, he’s making plans to franchise one of its signature programs — the Free Enterprise Leadership Challenge.
The program is designed to give high-school-age students a crash course in market economics. Typically week-long workshops include sessions on everything from creating a business plan to borrowing money and paying taxes.
The $25 registration fee goes into a “bank” which lends it back. So participants can spend — and make — real money.
Programs usually take place at Wingate University, though the center started one in Monterey, Mexico, in 2001 after a visit to the country by former Sen. Jesse Helms.
Now Dodd wants to franchise the idea across the country, or beyond. He envisions up to 30 free enterprise programs in the next five years, serving thousands.
“It teaches them in a very compressed time what it’s like to be an entrepreneur,” said Dodd. “Without the great risks. It gets kids to thinking like an entrepreneur.”
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