To get their shot at a spot in the limelight, teens enroll in a rigorous two- to four-year program in which they study the theory and practice of multi-media communications during after-school hours and weekends. "I'm here for youth development, and I use communications as a tool," says Matthew Johnson, founder of the Strive Media Institute.

"We use communications as a carrot. The entertainment portion is the carrot – and to be popular on TV. The kids are really drawn by the media because they consume it. They are the best ones to change it, and are advocates of it."

Johnson founded Strive Media Institute in 1990 to empower teens to become producers of their own TV shows. The program has expanded to include four major project areas or "business units:" video and film; print journalism; technology and computers; and marketing, advertising and public relations.

Strive Media Institute Business Units and Activities 1. Video and Film Unit Teen Forum – weekly teen talk show. The program has won an Emmy and has been on been on the Fox 24 network for two years and the ABC affiliate for 11 years. The show has a reach of more than 1.5 million teen, pre-teens, and parents. Gumbo TV, airs on a WB affiliate – TV show based on the successful teen magazine. Internships, mentoring and job shadowing – Opportunities for Strive students to interact with adults and others experienced in the field. 2. Print Journalism Unit Gumbo Magazine –bimonthly magazine about entertainment, health, personal finances, and other teens issues. The magazine has a readership of 75,000 and recently launched an office in Atlanta. Poetic Food 4 Thought – annual local poetry contest for teens. Each year, original entries are published in a written collection called "Recipes for Life: Poetic Food 4 Thought." 3. Technology and Computer Unit TechKnow – a professional computer consulting firm that specializes in web design for paying clients. Gumbo – online version of the successful magazine. It can be found at www.mygumbo.com 4. Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations Unit Strive Media – conducts all the public relations and advertising work for the Strive Media Institute. Internships and professional job shadowing – provides opportunities to assist in developing advertising for outside companies. Stay in school campaign planned and conducted in conjunction with BVK McDonald, ad agency. Kick off back to school 2002. Out-Media Summit – symposium-style annual summit with panel discussions facilitated by media industry leaders and entrepreneurs.

These units are run for and by teens, with some assistance and mentorship from adults with expertise in each discipline. There is no formal recruitment of participants. Teens hear about Strive Media by word-of-mouth from participants, parents, and through the various public faces of Strive Media, including the Teen Forum and GUMBO TV shows, GUMBO magazine, and Strive Media's technology consulting firm.

Ashley Battle, editor of GUMBO magazine

Ashley Battle, a 17-year-old high school senior has been the editor of GUMBO magazine for the past year and a half. She enrolled in Strive Media because she wanted to study journalism, but her school lacked comparable extra-curricular activities.

Wanted: Leaders

The biggest challenge faced by the program is the need to convince young teens it is worth the extensive time and energy commitment. Although, at first, teens are attracted to the program's media opportunities, they soon realize they must put a lot more into it to reap the program's full benefits.

Battle said the hard work her job as editor requires is worthwhile because "if I do this now it will pay off in the future, giving me the experience that I may not have had until I was older." The expertise Battle gains with Strive Media guarantees her a place on the career track career that she's always coveted.

To enroll in the program, students must complete an application in which their expressed interests will determine which business unit they enter. Other questions on the application hint that this program goes considerably beyond career development, into the realm of personal development.

Corey Bielski, Techknow Supervisor (right),
teaches Web page development

For example, the application asks "Are you a leader or a follower? - explain thoroughly." followed by "Do you ever think it is important to be a follower? Why or why not?"

"We don't want followers," Johnson said. "We want to build leaders. Great leaders are not born, they're developed. Most teens don't take a stance on the world until college. This [program] allows them to start thinking, 'Am I a follower, and can I get people to follow me?' When these kids come in the door, they have no idea what they can do."

The Real World: Beyond MTV

Participants who don't stick with the program often don't come for the right reasons – they come to be on television, or to see their name in print. But for those who do stick it out, the rewards are great.

Strive Media gives teens a rare chance to get "hands on" experience in "real world" settings. "Strive is a privilege, a way for me to deal with the real world and real life experiences, and also to get great opportunities that I could never get on my own," said Robert Pickens Jr., a 17-year-old high school senior in the video and film unit.

"I get to deal with equipment that top people in the industry use . . . We [teens] run this business, it's very hands on . . . teens now need a lot of hands on experience because a lot of us don't listen – we're hot-headed."

Jonathon Woods looks over his script for
his upcoming story on GUMBO TV

Beyond practical career development training, the core of the program is "understanding and loving humanity," Johnson said. "Communications is one of the fabrics that runs through everything in life. [The idea is to] take what they learn and use it to be able to communicate, to teach them how to communicate their ideas and experiences."

Participants are taught leadership, comradery, project development, self-esteem, self-confidence, organizational skills, decision-making, and how to keep commitments, work with others, and acknowledge and respect peers. As Johnson puts it, "they learn not only to get to class, but to get there on time."

Learning Accountability

Since he founded Strive Media, Johnson's goal has been "to put in place something that is interesting, in a fun environment for learning, where they [the teens] are being held accountable."

Program participants are held accountable to each other as they study the comprehensive curriculum together, or work together on projects; they are held accountable to their parents through the contract they signed when enrolling; and they are accountable to the thousands of peers and parents outside Strive Media who recognize them from their work on TV or in GUMBO magazine (teens' pictures are included with their bylines on magazine articles).

Students also are held accountable to the external clients who contract for services from the technology and computer unit, and the marketing, advertising and public relations business unit. Clients have included Fight with Fact (www.fightwithfact.com), Crossing Out Smoking (www.crossingout.com), the State of Wisconsin (for an anti-smoking campaign), and other organizations that relay positive messages to teens.

To enroll, participants and their parents must sign a contract in which the teen commits to attend Strive Media for the two- to four-year period of enrollment during after-school hours and on weekends; adhere to the Institute's guidelines; respect peers; and abide by other rules regarding socialization. Parents must commit to support their teen during this time; stay involved in their life; and contribute the required annual tuition.

Teen Forum covers a Strive spring break trip to the Bahamas

Rather than pay a teen's costs at the Institute, tuition payments are invested in a scholarship fund that the teen can use for college tuition after graduating from high school and the Strive Media program. Scholarships are available for families that cannot afford to pay this tuition.

One hundred percent of graduates from Strive Media go to college, and 85 percent of them complete a college degree. Of the remaining 15 percent who start college, but do not finish a degree, most quit due to financial problems.

Strive Media is trying to help them by developing a separate scholarship fund to address this problem. At present, the scholarship fund offers $5,000 to eligible teens. Strive Media hopes to increase this amount to $15-$20,000.

In response to the fact that high school guidance counselors are not always able to bridge the gap between qualified teens' aspirations to go to college, and their ability to successfully complete the process of applying to the college of their choice, Strive Media launched a Graduate Assistance Program (GAP). Through GAP, several counselors are available to encourage Strive Media participants – beginning when they first enroll in the program – to select three colleges that they wish to attend. The counselors give them guidance and assistance toward realizing their dream.

Upward Striver

After graduation, Johnson returned to Milwaukee, determined to break into marketing and sales. He was able to secure positions with two Fortune 500 companies. This experience opened up a whole new world to him, he said, "shedding a new light on my goals and aspirations."

Through these jobs, Johnson gained knowledge and training in the principles of success for sales and marketing, and exposure to the field of communications. At the same time, working at these jobs solidified his aspiration to be self-employed, so that ultimately he "took a job to quit," he recalls.

To satisfy his drive, motivation, and myriad interests and talents, Johnson held several jobs at once – including sales, party-planning, real estate sales, and clerking at a record store – before he decided to pursue his desire to "break into television." The perfect break appeared when he was "approached by BET (Black Entertainment Network) to do a teen talk show," he said. "It didn't matter to me with whom" – he jumped at the first opportunity to work in television.

Johnson soon found he not only enjoyed television work, but he was impressed and inspired by the young people who were his co-workers. "It was like déjà vu," he said. "I saw the enthusiasm, the willingness to learn. It gave me a reason to do more. I got bit by it."

Milwaukee's FOX 24 station accepted Johnson's talk show, and gave him $25,000 to produce four episodes. There was no comparable show in the marketplace, and it met with great success.

Students of Teen Forum fix their hair & make-up before the show is taped

Capitalizing on the success of his first four shows, and inspired by the impressive teens with whom he collaborated, Johnson created a promotional video and took it around to local television stations. The local ABC affiliate responded enthusiastically and committed to broadcast 13 episodes.

Taking advantage of connections he had already established, Johnson took a year off to be a volunteer in what amounted to a crash course in shooting, editing, and producing video and other important aspects of the business. At the end of the year, he returned to his own talk show project and successfully produced the 13 episodes.

It was during this time that he began to see "the need for kids to be more involved; the need to teach them the behind-the-scenes part of the show, not just how to produce," he said. From this experience, the idea for Strive Media Institute was born.

Striving Leads to Growth

Some 300 participants have graduated from Strive Media Institute since it was founded 13 years ago. Typically, 25-50 teens are enrolled at any given time.

Strive Media began measuring the long-term term impact of the program in 1996, five years after the first participants graduated. Results show 80 percent of graduates stay in the communications field as trained and qualified workers.

During college and after graduating with a college degree, Strive Media alumni often stay in touch with the program. Some return to speak to participants, facilitate internships and shadowing, and provide advice to those aspiring to careers in communications and the media.

The size and impact of Strive Media has been growing. During the past three years, the number of employees has increased from 3 to 10 and the annual budget has tripled. It has purchased a 10,000-square-foot building that houses all of Strive Media's activities.

Vertna Bradley (right), Teen Forum Supervisor, and Sable Nelson shoot Sable's story on top of the Empire State Building

GUMBO magazine recently launched a news bureau and sales office in Atlanta, Georgia and is considering expanding to other cities around the nation. Currently, Strive Media has partnerships with 21 radio stations, six major TV stations (from the ABC, NBC, CBS, and WB networks), and four major newspapers, and is interested in forging other partnerships.

Looking ahead three to five years, Johnson hopes Strive Media will develop a nationwide network, partnering with organizations such as Listen Up and Youth in Action; increase GUMBO magazine's teen writers from 37 to 100, with contributions coming from teens around the world; and strengthen its local infrastructure.

Within ten years Johnson aspires to open Strive Media Institutes in ten cities, comprising a nation-wide or even international network of youth who are empowered through communications and who change the perspective of other youths through the media.

Sticking to Core Strengths & Working Hard

To generate revenue, Strive Media has relied on its business units' service contracts and grants that cover the overhead. Sixty percent of revenue comes from fees and services, and 40 percent is from grants.

Several years ago, in the midst of frantically writing grants for his program, Johnson realized, "I was doing something wrong: I was writing grants to get money, not writing grants for the program." He was constantly reshaping his ideas to fit the criteria of the grants he was pursuing. If a donor was interested in health, he added a health dimension; if they were interested in anti-smoking, he added that component, and so on.

"I was so fragmented," he laments. Instead, he decided to streamline his ideas and concentrate solely on communications. He revamped Strive Media's mission so that it now reads "promoting diversity through mass communications."

Lynn Grochowski, GUMBO TV, is ready for her video shoot

Johnson says the essence of Strive Media is that it is a youth development program that uses the media to provide innovative youth programs (a comprehensive communications curriculum, scholarship opportunities, GAP, internships, and shadowing). It also produces professional products by and for teens (TV shows, a print magazine, technology consultancies, advertising campaigns, and a record label), and surrounds itself with media, university, and funding partners.

Johnson says he has learned not to compromise, and he will not change his ideas just to suit a donor. Although funding is a concern, Matthew has confidence in the soundness of Strive Media's methods and the quality of its products. He believes donors are "going to see how the money is really going to help kids."

GUMBO magazine editor Battle describes Johnson as "truly a visionary who doesn't get as much credit as he deserves." To which Johnson replies, "keep working hard and people will find you."

• Van to transport employees and students to conferences and meetings, and for distributing GUMBO magazines
• TV monitors for editing suites and classrooms
• Sponsorship for the organization to continue its mission of educating young people about mass communications
• Scholarships for students and future education
• Three large dry erase boards for the classrooms and conference room
• A graphic design station for the TechKnow students to learn on a Macintosh computer
• National public relations publicist who will make the organization known throughout the country
• Chairs and tables for the classrooms and office areas

Matthew Johnson
Strive Media Institute
1818 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Dr.
Milwaukee, WI 53212
Phone: (414) 374-3511
Fax: (414) 374-3512
Email: mjohnson@strivemedia.com
Web site: www.strivemedia.com
To contact specific Business Units at Strive, please see the Web site.

• The Afro Reggae Beat: A Weapon Against Drugs, Racism and Violence in Rio, by Megan Mylan
• Dancing into Life: Dora Andrade's School of Dance and Social Integration, photos and sound by Janet Jarman
• The Virtues of Nonconformity (Poland), by Steve Owad
• The School is the Community: Building Respect Between Generations, by James Wilson

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