Venture For Good is partnering with Voyagers Community School to bring entrepreneurship education to their SAIL program — a project-based learning environment for young adults with intellectual disabilities, ages 18–30.
This is a new kind of challenge — and exactly the kind of work Venture For Good was designed to grow into. The SAIL program at Voyagers Community School serves young adults with intellectual disabilities, ages 18–30, through a project-based learning model that emphasizes independence, life skills, and real-world experience.
Venture For Good is partnering with Voyagers as an advisor and curriculum designer for this cohort. The task is to adapt the entrepreneurship framework for entirely different learners — different capacities, different goals, different definitions of success — and to build something that genuinely meets them where they are.
Young adults with intellectual disabilities are almost entirely absent from entrepreneurship education. The assumption is often that this population can't engage with business concepts — but that assumption is wrong. What's missing is curriculum designed for them, not handed down from a version designed for someone else.
SAIL students are capable of ideation, decision-making, financial reasoning, and pitching. The question is how to teach those skills in ways that work for their specific learning styles, pacing needs, and goals. That's the design challenge — and it's one that could generate research findings with implications well beyond this cohort.
The VFG curriculum is being adapted from the ground up for this context. The six-week structure provides a framework, but the specific activities, materials, pacing, and assessment tools are being redesigned based on direct collaboration with Voyagers staff and the learners themselves.
This is the most complex curriculum design work VFG has undertaken — and it reflects the organization's broader commitment to making entrepreneurship education accessible for every kind of learner, not just the ones schools typically design for.
The data generated from this cohort will be especially significant. There is very little published research on entrepreneurship education for adults with intellectual disabilities. Pre- and post-assessments — designed for this population specifically — will generate findings that contribute to a much broader conversation about inclusive education.
Learn About SAIL at Voyagers ↗Every activity, pacing decision, and assessment tool is built for SAIL students specifically — not adapted from a version built for someone else.
Voyagers staff have deep expertise in this population. The curriculum is designed collaboratively — VFG brings the entrepreneurship framework, Voyagers brings the learner knowledge.
Outcome data from this cohort will contribute to a near-nonexistent body of research on entrepreneurship education for adults with intellectual disabilities.
SAIL is one of two active VFG partnerships. See the full picture — including our founding work at Indian Hill School.