WASHINGTON - s4story -- In a season of reflection and gratitude, CDMA Business Model® and CDMA Business Model Academy™ are honoring a story that began long before the organization's founding—a 100-year family legacy of Black entrepreneurship, education, and workforce innovation that now lives in both family memory and historical record. From a Harlem Renaissance–era employment agency to an Evidence-Based CTE Ecosystem™, one family's legacy continues to shape how youth in New York, Washington, DC, and beyond turn creativity into credentials that count.

Founder ShaNette, the visionary behind CDMA Business Model®, did not encounter this legacy first in books or archives. She grew up living with her grandmother, Fannetta, sharing pancakes, stories, and everyday lessons about dignity, service, and hard work. Those stories often reached back to her great-grandmother, Elease, who came of age during the Harlem Renaissance and then endured the economic and social upheavals of the Great Depression.

During the 1920s, Black communities experienced a powerful contrast: a flourishing of art, music, culture, and intellectual life alongside entrenched segregation, discrimination, and limited access to stable employment. Within this landscape, Elease's generation operated an early employment agency and school of business that helped community members secure work, develop office and business skills, and maintain a sense of pride in circumstances that were structurally stacked against them. Today, that same spirit lives on in Elease's legacy listing at the world-renowned Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, now marking 100 years of preserving and elevating Black history.

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For ShaNette and her family, seeing her great-grandmother named there is less about recognition and more about affirmation that the sacrifice, structure, and standards they were raised with belong to a broader, enduring narrative of Black resilience and innovation.

That legacy now continues through CDMA Business Model®, which designs evidence-based, experience-driven learning pathways for youth, English Language Learners, neurodiverse students, and young adults in New York, Washington, DC, and beyond.

"I didn't encounter my family's story in an archive first; I lived it at my grandmother's table," ShaNette shared. "Seeing those same names and images at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture simply confirmed what I already knew: I come from resilient leaders who quietly built opportunity when systems did not exist for us. They created pathways to work in their era. I am doing the same in mine—using digital media, storytelling, and applied learning to help young people turn their creativity into something that really counts."

Through the CDMA Business Model® Evidence-Based CTE Ecosystem™, the organization extends this lineage by:

• Offering apprenticeship-style experiences in digital media and storytelling
• Helping youth turn their projects into real portfolio evidence that extends beyond traditional assignments and capstone projects.
• Supporting ELL and SPED learners with inclusive, strengths-based program design
• Connecting schools, community partners, and employers in ways that echo the early employment agency model updated for the 21st century

In honoring this 100-year thread, CDMA Business Model® and CDMA Business Model Academy™ are reflecting with gratitude on:

• A family line defined by courage, discipline, and enterprise—now reflected both in our own stories and in the wider record of Black cultural history.
• Scholars, apprentices, and alumni who carry that courage forward in classrooms, studios, and community spaces
• Families, educators, and partners who rely on the ecosystem to help youth build meaningful futures.

Today, CDMA Business Model® and CDMA Business Model Academy™ stand in gratitude, honoring the legacy that made this work possible and investing in the young people who will define what comes next.

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About CDMA Business Model®

CDMA Business Model® is a legacy-rooted, innovation-driven organization transforming how youth and rising career professionals learn, lead, and build their futures. Through its Evidence-Based CTE Ecosystem™, CDMA connects education, creative entrepreneurship, workforce readiness, and real-world industry experience, especially for neurodiverse learners and English Language Learners. Its programs, including CDMA Business Model Academy™, use applied digital media and storytelling, AI-enhanced tools, and apprenticeship-style models to help youth turn creativity into credentials, portfolios, and pathways to meaningful work.

To learn more about CDMA Business Model® and CDMA Business Model Academy™, visit www.CDMABusinessModel.com