Not a program. A proven environment. Here is what that means.
This Is Where Your Future Gets Real.
The CDMA Business Model® is where young people stop hearing about careers and start building them. Through real media production, AI storytelling, apprenticeships, and hands-on industry experiences. This is learning that moves.
A Century of Impact: Our 100-Year Legacy
CDMA Business Model Academy of Greater Washington, Inc. stands upon a documented 100-year legacy of community empowerment, educational excellence, and economic resilience a lineage that begins with a Harlem Renaissance-era employment agency and business school founded by the great-grandmother of our Founder and Chairman, ShaNette and preserved today within the Elease Perkins Collection at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at The New York Public Library.
While our modern corporate framework is structured to meet today’s rigorous federal and state compliance standards, our organizational DNA carries forward a century of generational business acumen, mentorship, vocational training, and economic self-reliance designed to uplift underrepresented populations.
That heritage has been formally recognized at the highest institutional levels: in 2026, our Founder was honored in the “I Am Her” category at the NYC Her Future TrailblazHER Awards, held at the New York County Supreme Court and presented by the New York City Mayor’s Office, the NYC Mayor’s Office of Equity & Racial Justice, and the Department of Youth and Community Development a distinction affirming both the legitimacy of our institution and the national reach of our mission. Our thought leadership extends to premier national education stages, including SXSW EDU Mentor, where the future of career-connected learning is shaped.
Under ShaNette’s direct stewardship, a hundred years of inherited enterprise has been institutionalized into an Evidence-Based CTE Ecosystem™ that merges generational community trust with cutting-edge business strategy. We do not simply teach business models we protect, defend, and advance a century-long, archivally documented heritage of economic triumph and institutional integrity.
