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How to Choose Your DECA Competitive Event
One of the most exciting things about joining DECA is choosing your competitive event. With so many categories, it can be overwhelming at first, but your event should challenge you and also cater to your strengths.
Your Freshman Year Playbook: Four Tips for a Strong Start
Freshman year is among the most exciting and important times in your high school journey. Here are four tips to set a strong foundation for your high school experience!
More Than a Tour: 7 Tips to Make the Most of College Visits
For high school DECA members, college tours can transform uncertainty into certainty. Approach them with an open mindset, curiosity and, of course, good walking shoes. Here are seven tips to Go The Extra on your next college visit.
Starting the Year Strong in DECA: Tips for Every Chapter and Member
The beginning of a new school year is the perfect opportunity to build momentum, connect with both new and returning students, and set the stage for a successful year ahead. Here’s advice from DECA members and chapters on how to start strong this year.
DECA & The Muscular Dystrophy Association Celebrate 45 Years of Partnership
This collaboration has empowered generations of emerging leaders to make a real difference in their communities while supporting groundbreaking research, care and advocacy for individuals and families living with neuromuscular diseases.
Go The Extra with DECA's Corporate Challenges
DECA Challenges provide members opportunities to demonstrate the knowledge and skills learned in the classroom through innovative challenges in partnership with several corporate partners.
Compete in the DECA Stock Market Game
DECA members are invited to participate in the DECA Stock Market Game (SMG) beginning on September 8, 2025.
Case Study of the Week: Troubles in the Drive-Thru
Step into the role of a general manager for Better Burger, a fast food restaurant with two drive thru lanes. The district manager wants you to suggest methods to handle complaints about new technology in the drive thru.
Advisor Best Practice Spotlight of the Week: Sean Lewis
Sean Lewis, DECA advisor and marketing teacher at Hillgrove High School in Georgia, has built a thriving chapter by blending classroom instruction with real-world business experiences.
8 Ways To Use the Membership Video for Back-to-School Recruitment
Discover eight ways members are using the 2025-26 DECA membership video during their events and meetings this back-to-school season and get ideas for your own chapter!
4 Strategies to Elevate Your DECA Association or Chapter Brand
A strong brand not only attracts new members but also energizes current ones, engages partners, and positions your chapter or association as a leader in preparing emerging leaders and entrepreneurs.
Meet the 2025-2026 DECA Content Creators
The DECA Inc. Communications team is excited to announce the 2025-2026 DECA Content Creators! Team members will help grow the DECA brand by showcasing their unique DECA experience.
5 Ways Collegiate DECA Will Take You to the Next Level
It's official, the school year is underway. While things will look different, there are still many ways to take yourself and your Collegiate DECA chapter to the next level!
Video Call Tips and Tricks
Practically overnight, video calls have become a new societal norm. This guide will provide you with a few tips and useful tricks to help improve your online learning or telecommuting experience.
A Quick Guide to Understanding Servant Leadership
The concept of leadership has been around since the days of Aristotle and Plato and has evolved countless times throughout the centuries. But in 1970, a new theory emerged. Developed by Robert Greenleaf, servant leadership is the idea that empowered leaders serve their followers and to enable them to live and work to their full potential.
The Ethics of Leadership
Ethical leaders exist in all walks of life. They are the individuals who step forward when crises occur, come to the rescue of others and generally do what's right—no matter what. Anyone can talk the talk, but can they walk the walk? In today's high-visibility, social world, more people are taking note of leaders’ behavior and holding them accountable.
DECA Direct Magazine: Next Level Leadership
A new school year brings new chances to elevate your leadership to the next level. Discover fresh ideas to enhance your chapter and become a leader worth following in your school, community and beyond.
The Next Level is Inclusion
It has never been more important for emerging leaders to be characterized by teamwork, innovation, competency and integrity. Fortunately, those are the valued characteristics of DECA’s student leaders. What if this moment needs you and the unique values that drive your leadership?
Top Tips for Socially-distant Membership Recruitment
Building your chapter’s membership is one of the most important ways to set it up for success in the new school year. But what are the best ways to recruit within the “new normal” of more virtual interactions and less in-person activities? Learn how to recruit new members the socially-distant way with these top tips.
The Power of the Diamond
Throughout your DECA career, you’ll wear the blazer, throw up a DECA diamond symbol and add lots of blue to your wardrobe. You will also undoubtedly hear DECA’s core values and mission statement more times than you can count. But have you ever stopped to think about what they really mean?
Cultivate Your Chapter’s Culture
2020 is a year that has changed all of our lives. If your DECA chapter has experienced a decline in recent months, struggling to cope with virtual meetings and maintain engagement, your chapter culture may need a boost.
Discover Your DECA Leadership Style
There are hundreds of assessments to help you pinpoint your leadership traits, but the only one you need to take your leadership to the next level is the DECA Leadership Style Quiz.
Influence with Informal Leadership
While you may not have an official leadership title, you still have the ability to help take your chapter to the #NextLevel with your informal leadership influence. Read on to learn more about informal leadership and how you can use it to make this year a success for you and your chapter.
DECA Members Raise $7,000 Through the MDA Muscle Corp Program
DECA members raised over $7,000 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) this summer through the pilot MDA Muscle Corp Program. Twenty-one DECA members successfully completed the program and earned 40 hours of community service.
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