About Deca

DECA: What is it?

By giving students hands-on experiences in the fields of marketing, business and entrepreneurship, DECA enhances the classroom experience by providing conferences and competitions that mold high school students into character-driven leaders. Find out how you can be part of making a difference.

Who belongs to this dynamic organization?

Any student enrolled in marketing education where there is a DECA chapter can join DECA. In classrooms throughout the country, students form their own chapters and elect their own officers. Marketing education teachers/coordinators serve as individual chapter advisors. DECA chapters are self-supportive, with members paying chapter, state, and national membership dues.

Washington DECA currently has over 10,400 members in 144 chapters across the state and is the fourth largest association in the nation.

DECA is the only student organization operating in 50 states, the U.S. Territories, and Canada that attracts individuals to productive careers in marketing, management, and merchandising. It is a co-curricular organization and serves as an integral part of the classroom instructional program.

Symbols & Traditions

The official DECA emblem is a diamond design. Each point of the diamond signifies a working part of the organization.

The four points of the DECA diamond are:

  • Vocational Understanding
  • Civic Consciousness
  • Social Intelligence
  • Leadership Development

The National DECA Creed:

I believe in the future which I am planning for myself in the field of marketing and management, and in the opportunities which my vocation offers.

I believe in fulfilling the highest measure of service to my vocation, my fellow beings, my country and my God--that by so doing, I will be rewarded with personal satisfaction and material wealth.

I believe in the democratic philosophies of private enterprise and competition, and in the freedoms of this nation--that these philosophies allow for the fullest development of my individual abilities.

I believe that by doing my best to live according to these high principles, I will be of greater service to myself and to mankind.