Expand<\/a><\/p>\nWhen Novato resident Claudine Ng started raising her twins in Marin, the busy mom found herself constantly on the road, going from activity to activity, and under pressure to find and organize activities herself in her already jam-packed schedule.<\/p>\n
She felt like there had to be a better option for parents like herself, so she decided to create it.<\/p>\n
Ten years ago, Ng, who was trained as an organizational psychologist and worked with children with autism, founded Electivity, an educational services organization that partners with schools and recreation centers to provide after-school programs, summer camps and enrichment activities taught by local instructors on a variety of topics, such as the arts, STEM and life skills. It provides on-site programs at no cost to the schools, which oftentimes don\u2019t have the resources, such as the staff or budget, to put on these events themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was out of a personal need,\u201d said Ng, who moved to Marin from Wisconsin 12 years ago. \u201cIt was a light bulb moment to create this service for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
After beginning with its first school in Mill Valley in 2015, the company has grown to more than 65 partner organizations in the Bay Area, given out hundreds of scholarships and served thousands of children through its in-person and online programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt solidified our notion that there\u2019s a gap and there\u2019s a need in the market for such a service,\u201d said Ng, who serves as Electivity\u2019s CEO.<\/p>\n
This year, Electivity was honored as one of America\u2019s top 100 small businesses by the United States Chamber of Commerce. The acknowledgement recognizes the 100 businesses \u2014 chosen out of more than 12,000 entries \u2014 for their \u201cremarkable contributions in driving innovation, growth and ingenuity both locally and globally,\u201d according to the United States Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n
According to its website, \u201cThese businesses shine through their inspiring ideas and the ways they overcome challenges, enrich community impact, foster vibrant company cultures and engage customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Ng, this honor was a wonderful surprise.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never think about getting any awards or being recognized or anything,\u201d Ng said. \u201cYou just try to do your best as an entrepreneur, as a community builder, to build the programs that you think will uplift the community and bring value to the community. I\u2019m really honored and happy to have achieved that award.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last month, Ng went to an event in Washington, D.C., where Electivity was honored with a star on the United States Chamber of Commerce\u2019s Walk of Fame. She also attended workshops and other events highlighting various business professionals, such as business journalist and media executive Eric Schurenberg and Neil Bradley, executive vice president, chief policy officer and head of strategic advocacy at the United States Chamber of Commerce, and mingled with other entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one word that echoes through the experience was community. It\u2019s all about the community. Every honorary I met there has made an impact in the community, and that resonated with what we do,\u201d said Ng, former president of the Bay Area\u2019s chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners.<\/p>\n
One of the lessons she took away from the experience was the importance of self-care and getting good-quality sleep.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou tend to forget about that part. You\u2019re always on the go: strategizing, working and wearing a lot of hats. So sometimes you just forget to take care of the important stuff, which is yourself,\u201d said Ng, who dealt with some health issues this year. \u201cIt\u2019s an aha moment for me to take time to rejuvenate and reenergize and focus on what\u2019s important to me as a person, mom, wife and community contributor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Going forward<\/p>\n
Ng, who was raised in Singapore, developed a deep appreciation for the intersection of people, business and psychology. No matter where her career took her \u2014 from the airline industry to talent assessment to entrepreneurship \u2014 her goal remained the same: her desire to help people and businesses thrive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe skills and the experience that I accumulated through the years as an executive in the corporate industry helped me in identifying needs and helped me in reaching out to the community and growing and strategizing Electivity as a whole,\u201d said Ng, who got her bachelor of science in psychology at the University of Western Australia and a master of science in organizational psychology at Birkbeck, University of London.<\/p>\n
What might the next 10 years hold?<\/p>\n
\u201cMy vision is to scale and to be able to bring programs to more schools and communities. I think what we do well is that we support a network of independent instructors, many of whom are women, immigrants and people of color and in the community, and by connecting them with all these opportunities and the schools, it creates a scalable and community-driven ecosystem where students thrive and parents feel supported,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A music class put on by Electivity. (Courtesy of Claudine Ng) Electivity, founded by Novato resident Claudine Ng,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[28,2356,526,158,149,5415,4910,5413,7234,140809,2628],"class_list":{"0":"post-299416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-education","11":"tag-entrepreneurship","12":"tag-lifestyle","13":"tag-marin-county","14":"tag-newsletter","15":"tag-north-bay","16":"tag-northern-california","17":"tag-novato","18":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Electivity,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/MIJ-L-KIDS-COL-1118-02.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/MIJ-L-KIDS-COL-1118-05.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Novato](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/MIJ-L-KIDS-COL-1118-03-01-e1763423861452.jpg\")
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