| 1983 | JFF founded by Arthur White and Hilary Pennington; their goal: to help states revamp education and workforce systems to meet the needs of today's economy. |
| 1984-1989 | JFF
works with state leaders to define the needs of their education and
workforce systems and to implement initiatives and partnerships that
address those needs. JFF’s first statewide program, Jobs for
Connecticut's Future, is followed by others in Arkansas, Colorado,
Indiana, Mississippi, and Missouri. |
| 1990-1993 | JFF’s National Youth Apprenticeship Initiative develops innovative models for
linking employers with schools to improve career pathways for young
people. |
| 1992-2002 | JFF organizes and hosts the annual National Leadership Forum on School-to-Work Transition. |
| 1994 | JFF
helps shape and support the emerging school-to-career movement, with
essential contributions to the School To Work Opportunities Act. |
| 1994-2000 | JFF
leads the Benchmark Communities Initiative, a demonstration of a
comprehensive school-to-career effort as a central component in a
community's core educational strategy. |
| 1995 | JFF
works with BellSouth to implement the Connections—School to Work
Program, demonstrating the effectiveness of partnerships between
schools and local employers. |
| 1995 | JFF
launches the National School-to-Careers Network to help local
school-to-career partnerships and organizations exchange ideas and
strategies. |
| 1996 | JFF's Revitalizing High Schools details effective strategies to revitalize America's high schools. |
| 1997-2007 | JFF, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers collaborate in Workforce Innovation Networks—WINs—testing
the proposition that employer organizations can improve the economic
prospects of disadvantaged job-seekers while meeting the needs of
member firms. |
| 1998 | JFF
partners with the Committee for Economic Development on The Employer's
Role in Linking School and Work, identifying and promoting practical
strategies to engage employers in school-to-work initiatives. |
| 1998-2003 | JFF’s Connected Learning Communities Network applies best practices that help
young people succeed in high school and postsecondary education and
advance to family-supporting careers. |
| 1998-2002 | JFF,
in partnership with New Ways to Work, leads the School-to-Work
Intermediary Project and a 50-community Intermediary Network to
strengthen local organizations that connect schools, workplaces, and
other local resources. |
| 1999 | JFF works with the New Deal Task Force in the United Kingdom on the U.K./U.S. Welfare-to-Work Symposium to develop strategies to revamp the British welfare-to-work system. |
| 2000 | JFF organizes Low-Wage Workers in Today’s Economy,
two-day conference that brought together national experts from diverse
viewpoints and constituencies to discuss a common agenda: how our
nation can help low-income Americans secure better employment and
achieve long-term economic self-sufficiency. |
| 2000-2005 | JFF’s From the Margins to the Mainstream seeks practical answers to the
question of how school systems can take advantage of breakthrough
possibilities offered by emerging, powerful learning environments. |
| 2001 | JFF
makes its first investment in a social business venture, Origin, Inc.,
a market-driven company designed to place and support low-income adults
in entry-level and mid-range information technology jobs. |
| 2001 | JFF forms a strategic partnership with Year Up, a start-up organization
that works with schools and other community partners to prepare urban
youth for both college and entry-level careers information technology. |
| 2002-present | JFF is lead coordinator and policy advocate for the Early College High
School Initiative, a five-year effort by the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation and others to create over 240 small high schools that ultimately will serve over 95,000 students each year.
|
| 2002-present | The MetLife Foundation Awards for Community College Excellence,
coordinated by JFF, reward exemplary efforts in promoting educational
and economic advancement for underserved youth and adults. |
| 2003 | With support from the U.S. Department of Labor, JFF’s Career
Advancement Strategy Competition identifies exemplary organizations and
help them refine and expand their successful approaches. |
| 2003 | JFF convenes Double the Numbers: Increasing Postsecondary Credentials
for Underrepresented Youth, a national conference exploring innovative
strategies to increase postsecondary completion for underserved youth. |
| 2003-present | JFF helps design, launch, and implement SkillWorks: Partners for a
Productive Workforce, an ambitious effort to create a workforce
development system that helps low-skill, low-income residents of Boston
move to family-sustaining jobs and helps employers find and retain
skilled employees. |
| 2004-present | JFF partners in Achieving the Dream: Community
Colleges Count, a national initiative that promotes change to improve
student success at community colleges. The initiative works on multiple
fronts—including efforts at community colleges and in research, public
engagement, and public policy—and emphasizes the use of data to drive
change. |
| 2004-present | JFF’s Double the Numbers initiative advances state and national
policies that can significantly increase the number of young people who
make it to and through college. |
| 2004 | JFF releases Double the Numbers: Increasing Postsecondary Credentials for Underrepresented Youth,
a book of essays highlighting emerging strategies at the state,
district, and school levels that can increase postsecondary outcomes for
low-income and minority youth. |
| 2004-present | JFF partners with the University Park Campus School and Clark University in the UPCS/Clark Institute for Student Success,
which trains practitioners to implement leadership and instructional
techniques that lead to outstanding results for educationally
underserved students |
| 2004-present | The Annie E. Casey and Ford Foundations, working with Jobs for the Future, launch Investing in Workforce Intermediaries, a collaborative effort to seed a national support infrastructure for workforce intermediaries. |
|
2005 |
|
| 2005-present | JFF, NCWE, and the C.S. Mott Foundation collaborate in Breaking Through: Helping Low-Skilled Adults Enter and Succeed in College and Careers,
which promotes and enhances the efforts of community colleges to help
low-literacy adults prepare for and succeed in occupational and
technical degree programs. |
| 2005-present | JFF’s Connected by 25 initiative focuses on improving options and outcomes for the
large group of young people for whom the road to a productive adulthood
is interrupted prematurely.. |
| 2005-present | JFF and Achieve collaborate in Moving Forward: High Standards and High Graduation Rates,
a policy initiative to enhance state capacity to collect leading
indicators of dropping out and to use those indicators to assess the
value of their investments. |
|
2006 |
Elected leaders, educators, researchers, and foundation officials assemble for Accelerated Learning: Shaping Public Policy to Serve Underrepresented Youth. Sponsored by JFF and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, the forum marks an important evolutionary step for this innovation, providing a venue to identify and debate key issues and catalyze further research. |
|
2006-present |
JFF’s Making Good on a Promise addresses a critical question: Are pathways available to help dropouts pursue an education and move toward an economically productive adulthood? Responding to the question, Addressing America’s Dropout Challenge, from JFF and the Center for American Progress, calls upon Congress to enact the Graduation Promise Act of 2007. |
|
2006-present |
Jobs to Careers: Promoting Work-Based Learning for Quality Care, a national initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in collaboration with the Hitachi Foundation, supports partnerships to advance and reward the skill and career development of incumbent workers providing care and services on the front lines of our health and health care systems. JFF serves as the national program office. |
| 1983-present | JFF
partners with hundreds of states, communities, and nonprofit and
for-profit organizations in order to strengthen our society by creating
educational and economic opportunity for those who need it most. |
