What We Do

Strategic Focus Areas

JFF focuses on five key areas where we can be a leading engine to drive equitable impact:

Strategic-Focus-Areas-icons-01.png

Creating learner and worker opportunity

Despite our best efforts, economic inequity continues to plague our society, with widening access, outcomes, and wealth gaps affecting millions of people.

Our Goal

We will transform education, employment, and talent advancement systems to address systemic and structural barriers to equitable economic opportunity—including an intentional focus on Black learners and workers.

Strategic-Focus-Areas-icons-02.png

Strengthening education and career navigation

The vast world of education and training options is increasingly difficult for learners to understand and navigate.

Our Goal

We will clarify the chaotic work and learning ecosystem and empower people with data and guidance to find, finance, and flourish in personalized, lifelong career pathways.

Strategic-Focus-Areas-icons-03.png

Ensuring program quality and efficacy

With myriad new education and training providers emerging, people lack the objective information they need to assess which programs will help them meet their goals.

Our Goal

We will organize and vet the dynamic marketplace, making trusted information about what works widely available to learners, workers, investors, policymakers, and partners and spurring providers to innovate and improve.

Strategic-Focus-Areas-icons-05.png

Integrating learning and work

Prevailing models are disconnected and ill-equipped to prepare workers for our rapidly changing economy and meet employer needs.

Our Goal

We will meet unprecedented, ever-evolving labor and education market disruptions with new, integrated lifelong learning models that prioritize real-world work experience.

Strategic-Focus-Areas-icons-04.png

Building strong regional economies

Inadequate education and workforce systems, isolated from regional economic strategies and innovative national approaches, hamper regional growth and development.

Our Goal

We will apply innovative and proven national practices at the local level to grow agile, resilient, inclusive, and globally competitive regional economies—and scale effective local programs at the national level.

Our Approach

Jobs for the Future (JFF) drives transformation of the American workforce and education systems to achieve equitable economic advancement for all.

Design

Working with stakeholders from across the ecosystem, we bring evidence-based models and solutions to life.

Examples:

Scale

We curate solutions that have potential to grow, and leverage our national networks of leaders to drive change in systems and distribute tools, resources and strategies.

Examples:

Influence

We shape policy that strengthens the labor market at the federal, state, and local levels and drive the conversation for education, workforce, and industry leadership nationwide.

Examples:

Invest

We invest capital and re-grant resources to incubate new solutions, accelerate innovation, and drive impact.

Examples: