Welcome to the Annual Report for Jumpstart’s 2017-2018 program year.
A Message from Naila
There is a saying: “Equality is giving everyone a pair of shoes; Equity is giving everyone a pair of shoes that fit.” At Jumpstart, educational equity is our goal. That means that every child in every classroom across the country will not have the same experience. We know well that formal education — the time each student spends in a classroom — does not happen in a vacuum. Every child who crosses a teacher’s threshold is walking in the door carrying their own life experiences, assets, and needs. One child may know the alphabet well already but is still working on how to explain and manage their emotions. Another may not have had many early reading experiences but is skilled at sharing and helping others. The key is to suss out: what skills has this child already learned that I can continue to nurture? Where do they need more support?
This is a challenging task — figuring out a child’s “shoe size.” But it is at the heart of what we do at Jumpstart — providing an early education solution that meets the needs of the individual children and communities we serve while also advocating for change that ensures all children have what they need no matter where they live.
Supporting Young Children through Direct Service
Jumpstart began as a direct service program with the goal of breaking the cycle of poverty by helping young children in underserved communities succeed in school. Twenty-five years later, that is still at the heart of what we do. Each year, over 4,000 community and college student volunteers (known as “Jumpstart members”) serve in preschool classrooms across the country using our evidence-based curriculum to help young children develop the language, literacy, and social-emotional skills they need to live up to their potential for success in kindergarten and beyond. Jumpstart members lower the child-to-adult ratio, and become well-loved fixtures in the classroom. And today, our program has grown and adapted to include a variety of formats designed to meet the unique needs of each community we serve, whether that be through traditional school-year service, summer or extended day programs, or through community partnerships.
Developing a High-Quality Early Education Workforce
Jumpstart is perhaps best known for the work we do to provide an evidence-based curriculum to help preschoolers in underserved areas across the country enter kindergarten prepared to succeed. But, we also know that the best way to help all children receive high-quality early education is to ensure a high-quality early childhood education (ECE) workforce. Beginning in 2017, Jumpstart expanded our focus on the ECE workforce in two ways: by developing programs that encourage and support our college student volunteers (known as “members”) to enter the teaching profession after graduation and by creating programs to work directly with current early education practitioners to support their work in the classroom.
Jumpstart’s workforce development strategy is guided by one overriding question, “How can we increase equity in early education by strengthening the quality of the ECE workforce in all communities?”
Advocating for Policies that Support High-Quality Early Education for Every Child
For twenty-five years, Jumpstart has trained thousands of college students and community volunteers to foster the development of language, literacy, and social-emotional competencies in young children from underserved communities across the country. Even as we provide the transformative power of our program to tens of thousands of children, we remain acutely aware of the needs of the millions of children in schools and communities in which Jumpstart does not yet serve. Jumpstart firmly believes that the most effective way to unlock the potential of each and every child and disrupt the cycle of persistent poverty in our country is to ensure that high-quality early education taught by qualified and effective educators is available to all.
To achieve this, Jumpstart established a Policy & Government Relations department in late 2016 to transform early childhood education in the United States through policy advocacy.
*including the District of Columbia
Our Leadership
In 2017-2018, Jumpstart’s National Board of Directors expanded to include a new, diverse group of leaders in education, finance, and philanthropy. Learn more about Jumpstart’s Board of Directors and Leadership Team here.
“I heard the CEO of the NY Women’s Foundation once say that ‘philanthropy is not about privilege, but accountability.’ This speaks to the values of our board and our commitment to stewardship and efficacy. We value board service as a calling and a commitment to our mission and ensuring we have a broad range of voices and perspectives is key to our success. Diverse boards are simply stronger boards, and we have been laser focused on achieving greater representation to optimize our effectiveness, ensuring a culture of inclusion that captures a range of experience and points of view, and most importantly to address the issue of equity as it relates to the communities and children we serve.”
– Kim Mitchell, Co-Chair of Jumpstart’s National Board of Directors
“We must demonstrate a commitment to equity at the top of our organizations to provide the right example. Bringing those from all backgrounds and experiences will give us the best chance of understanding how to provide equity for all. We are committed to leveling the playing field from the start. To do so requires the commitment to equity from all of us at the top of our society and our organizations.”
– Chris Stadler, Co-Chair of Jumpstart’s National Board of Directors
Our Finances
Revenue & Net Assets
Revenue
Operating Expense Ratios
This publication was produced prior to the completion of Jumpstart’s financial audit for Fiscal Year 2018. All figures are preliminary and subject to modifications or adjustments. You can visit our Financials page to view audited financials for previous years, and check back in early 2019 for updated financials.
Our Supporters
$500,000+
- California Volunteers
- Corporation for National and Community Service
- Corporation for National and Community Service—Senior Corps, Foster Grandparents Program
- Massachusetts Service Alliance
- New Profit
- New Yorkers Volunteer
- Chris and Loretta Stadler
- Robert and Jennifer Waldron
$250,000+
- Barr Foundation
- Connecticut Commission on Community Service
- The Einhorn Family Charitable Trust
- MFS Investment Management
- Missouri Community Service Commission
- New York City Council
- New York City Department of Youth and Community Development
- Serve DC—The Mayor’s Office on Volunteerism
$100,000+
- Thomas Connolly
- CVC Capital Partners
- The Eisner Foundation
- Franklin Templeton Investments
- David Humphrey and Markella Zanni
- Greg and Tracy Johnson
- Joshua and Anita Bekenstein Charitable Fund
- LEGO Community Fund U.S.
- Lissy Family Fund
- Jennifer and Andrew Marrus
- The Pinkerton Foundation
- Richard W. Goldman Family Foundation
- The Stocker Foundation
- The TJX Foundation
- United Way of Greater Atlanta/Joseph B. Whitehead Foundation
$50,000+
- Anonymous
- Bloomberg
- Capital Group Companies Charitable Foundation
- Early Education Funders Collaborative
- George Kaiser Family Foundation
- GGS Foundation
- The LEGO Foundation
- May and Stanley Smith Charitable Trust
- Mimi and Peter Haas Fund
- News Corp
- PwC
- The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation
- The Rose Hills Foundation
- Silver Giving Foundation
- Robert Small and Christine Olsen
- Stuart Foundation
- W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation
- The Weingart Foundation
