Culture & Values

Living Our Values: From Theory to Practice

Core values are only meaningful when they’re lived out each and every day. From our incredible Corps members to our dedicated staff and leadership team, we recognize that we’re stronger and more effective in preparing America’s children when we do it together, so we hold each other mutually accountable for living out these core values at the individual and organizational levels.

From Boston to LA, you will find Jumpstart’s values hanging on office walls, hear staff members talking about our quarterly staff value awards, and even find them listed within our email signatures.

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Learning

Drive progress through curiosity and determination, leaving room for mistakes and unexpected outcomes. Build new knowledge, incorporate diverse perspectives, and embrace innovation and creativity.
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Joy

Incorporate fun and excitement into our daily work. celebrate success in genuine ways and treat each other with respect
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Social Justice

Relentlessly champion a more equitable world by dismantling systems of oppression and racism. Reflect critically on the ways we are impeding our own efforts and work to change them.
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Inclusive Leadership

Model language and actions that demonstrate compassion, vulnerability, and transparency. Share power. Ensure that everyone impacted by a decision has the means to influence the outcome.
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Community

Build connections across diverse backgrounds and nurture strong, inclusive relationships to champion quality education for children. Cultivate shared goals and trust through thoughtful internal and external partnership to achieve greater impact than any individual effort.

Behind the Scenes: The Magic of Working at Jumpstart

Jumpstart’s success depends upon the ability of our passionate and driven staff to perform to their full potential and uphold the inspiring vision that unifies us. To do this, our culture is defined by our core values and reflects our mission.

To better define our shared efforts, we strive to make our organization reflect a classroom environment where we challenge each other to: learn, play, and build relationships.

Learn

Never be satisfied with the status quo. We are always striving to improve and become a stronger, better organization. We take risks individually and as an organization in order to feed innovation; we share our lessons learned through evaluation and research to better ourselves and inform other partners in early education.

Play

Working with children, it is important to keep our sense of playfulness alive and well-developed. As staff, we see the benefits of play in increased creativity, innovation, reduced stress, and a more joyful work environment. Through play, we build connections and practice skills that enable us to look at problems from different perspectives.

Build Relationships

Authentic relationships provide the foundation for our unified work together across disciplines, geographies, and functions. Connection within the organization makes our shared work more efficient, enjoyable, and effective.

Together, we can help all children build the key language and literacy skills they need to take on the world.

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