A Top Funder of Workforce Development Moves to Ramp Up its Focus on Youth

Bridging the gap between today’s job training and the jobs of tomorrow means peering into the future. Without farsighted interventions, McKinsey estimates that between 400 and 800 million workers around the world may be displaced by automation and emerging technologies by 2030. 

A range of private foundations and corporate funders that support workforce development are grappling with the uncertainties created by the rapid transformation of the global economy. Some are mainly worried about the fate of the many millions of workers who may land on the wrong side of a growing digital divide, consigned to dead-end jobs or no work at all. Others, especially multinational companies that depend on large numbers of employees, are concerned about finding enough skilled workers in the coming decades.

One of the biggest players in the workforce funding space in recent years has been JPMorgan Chase. The giant bank has not only ramped up its philanthropy since 2013; it’s also sharpened its grantmaking focus, zeroing in on issues of economic opportunity—and especially jobs and skills.

Now, as JPMorgan Chase rolls out yet another piece of its far-reaching work in this area—a $75 million commitment to helping at-risk youth—here are five things to know about what this influential funder is up to.

1.  The Big Picture 

JPMorgan Chase engages in broad, concerted efforts to boost economic opportunity through workforce development, efforts that often work in concert with its major investments in struggling urban neighborhoods. In 2013, the bank invested $250 million over five years in New Skills at Work, an initiative that helped nearly 150,000 youth and adults gain the necessary skills and credentials to access middle-skills jobs. Last year, it raised the stakes with a $350 million, five-year global commitment to align high-quality education and upskill training pathways with emerging needs. Approaches include a $200 million investment in digital and technical career mobility, $125 million to boost education and training systems that connect to good jobs, and $25 million to mine actionable labor market data.

2. Focusing on Youth

Part of the JPMorgan Chase jobs and skills strategy focuses on students, beginning with the $75 million Skills for Youth initiative it launched in 2015. In the course of the five-year commitment, the company says the program helped “tens of thousands of students in eight countries, 10 states and more than 20 cities” compete for well-paying jobs. As those grants phase out, JPMC recently announced a new five-year, $75 million commitment to the program, bringing the total support to $150 million. The latest initiative means multimillion-dollar investments in 10 sites globally, with a focus on leveraging employer partnerships to match supply and demand, and removing barriers for disadvantaged cohorts. Work aims to create three key pathways: access to higher education, exposure to real-world work experience, and a “seamless” glide path between high school, post-secondary education and career opportunities. 

3. Geographies

Six of those sites are within the U.S., starting with Denver. Four are international. The nine additional sites have already been selected, and will be announced “in the coming months.”

Sarah Steinberg, vice president of global philanthropy for JPMorgan Chase, says Denver was selected to receive an additional $7 million based on the program’s success there. Data shows that the $4 million already invested in the site was money well spent. The odds of on-time graduation rates for at-risk youth increased by 40 percent for students participating in two to five CareerConnect courses, or work-based summer immersion learning. And students who participated in more than five courses fared even better, increasing their odds of graduating by 90 percent.

Steinberg says Denver also models the kind of collaboration that creates “seamless” career readiness partnerships. Ideally, that includes the public school system, at least one community college and four-year institution, a nonprofit coordinator, state agencies, and a policy lead grantee—in Denver’s case, the Denver Education Attainment Network.  

4. Pathways and Partnerships

Besides site-specific relationships, two partnerships will support the six sites across America. A $6 million grant to Education Strategy Group, a mission-driven consulting firm that advances strategies to achieve postsecondary degrees, will provide tech assistance, cross-site learning and convening. And a $5 million grant to Advance CTE, will fund research and resources to meet goals, and enable lesson sharing across the broader base of communities. 

New Skills at Work’s partner in forecasting future workforce opportunities is MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE), which is developing an in-depth understanding of how technologies are transforming the digital economy, from automation to AI. And this time around, the program’s inclusive growth strategies will be guided by the evidence-based solutions proposed by JPMC’s relatively new PolicyCenter, which launched in October.  

5. A Larger Movement

As previously reported in Inside Philanthropy, corporate financial services foundations are investing big in reducing the mismatch between jobs and skills for the future workforce. Four years ago, Bank of America invested $40 million. Capital One invested $150 million in an Obama-era TechHire initiative. And the Citi Foundation’s response to helping youth compete for jobs, Pathways to Progress, launched with $50 million in 2014, and added $100 million in 2017. Recently, it committed an additional $100 million to the program by 2020, with the goal of impacting a half-million youth globally. 

So where will the jobs be? Across the board for youth and adults, Sarah Steinberg sees high demand in growing fields like healthcare technology and cybersecurity. The difference for students, she says, is in the approach. Rather than upskilling, high schoolers need expanded real-world life experiences and education and training beyond high school—pathways that are “not terminal,” and can lead from post-secondary tech training to community college associates and four-year bachelor’s degrees. The places that do really well at establishing those connections, she says, put students in the “sweet spot.”