A Major Backer of Summer Youth Employment Weighs in on What Works

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Who gave you your first job? For more than 40,000 underserved youth, the answer is JPMorgan Chase. 

Linda Rodriguez, JPMC’s executive director of global philanthropy, knows what it’s like to be in their shoes. Though lacking the kinds of connections that open doors, she was accepted into New York City’s summer jobs program at 14. The program kicked off in what she describes as “a huge, warm, noisy auditorium in the Bronx,” where she joined hundreds of other young people. The excitement was palpable. “None of us could sit still,” she said. “We felt like we won the lottery.” 

It was the beginning of a career that included stints at nonprofits and a role as an assistant commissioner at the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD)—the country’s largest out-of-school-time system. Today, she’s part of the team that leads JPMorgan Chase’s global workforce development strategy, including youth initiatives like the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP).  

As the company wraps up its $17 million, five-year commitment to help disadvantaged high school students find meaningful summer employment—and by extension, their places in the workplace of the future—Rodriguez shared insights on what works when rolling out programming. 

Broader efforts

The Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) is part of JPMorgan Chase’s broader efforts to boost economic opportunity through workforce development. 

In 2013, it announced a $250 million investment over five years in New Skills at Work, an initiative that helped nearly 150,000 youth and adults gain the necessary expertise to access middle-skills jobs. In 2019, it bumped its investment in the future of work up to $350 million, again over five years, and expanded funding strategies to include community colleges and other non-traditional pathways for underserved groups, such as programming geared to helping former convicts find employment. 

Part of its overall strategy included an increased focus on youth, beginning with a $75 million Skills for Youth initiative that launched in 2015, and helped “tens of thousands of students” compete for well-paying jobs. As those grants ran their course, JPMC announced another new five-year, $75 million commitment to the program, bringing the total global support to $150 million. This time, the focus included matching skills supply with employer demand, and removing barriers for disadvantaged cohorts. 

Summer youth employment

This year marks the end of the company’s five-year, $17 million investment in helping students break barriers to economic opportunity through summer jobs. It includes a $3 million final round of funding for youth employment programs in 20 cities, a number of which have been partners from the get-go. 

Since 2017, funding has helped provide positions for more than 40,000 youth across more than 7,000 worksites, according to JPMC. 

Current support is aimed squarely at building an inclusive recovery, as economic engines hum to life following the pandemic. As previously covered in Inside Philanthropy, the resulting economic downturn made viable employment options for at-risk kids even more elusive, as the number of available jobs shrunk, and remote workers struggled to provide mentorship. Meanwhile, with school doors closed, most students lost the ability to connect virtually. 

Programs and partnerships

Still, JPMC’s network of partnerships delivered jobs and programs that stretch across private and public sectors nationwide. In the East, programs bloomed in Baltimore, Boston, Hartford, Pittsburgh, Newark and New York City. In the West, Portland, Sacramento, the Southwest Washington Region and Los Angeles hosted youth. Midwestern programs rolled out in Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Indianapolis and St. Louis. In the South, Louisville and Ft. Lauderdale conducted programs; in the Southwest, sites include Phoenix, Houston and Dallas.

In Maryland, JPMC helped the Baltimore YouthWorks Summer Jobs Program place 6,000 students in five-week internships across sectors from IT to healthcare and hospitality. The One Summer Chicago (OSC) Everyone Can Code (ECC) summer program helped kids from the city’s South Side and West Side gain the credentials that lead to post-secondary employment. And in Portland, funding for Worksystems helped deliver an experience that was adapted to COVID-19 environments that taught workplace skills to prepare young people for success when the economy fully reopens. 

What works

Rodriguez said what works has actually changed over time, as programming that was once seen as a way of keeping kids out of trouble on hot summer streets transitioned to real experiences and foundational skills development. Over the years, she’s seen a growing focus on roles that connect kids to resources within their cities and deliver credentials, like easing the transition from high school to community college by earning credit. 

But the No. 1 success factor she named is already familiar to anyone who’s failed to find their place within a workplace project or team: a mentor. Rodriguez considers supportive role models especially critical for historically marginalized populations, who need to find where they fit within the broader strategies of work, and build portable skills.

She said that’s why JPMC has moved away from job experiences that lack the kind of upfront supervisor training that results in a supportive manager who can both mentor and coach. JPMC criteria also gravitates to programs with clear partnership models, even in the application process, and organizations with a clear need for jobs and support.

The post-COVID shift to virtual programming has, of course, stymied the valuable face-to-face experiences that help youth learn the social ropes, and limited pathways to what some interns consider meaningful work. 

But Rodriguez said that even less than ideal circumstances can help young people learn skills and get a foot in the door, ranking both benefits as equally important. You learn from even the worst jobs, she said, and virtual relationships can continue beyond the boundaries of just one summer.

Moving forward 

One of the largest funders in this space, JPMC is currently refining the ways its support for summer youth employment programming will continue. It’s started surveying grantees on models and trends, and in turn, shares findings within the community of practice it’s building with partners like the Aspen Institute. 

Rodriguez finds pockets of the work especially exciting, like programs that result in credit and credentials, initiatives that deliver clear mentoring opportunities and allow students to grow skills over multiple years, like the model they fund with Apple. The review process is expected to run through the end of the year. 

Until then, Rodriguez remains invested in helping the 60% of applicants that aren’t lucky enough to land summer jobs. “At a time when millions of young people who want to work cannot get jobs, increasing summer work opportunities is critical, especially for populations that struggle to enter and succeed in the labor market.”

“When I think back to that auditorium of kids in the South Bronx who felt like lotto winners, I remember what it was like to know that I was going to work and earn a paycheck. More young people should have that feeling.”