Our Story
Our Mission
is to equip K-12 students and their families for economic advancement.
Our Vision
is for all people achieving financial success!
Our Method
is a long-term investment in youth growing up in low-income households by equipping them with knowledge, tools and assets to become financially independent adults.
Program Key Concepts
Education
Financial education is the cornerstone of our program. Classes are held throughout the school year. The course content provides students with the tools to be financially literate adults who can break the cycle of poverty. Leadership lessons are included in each class.
Financial Asset Building
Students gain access to key financial tools such as savings and credit through their educational success. Students earn money in the program conditional to their grades, behaviors and attendance at school. A minimum of 60% of these earnings are held in long-term savings accounts that can be accessed at High School Graduation. The remaining 40% of earnings may be spent during supervised shopping trips. This hands-on learning experience provides the opportunity to write budgets, comparison shop, balance a checkbook, give charitably, provide for their families and so much more. We work with students to obtain a driver's license and establish a positive credit history —
two critical steps youth must take on the path to economic advancement.
Mentoring
Each student is paired with a volunteer mentor. Mentoring relationships have a significant positive affect on the education, daily life and future of at-risk youth. Job Foundation mentors serve as long-term positive adult role models for students in our program.
History
The Job Foundation was founded in 2006 and is committed to ending financial hardship by elevating the financial position of children. Founder of The Job Foundation, Jennifer Corey-Brost, had a front row seat in seeing financial hardship and the impact on children and families. During her sophomore year of college (mid 1990s), Jennifer purposely moved into a Section 8 apartment building where she and her roommates ministered 24/7 to persons trapped in severe financial hardship. She became better educated about cyclical poverty and the difficulties people with lower incomes face.
A few years later, while her husband attended Seminary, the couple faced their own hardship. Their first child was stillborn. They named him Job. After experiencing a devastating loss, Jennifer could not imagine how her friends from the apartment building could recover from hardships without extensive help to re-establish self-sufficiency.
The couple sought to bring good out of their grief by establishing The Job Foundation as 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that would address the financial needs Ms. Brost saw so clearly in that apartment building. The Brosts came to see that sound financial decision making and the offering of earned financial resources as beneficial methods for fostering economic advancement.
