Spotlight On

Mission: Jumpstart’s mission is to engage young people in service to work toward the day every child in America enters school prepared to succeed.

Jumpstart improves the quality of early childhood education and promotes school success by recruiting and training college students to work one-to-one with struggling preschoolers to develop language, literacy, and social skills; promoting family involvement by providing books and learning activities for the home and working with families to set and achieve literacy goals; and encouraging college students to be future teachers through team teaching opportunities, regular assessment and feedback, and fellowships that encourage alumni to work in early learning centers.

Background: Founded in 1993 by concerned college students, parents, and Head Start staff, Jumpstart launched its first school-year program in New Haven, Connecticut with support from Yale University – and opened a second program in Boston in 1995 – to address the economic, educational, and social problems of school readiness. The following summer, Jumpstart launched its first full-time summer program and received its first grant from the AmeriCorps National Service Network.

Current Programs: Jumpstart currently partners with 50 higher education institutions in 44 communities across the country. This year alone, Jumpstart is poised to impact approximately 6,000 children in Head Start and other early learning centers and to develop 1,600 college students as future teachers and leaders in early education. In NYC alone, Jumpstart will engage over 100 college students in service this year.

Jumpstart’s early childhood education goal is to enhance the literacy, language, social, and emotional development of children through positive adult-child interaction and family involvement. Jumpstart’s philosophy and research-based approach incorporate best practices from the field of early education, including the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, and the Stony Brook Reading and Language Project’s dialogic reading method.

Jumpstart Corps members are 18-23 year-olds from 50 different colleges and universities. They commit 300 hours during a school year or 525 hours for the school year and summer program.

Jumpstart Corps members receive 60 hours of training in early childhood education and learn to facilitate children’s development following four key principles: 1) utilize developmentally appropriate practices, 2) engage children in active learning, 3) strike a balance between adult and child-initiated learning, and 4) support children’s early or emergent reading and writing. Corps members implement these principles during Jumpstart sessions through One-to-One Reading with each child; Circle Time to build a sense of community through active group learning; Choice Time to foster independence, curiosity, and self-esteem; and Group Activity to introduce common, self-paced activities, focusing on a beginning, middle, and end.

Funding Needs: Jumpstart has an annual budget of $7.5 million (FY03) and leverages nearly $10 million in total resources (Federal Work-study and Americorps funding). Jumpstart has a strong base of diverse funding support and combines conventional fundraising from individuals and foundations with innovative approaches to revenue generation through pioneering partnerships with national corporate sponsors, and a regional model for local fundraising.

Jumpstart’s ambitious growth plans will require increasing support at all levels to meet its mission to work toward the day when every child in America enters school prepared to succeed.

Every month, the "Spotlight On" highlights the activities of a different 501(c)3 nonprofit organization located in the tri-state region (NY, NJ, or CT). The selection of organizations for the "Spotlight On" is based on criteria such as programmatic interests, geographic focus, and size, to ensure the broadest possible representation of the region's nonprofit sector.

If you'd like to see your NPO in the "Spotlight," please use this submission form to send us a profile of your organization. Or e-mail a description of your organization, following the above format, to nyweb@foundationcenter.org, with "Spotlight Submission" in the subject line.