Jumpstart is a nonproft social venture whose mission is to provide low-income preschoolers (4-yearolds) with educational experiences designed to develop their reading, learning, and social skills prior to entering kindergarten. It was founded by two Yale University students in 1993. The basic idea behind Jumpstart was to match these children with college students who have an interest in education and will volunteer time each week to work with them. Jumpstart’s frst engagement involved students from Yale and fifteen preschoolers in New Haven, CT ( Read for the Record, 2010a ).

The social problem that Jumpstart’s founders were seeking to address is the disadvantage that children from low-income families face in being ready for school, relative to middle- and upper-income children. Research has shown that 35 percent of U.S. children begin their K-12 education unequipped to learn ( Fast Company.com, 2005 ). This burden falls disproportionately on low-income children, who are often as much as two years behind their more economically advantaged peers in terms of reading skills and other measures of academic achievement at the time they start first grade. These problems have an impact on adulthood as well, as 29 percent of all workers in the United States are functionally illiterate. However, research also shows that investing in early learning efforts can help to mitigate this problem ( Read for the Record, 2010b ).

The Jumpstart model draws upon students who are Americorps members from partner colleges and universities around the country. These college students spend eight to ten hours per week during the academic year. Each week consists of two two-hour sessions at a local preschool.

They work in teams, providing each preschooler with one-on-one reading time, group learning time in groups of twelve children, independent learning time, and group creative activity time in a classroom environment ( Fast Company.com, 2005 ). The college student volunteers themselves represent considerable diversity in both their ethnic backgrounds and their college majors.

The largest group is White (48 percent), followed by African American (26 percent), Hispanic (15 percent), and Asian (11 percent). While Jumpstart’s original idea was to attract education majors, this group makes up only 10 percent of the current volunteers. One-quarter of group members are psychology, social work, sociology, and nursing majors. Another 11 percent are science majors, while 10 percent are business majors ( Jumpstart, 2010 ).

Jumpstart has identifed three core program objectives that it pursues: school success, future teachers, and family involvement. Relative to the school success objective, preschoolers enhance their literacy, language, emotional, and social skills. The experiences of the college student volunteers are aimed at preparing them for future positions in education leadership and teaching.

Jumpstart involves the preschoolers’ families by giving them exercises they can engage in at home with their child that are designed to reinforce classroom learning. Jumpstart also informs families of their preschooler’s progress in the program ( Jumpstart, 2010 ).

In 2004, Jumpstart expanded its efforts by engaging a new group of volunteers: senior citizens. This allowed this social venture to expand its learning centers beyond its sixty-two college partners to cover twenty-one cities in sixteen states ( Jumpstart, 2010 ; Read for the Record, 2010c ). This action refects a larger effort to aggressively grow Jumpstart that was begun by one of the social venture’s founders and then-CEO, Aaron Lieberman, in about 2000.

Lieberman undertook several initiatives to extend the reach of Jumpstart’s mission. He explored the possibility of moving from pairing each college student with one preschooler to pairing them with two children to increase the number of preschoolers assisted. Though this idea was never adopted, it opened the door to pursuing senior citizen volunteers. He also initiated a partnership with the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation of Ypsilanti, Michigan, to establish metrics for measuring impact. This led to the development of a sophisticated impact measurement system that has received considerable acclaim and attracted funding to Jumpstart. Lieberman also realized that Jumpstart was harming its ability to attract college student volunteers by requiring a two-year commitment, so he reduced the commitment to one year, or two semesters. Finally, in 2000, Lieberman and Jumpstart launched a for-proft venture called Schoolsuccess.net, which provides early childhood learning tools for teachers and parents via the Internet. The purpose of Schoolsuccess.net was to spread the mission and provide much-needed earned income revenue to Jumpstart ( Jacobson, 2000 ). Later that same year, Schoolsuccess.net entered into a partnership with Harcourt.com for the purposes of expanding its marketing capacity and tailoring its software for use by gifted children and children with special needs ( Education Editors, 2000 ). Today, Schoolsuccess.net operates under the auspices of Pearson, and the chairman of Pearson Canada sits on Jumpstart’s board of directors, as does the president of the Pearson Foundation ( Read for the Record, 2010d ).

Since its founding, Jumpstart has served over 70,000 preschoolers with millions of hours of volunteer help in developing reading, language, and emotional and social skills ( Read for the Record, 2010e ). Since 2000, when Aaron Lieberman initiated his scaling strategy, the Jumpstart network has grown at an average rate of almost 30 percent annually, making it one of the leading nonprofit organizations in the education industry ( Read for the Record, 2010a ).

Questions:

1 What kind of organizational structure does Jumpstart represent?

2 How does Jumpstart’s organizational structure refect its f nancing needs?

3 On the basis of Jumpstart’s story, what would you say is the relationship between organizational structure and growth, or mission expansion?

4 Would you say that the organizational partnerships in the Jumpstart case refect good f ts between partners? Why, or why not?

5 In your opinion, does Jumpstart have the best organizational design for pursuing its mission? Explain your answer.