New Profit is a venture philanthropy organization created by and for social entrepreneurs. It states, “We back breakthrough social entrepreneurs through our unique model that brings together the rigor of venture capital and the humanity of the nonprofit sector.”

A current New Profit project is the Future of Work Grand Challenge—a $6 million initiative in collaboration with JFF, XPRIZE, and MIT Solve.

“We’ve identified 15 finalists that we’ve supported and paired with influential workforce boards in six cities. Those 15 solutions are on the ground, and they’re actually being validated with real job seekers, with the goal of training and placing job seekers in jobs with living wages,” explains Dr. Angela Jackson, managing partner with New Profit.

Jackson says it’s critical that the job seekers are people who have experienced barriers to employment.

“The reason that we selected the workforce boards as a public entity is because they have access to the folks who are actually looking for jobs today. So one example, the MassHire Central Region Workforce Board sent out an email to all job seekers within Massachusetts, alerting them that we had this accelerated learning opportunity. We had over 8,000 job seekers apply. So, we know today that there are many people who are looking for jobs. They’re just looking for the invitation and opportunity for jobs that actually pay living wages,” says Jackson.

The Challenge has a goal of training 25,000 job seekers over a two-year period.

Click here to learn more about New Profit.

WorkingNation—a collaborating partner of the ASU+GSV Summit—spoke with Jackson in San Diego as part of our #WorkingNationOverheard social media series.

Hear from more innovators in education and tech in the public, private, and nonprofit spheres attending the ASU+GSV Summit 2021 here.

Follow the conversation on social media: #asugsvsummit #workingnationoverheard