COLUMBUS, Ohio — JPMorgan Chase announced a $7 million investment into Columbus on Tuesday.
The investment is part of the company’s global career readiness initiative. Five other cities in the United States were selected.
Part of the global initiative includes a $75 million commitment to help prepare young people for their futures and careers and a $30 billion commitment to advance racial equity and drive an inclusive economic recovery.
The initiative brings together educators, employers and partners from the Ohio Department of Education, Columbus City Schools, Columbus State Community College and The Ohio State University.
“To hear there’s a large amount of money that was given for these efforts is wonderful, but if it’s being filtered through the same organizations, it doesn’t make a community feel any better, that efforts would be any different,” Destiny Brown said.
Destiny Brown lives in Columbus’s Milo Grogan area with her four children and husband.
When it comes to education, she thinks there are enough programs for children, but feels the services don’t know who they are serving very well.
“They’re great, but the understanding of the need for accessibility, hours of operation, stipulation, eligibility requirements, those types of things are the issues. It’s not that the programs don’t exist, but you have to understand to understand the community you’re serving,” Brown said.
JPMorgan’s investment will target K-12, community colleges, universities and policymakers.
“There are lots of other problems by the way that we should knowledge one day that we have failed as a society to fix, and one of them is education, all these kids should know working is kind of fund you can get a paycheck, there’s all these different jobs, cause the first job is dignity, that first job is the first rung in the ladder, that first job is better social outcomes,” said CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon.
This investment from JPMorgan Chase is in career pathways and is a specific type of program.
The initiative focuses on strengthening several areas like education policies, training and workforce solutions, technology, health care, racial equity, advancing manufacturing and inclusive economic recovery.
“Before you truly invest in expansion of some of the things that are already there, I think we really should take time to evaluate the policies in place,” Brown said.
The CEO of the company said every company has a responsibility to lift up the community. He also agreed with the topic of policies.
“The really important thing is policy, policy. Policy because we can say a lot of things and have a lot of money, but if we don’t get the policy right at a local level, it doesn’t work, so I am completely gratified,” Dimon said.
When Brown heard about the investment, she said she would suggest working with grassroot groups, not just large scale partners or elected officials.
“I would have loved to felt better about such a large investment in community but it is the same players, so it’s hard to believe that it’ll be different,” Brown said.
She said it would work better with bottom-up approach and working with those groups that are in the community.
Brown said she feels most of the real issues are from a legislative standpoint. As for this investment, she said she’s going to try to stay hopeful.
“It’s a good step in the right direction, but I just pray it would actually be different,” Brown said.
We reached back out to JPMorgan Chase about this reaction and were sent this:
”Too many young people do not have access to the education, skills and experiences they need. To make a sustained impact, it’s critical that businesses, government and communities come together and help young people have equitable access to economic opportunity. Working with local partners is key to this effort and will help support the successful transition of young people from K-12 to higher education and well-paying careers.”