JA of Chicago's Local History

As the largest franchise in the JA organization, Junior Achievement of Chicago has made an impact on more than 4 million lives in the Chicagoland area. We continue to experience record breaking years of student outreach - last year, our economic education programs were delivered to 389,101 students throughout the twelve Chicago-area counties!  And we are on pace to reach even more students during the current school year!

In the past five years alone, Junior Achievement of Chicago has reached more than 1 million students, and our programs have grown over 175% in the past decade. This is due to the overwhelming success of the elementary and whole school programs and the continued partnerships with area companies and schools.

Chartered in 1940, Junior Achievement of Chicago's roots began with the JA Company Program and followed in the path of the National History throughout the decades.

With the inception of the Elementary School Programs in the early 1990s, Junior Achievement of Chicago pioneered the Whole School Sponsorship Model, which matched corporate funding with their employee's volunteer resources. The success of this plan created tremendous growth for Junior Achievement of Chicago with annual student outreach growing at more than 20% annually through the decade.

While this is a remarkable growth rate, the demand for our programs still far outweighs our resources. To ensure we can reach even more youth in the Chicago area, we have put together a strategic growth plan with the help of our board of directors. 

While our growth plan focuses on new ways to expand our outreach, it first and foremost focuses on program impact. We believe that in order to make the best use of every investment made by our supporters, we must continually prove that JA programs have a positive impact on the students we reach, as well as the volunteers who deliver our programs.  We recently focused on two important research projects that will have lasting, positive implications for JA in the Chicago area, and JA offices throughout the world!  You can read more about these groundbreaking studies on our evaluations page.  

While we're doing great work in the Chicago area, JA of Chicago is only one of many JA offices around the globe. JA of Chicago is a member of JA Worldwide, and a part of a global organization that operates in over 100 countries and reaches over 8 million students annually.  To read more about JA Worldwide, find information about other JA offices, or read more about our history, visit www.ja.org.