JP Morgan Chase 2015 Annual Report Download - page 72

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Corporate Responsibility
CR R26 FINAL
Peter Scher
Peter Scher
Head of Corporate Responsibility
In today’s economy, too many people
– particularly too many young
people – are being left behind. More
than 5 million young Americans
are out of school and out of work,
including more than one in five
young black adults. Reliable path-
ways to the middle class have dis-
solved. Lower-income families,
already struggling to make ends
meet, are falling even further behind.
This is not sustainable. Creating
more opportunity for more people
to participate in and share the
rewards of economic growth is a
moral and an economic imperative.
But government cannot solve this
challenge – certainly not on its own.
The private sector needs to step up
and be part of the solution.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is leveraging
the assets of our firm – our people,
expertise and technology – to help
address these trends. Each year, we
deploy more than $200 million in
philanthropic capital toward pro-
grams aimed at expanding access
to opportunity and advancing eco-
nomic mobility around the world.
We are applying the same rigor and
analysis to these eorts as we do to
other aspects of our business. Unlike
traditional models of corporate
philanthropy, our strategic invest-
ments are driven by robust data and
research. We are supporting innova-
tive research from our proprietary
data on the finances of nearly 50
million U.S. households to real-time
labor market dynamics in countries
throughout Europe and Asia.
Putting our firm’s capabilities
to work
Our eorts are focused on areas
where we can best put our firm’s
capabilities to work and where we
can most eectively drive change.
Millions of jobs in the United States
and Europe are being created that
require a high school degree but not
a four-year college degree. Through
our New Skills at Work initiative,
we are connecting job seekers to
tangible opportunities by helping
them gain the right skills for today’s
high-quality jobs. We are expanding
on this work with an ambitious
new program, New Skills for Youth,
to arm young people – particularly
those most at risk of winding up
out of school, unemployed or stuck in
low-wage jobs – with the skills and
training needed to get on the road to
a well-paying, long-term career.
Through Small Business Forward,
we are opening the doors that have
too often been shut to minority and
community-based small business
owners by creating programs and
investments that provide the capital
and support these entrepreneurs
need in order to succeed. Through
the JPMorgan Chase Institute and
the Financial Solutions Lab, we are
applying our unrivaled data and
insights into consumers’ finances and
deep technological expertise to help
low- and moderate-income house-
holds become more financially secure.
The Global Cities Initiative continues
to help cities around the world gener-
ate the economic growth that will fuel
greater opportunity. And through
Invested in Detroit, we are bringing
all these pieces together to support
and accelerate the turnaround of one
of America’s iconic cities.
All of these eorts are driven by the
conviction that creating more widely
shared prosperity – and giving more
people the opportunity to move up
the economic ladder – is not only
good for our communities, it’s good
for our company. We are very proud
of what we have accomplished in
2015 and look forward to continuing
and expanding this important work
in the year ahead.