In this episode of the Investing in Impact podcast, I sit down with Yigal Kerszenbaum, Managing Partner at JFF Ventures, to explore how a mission driven investment fund partners with a national nonprofit to expand access, skills, and quality jobs for working adults.

Yigal shares his immigrant journey and why it fuels his commitment to opportunity creation. The conversation covers the structure that aligns JFF’s nonprofit mission with a return driven venture fund, the rise of AI in the workforce, and concrete portfolio examples that move people from learning to earning.

Key takeaways

• JFF is a forty year old nonprofit with deep networks in education and workforce, JFF Ventures is its aligned venture fund
• The fund backs products that move adults from learning to earning, with a focus on those earning under fifty thousand dollars per year
• Portfolio companies like Pace AI, Manifest, and Major League Hacking show the thesis in action
• AI can both disrupt and enable, the opportunity is to use it to widen access, lower training costs, and improve job performance
• The structure shares financial upside with the nonprofit, reinforcing the mission as companies scale

What is JFF and how JFF Ventures fits in

Jobs for the Future is a forty year old national nonprofit focused at the intersection of education and work. Its North Star is to help tens of millions of adults transition into quality jobs.

The organization has deep on the ground expertise, with hundreds of practitioners working across all fifty states and strong relationships with community colleges, employers, and public agencies.

JFF Ventures is the investment arm aligned to that mission. It operates as a traditional venture capital fund with an impact thesis, backing founders who build products that increase economic mobility for adults earning less than fifty thousand dollars per year.

The fund invests in pre seed and seed rounds, typically with an initial check near five hundred thousand dollars and reserves for follow on.

A structure that aligns impact and outcomes

Yigal helped spin up the first iteration of this approach while at the Rockefeller Foundation, then partnered with JFF to launch the current platform.

The design is straightforward, the nonprofit has meaningful participation in the upside of the fund. When portfolio companies scale and succeed, financial benefits flow back to JFF, strengthening programs that serve learners and workers.

It is a model that keeps incentives aligned, connects founders to real users, and channels returns into mission.

The learn to earn thesis

JFF Ventures maps the journey from skills to employment to advancement, then removes barriers along the way.

• Education technology, helping adults acquire in demand skills faster
• Workforce technology, connecting skilled learners to real jobs and fair assessments
• HR technology, improving success on the job and opening internal mobility
• Benefits and wraparound supports, reducing drop off due to childcare, transportation, or unexpected costs

The target market is large and often overlooked. While individual purchasing power may be modest, together this segment represents a massive need and a sizable opportunity for founders.

Portfolio snapshots

Pace AI - An end to end AI agent that accelerates English language acquisition for adult learners pursuing technical training and essential skills. The founder’s lived experience, as the child of immigrants navigating language barriers, shaped a product that resonates with schools and partners. Pace sells directly to adult education programs and partners like Pearson to support GED preparation for ESL learners.

Manifest - An AI powered business companion and upskilling platform for small and midsize businesses on Main Street. Manifest goes deep by vertical, starting with doggy daycares, salons, and funeral homes. Owners get real time insights to run healthier businesses, employees gain tailored upskilling that improves service and career prospects.

Major League Hacking - A community that runs large scale hackathons for hundreds of thousands of students. Participants work on real world problems, build portfolios, and connect to internships and jobs. The organization partners with leading tech companies that value hands on experience. There is growing interest in carefully expanding programs into high schools, where early exposure can spark entrepreneurial pathways.

Check out the full portfolio.

AI and the future of work

AI is already changing entry level roles, and it will continue to automate repetitive tasks. JFF Ventures sees both risk and real promise.

The practical stance is clear, people across the wage spectrum need AI fluency to stay resilient, and founders can use AI to lower the cost of learning, personalize training, and boost on the job performance.

Pace AI is a live example, using AI to remove a language barrier that once blocked access to quality jobs.

Why this model matters

Pairing a national nonprofit with an investment fund gives founders a fast line to real users, real buyers, and expert feedback.

It shortens the path to product market fit, increases the odds of adoption in systems that can be hard to navigate, and shares upside with the community doing the day to day work of workforce transformation.

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Podcast Q&A Transcript

Grant: Before we dive deeper into JFF and the venture fund, I’d like to hear your personal journey. What led you here?
Yigal: I’ve spent my career at the intersection of finance, impact, and innovation. Early on, I worked in Latin America on inclusive finance, then in Africa and Southeast Asia on access to energy and healthcare. For the last seven or eight years, I’ve focused on the future of work and adult education. Personally, I’m an immigrant. I came to the U.S. not speaking English, with my family carrying little more than a single wooden crate. My parents took a huge risk, but it gave us access to opportunities that helped us move into the middle class. Family members who stayed in countries without strong education or job access are still in similar positions as forty years ago. That contrast fuels my passion for investing in tools that create access and opportunity for underserved communities.

Grant: Let’s talk about JFF as an organization. What does it do, and what has it accomplished?
Yigal: JFF is a forty-year-old national nonprofit with deep expertise in workforce and education. Its North Star is to help seventy-five million working adults transition into quality jobs within the next decade. JFF has around three hundred experts active in all fifty states across areas like higher education, workforce development, returning citizens, climate jobs, and green energy. In addition, about seventy percent of U.S. community colleges are part of JFF’s networks, which gives incredible reach into the college-to-career transition.

Grant: How did JFF Ventures come about, and why was this the right move for you?
Yigal: I’m the founding managing partner, along with my colleague, Rie Raja. The earliest version of this work began at the Rockefeller Foundation, where I managed its impact investing portfolio. Rockefeller actually coined the term “impact investing” back in 2007. What we realized was that national nonprofits, like JFF, have tremendous networks and expertise but historically stayed away from technology and innovation. In 2017, we identified JFF as an ideal partner because of its reach and credibility. We explored what a fund associated with a nonprofit could look like, including a structure where the nonprofit would share in the upside. A year later, we officially launched JFF Ventures, and we’ve been building ever since.

Grant: So the nonprofit itself shares in the carry when portfolio companies succeed?
Yigal: Correct. We designed the fund so that JFF has real skin in the game. Founders we back are solving massive social problems while also building scalable companies. If those companies succeed, JFF benefits financially, which supports its mission. This alignment makes the model powerful and replicable for others.

Grant: Who provided the earliest funding?
Yigal: Our pilot fund was supported by Rockefeller, Walmart, Kellogg, Joyce, and ECMC Foundations. It was small by design—a sandbox that allowed us to test the model and help JFF understand what it meant to work with a venture fund. From those lessons, we launched JFF Ventures EMF Fund One—the Economic Mobility Fund. It’s a $50 million pre-seed and seed fund focused on the learn-to-earn ecosystem, especially for adults earning under $50,000 annually.

Grant: What’s the average check size?
Yigal: Our initial checks average around $500,000, with $1–2 million reserved for follow-on rounds.

Grant: Walk us through your investment thesis and focus areas.
Yigal: We’re focused on the 129 million U.S. adults earning under $50,000 a year. Collectively, it’s a massive underserved market with urgent needs. Our investments follow the learn-to-earn journey:

• Education technology: What skills do you need to launch a career?
• Workforce technology: Once you have the skills, how do you connect to employment? This includes labor marketplaces, job search platforms, and assessment tools.
• HR technology: How do you succeed and advance once you’re on the job? These tools help employers manage talent and create internal mobility.
• Benefits and wraparound supports: Childcare, transportation, or medical emergencies can push workers out of jobs. We back tools that remove these barriers.

Grant: Can you share examples of portfolio companies?
Yigal: Absolutely. One is Pace AI, an AI agent that helps ESL learners fast-track English skills for technical training and essential jobs. The founder, Victoria, has a powerful personal story—her father, an engineer, worked as a dishwasher until he learned English. Since our investment, Pace has grown revenues twenty-fold and found strong product-market fit. They partner with adult schools and recently with Pearson to support GED prep for ESL learners.

Another is Manifest, an AI-powered business companion for small and midsize businesses. They go deep into specific verticals like doggy daycares, salons, and funeral homes. Owners get real-time insights to run their businesses, and employees get upskilling opportunities. It’s addressing Main Street businesses that have long been overlooked.

We also back Major League Hacking, which organizes hackathons for hundreds of thousands of students worldwide. They give participants real-world problems to solve, translating into skills, portfolios, and internships. About 9% of software engineers in the U.S. have attended an MLH event, which is extraordinary.

Grant: Could Major League Hacking expand into high schools?
Yigal: They’ve piloted some high school hackathons and want to do more. The challenge is logistics—events often last 36 hours and require overnight commitments. Still, with AI tools becoming more accessible, younger students can build real solutions earlier than ever. We’d love to expose them to that mindset and camaraderie.

Grant: Given how AI is reshaping entry-level jobs, what’s your perspective on its impact?
Yigal: There’s real concern about automation displacing repetitive jobs, especially for frontline workers under the $50K threshold. At the same time, AI can also unlock opportunities for higher-value roles. The key is resilience—everyone needs AI literacy, whether you’re using OpenAI, Gemini, or other tools. Some companies will replace jobs with AI, but many founders are building tools that help people learn faster, cheaper, and work more effectively. Pace AI is a perfect example of AI used for empowerment, not displacement.

Grant: Finally, what does the future look like for JFF Ventures over the next three to five years?
Yigal: First, we need to prove our thesis with EMF Fund One—showing that we can back great companies that deliver both impact and returns. Within three years, we plan to raise Fund Two, then Fund Three, building a long-term platform. We also want to keep improving how we support founders. We invest early, which comes with responsibility, so we aim to be the most value-add partner on the cap table—connecting founders to JFF networks, helping them find product-market fit, and bringing in additional capital. We’re proud of what we’ve built so far, but we want to continue raising the bar.

Grant: Amazing. Thanks so much for taking the time. I know you’re busy, but I appreciate you reflecting on this journey and sharing your vision. Best of luck to you and the team in the years ahead.
Yigal: Thank you, Grant. I appreciate the thoughtful questions and the conversation. All the best to you as well.