Juma's History

In the early 1990’s, Juma’s founder, Diane Flannery, was the director of a nonprofit program for homeless youth in San Francisco. During her tenure there, Diane had seen countless numbers of youth get caught up in the same unfortunate cycle – they’d come into the program, receive basic services and counseling, and eventually be placed in entry-level jobs. And, all too frequently, they’d lose their jobs and return to the streets. Seeing this, Diane developed the idea to start a business that could successfully employ and train these young people. The vision was to provide work experience that created stability in these young people’s lives, helping them build the skills and self-confidence needed to move forward toward college, better jobs and brighter futures. Armed with that vision, Juma Ventures was born.

Founded in 1993 with a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop franchise in San Francisco, Juma Ventures has since become widely respected as one of the leading social enterprise and youth development programs in the U.S. Since those early days, our program has evolved considerably, to include both social enterprises where teens receive employment opportunities and a focused set of support services that complement the experience youth receive on the job, preparing them for transitions to college and career paths when they finish high school. Today, Juma is focused on developing opportunities to scale our work, in order to expand our impact with youth and create a model that informs the work of other organizations in the nonprofit sector.