JA Worldwide Global Orientation Winter 2025
Welcome to JA Worldwide Global Orientation for Winter 2025
We’re Jeff Hittner and Erin Sawyer, and we’ll be your enthusiastic guides for the next 4 weeks as you embark on this exciting journey of discovery with the JA Worldwide community! 🌍✈️ (Yes, we - and you - are working hard to improve the lives of young people in over 100 countries—no big deal! 😎)
Whether it’s exploring the power of connection or making a real impact with staff from every corner of the globe, we’re here to make sure you soak it all in, laugh along the way, and leave inspired. (Oh, and in case you're wondering, when Jeff isn’t leading JA efforts, you’ll likely find him being a dad to his 4 and 7 year-old boys, exploring Spain, his new'ish home, or cooking up all things Mediterranean.)
And Erin? Well, she's just a force of nature— balancing JA's global efforts around people (and events!) and mommy'ing it to 2 amazing kids, hiking, running and skiing the mountains of Colorado (where she calls home) and traveling the world on behalf of JA.
Dive deep into our sessions
Slides and Summaries from each session
Explore the themes, presentations and collaborators from our 8 Global Orientation sessions
Week 1, Session 1: The Kickoff
The strategic plan, bonding, and more
Session 1 introduced us to Asheesh Advani, CEO of JA Worldwide, who discussed the core elements of the JA Worldwide strategic plan, the process we go through to renew it, and how it's being implemented around the globe. You also got a brief intro to one-another, how diverse we are culturally, while similarly focused on the same goals all around the globe. Check out the video from our session below and visit the File Share section to download the slide presentations.
Week 1, Session 1: The Kickoff
The strategic plan, bonding, and more
Session 1 introduced us to Asheesh Advani, CEO of JA Worldwide, who discussed the core elements of the JA Worldwide strategic plan, the process we go through to renew it, and how it's being implemented around the globe. You also got a brief intro to one-another, how diverse we are culturally, while similarly focused on the same goals all around the globe. Check out the video from our session below and visit the File Share section to download the slide presentations.
Week 1, Session 2:
JA History, Organizational Structure and Fundraising
In Session 2, delve into our organizational structure and governance, our 100+ years of JA history and how fundraising works at a JA Worldwide level - how we think about it strategically, how the funds are shared, how we partner with regions and countries and a whole lot more! Check out the video from our session below and visit the File Share section to download the slide presentations.
Week 2, Session 3:
Theory of Change, branding, oneja.org and more!
In Session 3, our JAWW COO Caroline Jenner explained the research behind our theory of change and the powerful story it can offer our donors. Meanwhile, our Chief Marketing Officer, Tere Stouffer, dove into the history of the JA brand, our new logo and branding specifications - and where to find them all - right here at oneja.org. See the video below and the presentations in the File Share section.
Week 2, Session 4:
JA Values, Your Values, and Our Education Initiatives
In Session 4, we explored JA's core values then did a unique exercise that began with us considering our heroes and finished with us understanding our values and how they relate to those of JA. Then, Stacie Fieth our VP of Education, gave us an overview of how we think about our education programs at JA.
Week 3, Session 5:
IPS and Impact Score
In Session 5, we had two great presentations from Alison and Debbie who dove into Impact Score and IPS: Inspire, Prepare, Succeed. These are the categories for how we measure engagement with young people around the world.
Week 3, Session 6:
Alumni and Gather
In Session 6, we learned all about our global alumni efforts and the technologies, like Gather, which we are using to help connect and grow this community, their voices and their impact in the world.
Week 4, Session 7:
House of Resilience, Integrity and Risk
In Session 7, we learned how we intentionally design ourselves to be financially (and innovatively and operationally) sustainable. We also learned all about issues of risk to the global (and local!) brand of JA and how to identify issues of risk and our new whistleblower website to report issues of concern. Of course, we finished off our session with more peer-to-peer learning.