Cayley Tull is co-Founder and president of the Tullman Family Office, leading its philanthropic and political giving, social impact investments and community ventures. She talks about how the family office’s community ventures connect with their overall goals:
What are community ventures, and how do they fit into your family office work?
We split our family office work into a few different core areas: traditional philanthropy, political advocacy, social impact and other for-profit investments, and what we call community ventures.
The community ventures part is what I like to describe as “philanthropy on steroids.” There are several areas that we care deeply about where we see clear inefficiencies, or where simply giving money to existing organizations wouldn’t fix the problems fast or well enough. I say that with a lot of humility, because for the most part, these are fields in which we are not experts at all. We view ourselves more as advocates and creative problem solvers.
There are a lot of potential avenues, including government and business, through which we can solve some of our country’s most difficult problems. That said, we increasingly believe philanthropy can be a catalyst in some key areas, taking on a bit of the early risk, then turning it over to the appropriate entities to operate effective, scaled programs going forward.
Two of our community ventures are JumpHire, a workforce development catalyst that we run out of Chicago, and Let Music Fill My World, a nonprofit focused on ensuring that every student in America has access to music education.
What problem is JumpHire trying to solve?
We need to do a better job of engaging overlooked talent and can do so through more effective partnerships with employers and a more cohesive approach that meets the needs of individuals who have so much untapped potential.
Before starting our own effort, we spent months engaging with existing organizations on the ground, starting in Chicago and then moving to some regional and national organizations. We asked them what was going well, what was not working and what was preventing them from implementing more innovative approaches to workforce development.
We came back with a few particularly ‘wicked’ challenges, and one in particular we identified is that the focus was too much on the supply rather than the demand. Naturally, there was great focus on the individual workers — the prospective employees — which is crucial. But if the employer engagement and commitment isn’t there, then it doesn’t matter how much you invest in an individual, because there may not be a job at the end.
What approach are you taking with JumpHire?
We flipped the traditional approach on its head. We started with the employers, and we created clear pathways that led to solid, family-sustaining jobs with distinct opportunities for professional advancement. Then we worked our way backward to the talent — the community members who had the potential and the drive but weren’t able to make those critical connections on their own. These individuals were often also experiencing real-life obstacles preventing them from pursuing and/or succeeding in that job: think childcare, mental health, access to nutritious food, transportation. We put it all into one place.
At JumpHire, we focused on roles where employers conduct the training themselves. Sometimes we hosted the training at our facility, but it was run by the employers, which proved to be a major advantage. Employers gained direct contact with prospective hires, and the participants benefitted from valuable time with potential future employers.
We worked with existing partners on the ground who provided holistic, comprehensive support. For example, in the case of childcare, we partnered with the YMCA — a trusted community pillar. No need to reinvent the wheel.
We made a commitment to get each individual into a job in six months or less, all while earning a stipend and having a one-stop shop for the aforementioned realities of life that often show up at the worst times, so that person could show up and be work-ready. We helped JumpHire participants build the 21st-century skills required to succeed in these dynamic roles: collaboration, resiliency, working on a team and communication.
This kind of approach would be extremely difficult for most nonprofits to build, test and scale — especially in under six months. Our effort required a lot of agility and flexible funding — trying things, seeing what worked and being very quick to change when something we tried wasn’t resulting in the progress we expected. JumpHire is fully funded — a nonprofit that, to date, we solely fund. In contrast, other nonprofits in this field have to deal with real funding constraints and existing structural challenges limiting how they deliver for those they serve.
What have the results been?
Last I checked, our placement success rate was upwards of 87%, which is extremely high for the workforce space. But it’s not just a numbers game. At JumpHire, we stick with people if they need a few extra months — because ultimately, it’s better for everyone. It gives participants the time they need to succeed, and it spares employers from placing someone into a role they’re not fully prepared for, or that isn’t the right fit.
We recognize that JumpHire alone won’t solve Chicago’s workforce problems, but we believe it can serve as a model for how workforce development can be done differently, and done better, if we are open to a different approach.
What is the goal of Let Music Fill My World, and how did you come to this topic?
Let Music Fill My World is focused on ensuring every student in America has access to music education. This is not just because music is beautiful — it is — but because we must ensure that young people have the tools they need to thrive in the 21st-century workplace. Music education is one of those highly underutilized, measurably effective and (bonus) currently available tools.
Through JumpHire, the feedback we kept getting from employers was that people weren’t ‘work-ready,’ which they described as not working well on teams, exhibiting subpar communication skills, lacking resiliency and more. This did not represent everyone, but it signaled a concerning pattern that employers were often not well-suited to address. We started to dig into what tools could help ensure that when a young person joins the workforce, they’re ready to thrive. That’s what led us to music and the arts.
The research is quite clear: The correlation between music education and short-term positive outcomes for youth is overwhelming, spanning improved attendance, reduced disciplinary infractions, social and emotional development, and measurable boosts in academic performance. Then, we wondered about the medium- to long-term outcomes: Do young people with consistent access to music and the arts in K-12 achieve more economic stability and prosperity in adulthood? Do they have superior 21st century skills as compared to a peer who didn’t have access to those same educational resources? There is evidence indicating this is likely true. It’s a little bit early to say definitively, so we’re funding research in this space to strengthen this case and connect music and the arts more tangibly to economic and workforce outcomes.
What approach does Let Music Fill My World take?
Let Music Fill My World is another nonprofit fully funded by our family office. The benefit of this ‘solo’ approach is that all of the partnerships we forge are based on shared mission and strategic alignment, rather than a dollar figure. We have a lot of fun dreaming big with partners in this space!
On an annual basis, we provide sustained funding to place a music teacher at a school that wouldn’t otherwise have one. We fund efforts on the ground to increase the quality of and access to curriculum, instruments and more. We are also working with national music and arts organizations to create more cohesion around our collective messaging. Imagine how powerful storytelling would become if all music education nonprofits aligned on a big-picture narrative so Americans were, in effect, reading from the same script on why music matters. With so many competing priorities, advocates for music and the arts cannot afford to be disconnected and disorganized.
How do these two community ventures connect to your overall family office goal?
Both JumpHire and Let Music Fill My World are examples of initiatives addressing areas that we think are important to Americans (economic prosperity and youth thriving), but where we don’t think the country is doing as well as it could. The link between these two programs is human potential. The bottom line is that talent and opportunity are being left on the cutting room floor, and our family has the energy and the determination to take action to create more health, wealth and prosperity for all of us. I think American author James Clear put it best in his book Atomic Habits. He wrote, “Every action you take is a vote for the kind of person you want to be.” In our family, we have no shortage of willingness to take action.