National Job Shadow Day Coalition
Issues/Challenges:
The National Job Shadow Day Coalition (JSD) is comprised of representatives from the Department of Labor, education organizations, major corporations, America’s Promise and Junior Achievement (JA). The program helps students make the connection between success in the classroom and success in the workplace. In 2003, as the coalition embarked on its seventh year, the Lindberg Group was faced with the challenge of rejuvenating and reinventing the initiative as a result of decreased participation in the program after the events of 9/11.
Strategies:
- Collaborate with the coalition partners and map out a strategic plan to help renew participation and support for National Job Shadow Day
- Leverage local participation and generate grassroots involvement for the movement
- Develop local media awareness through an aggressive web-oriented campaign
Activities:
- Provide a series of awareness “electronic post cards” to be distributed to participants that can also be shared with others who may be interested in JSD
- Development of Hog Quest, an online scavenger hunt, aimed to attract the interest of students, bring them to the site and also to the sites of sponsoring organizations
- Host and revamp the site, adding a set of downloadable information kits on how to organize a JSD event for students written from the standpoint of educators, corporate hosts and students, thus providing simple to understand “How To” information targeted to the specific needs of each audience
- Provide students with additional information on how to work with local media though an online media guide
Results:
JSD events were broadcast on NBC Today, CBS Early Show, Fox and a number of local stations. Major papers covered the JSD activities and web visits increased 500 fold over the previous year. Lindberg Group LLC provided the coalition with an expanded and improved program that placed an estimated one million students at some 300,000 participating companies across the nation.