Jobs for the Future Backs Fair Chance Sports

A Competitive National Selection

The JFFLabs Entrepreneurs-in-Residence program is built around one idea: that the people closest to the problem are best positioned to solve it. The cohort is selected through a competitive national recruitment process and brings together early-stage founders whose work sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence and worker-informed design.

Will Taylor was selected into the AI & Worker-Informed Design cohort, supported by Siegel Family Endowment. The cohort is deliberately small. It is built for founders at the earliest stages — people who are still defining the shape of their work and need access to the infrastructure, networks, and domain expertise that JFFLabs provides.

What JFFLabs Is

JFFLabs is the innovation arm of Jobs for the Future, one of the most respected workforce development organizations in the United States. JFF's work has shaped national policy on workforce equity, economic mobility, and post-secondary pathways for decades. JFFLabs is where that institutional experience meets early-stage innovation — a space where founders working on the hardest problems in workforce development can get direct access to JFF's research, networks, and field expertise.

Being selected into a JFFLabs EIR cohort is not a grant. It is a strategic partnership. JFF is making a bet on the founder and on the work. That matters.

Worker-Informed Design at the Core

The cohort's specific focus — AI & Worker-Informed Design — is central to what Fair Chance Sports is building. Worker-informed design means that the people who will actually use a tool, navigate a system, or benefit from a program are involved in shaping it from the start. It is the opposite of designing for a population rather than with them.

That principle is not new to Fair Chance Sports. Back in the Game was built that way. The peer facilitation model, the curriculum sequence, the workbook structure — all of it was developed in close collaboration with the people inside Arizona State Prison Kingman who were going to go through it. Larry Stephens, the peer facilitator, is not an outside instructor who shows up to teach a class. He is a product of the same system as the participants, and he brought that perspective into every design decision.

The AI layer of Fair Chance Sports' work follows the same logic. The platform is not being designed for returning citizens. It is being designed with them.

What This Means for Fair Chance Sports

JFF's backing is a signal. It tells partners, funders, and the broader workforce development field that Fair Chance Sports is not a charity project — it is an early-stage organization building something credible and durable.

It also unlocks something more immediate: direct access to JFFLabs' research infrastructure, peer network of EIR cohort members, and the field expertise of an organization that has spent thirty years working on workforce equity. For a founder at the stage Will Taylor is at, that infrastructure is not just useful. It is decisive.

The endorsement also validates the specific approach. JFF did not have to select a founder building for returning citizens and incarcerated learners. They chose this work because the methodology is sound and the problem is real.

“Being selected by JFFLabs is not just a vote of confidence in Fair Chance Sports. It is a vote of confidence in the people this organization exists to serve. JFF understands what it means to build with workers rather than for them. That alignment is exactly why this partnership matters.” — Will Taylor, Executive Director