Jamko Foundation Incorporated

What it reported doing in 2025

The Maritime Apprenticeship Program (MAP) is Jamko Foundation's flagship workforce development initiative, designed to create equitable pathways into the maritime industry for Opportunity Youth and underserved communities in California. In March 2025, MAP achieved a landmark milestone: official registration as a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Registered Apprenticeship Program - currently Jamko Foundation is the only nonprofit in California to hold this designation in the merchant maritime sector. MAP operates at the intersection of workforce development, maritime heritage, and social equity. The program provides hands-on, classroom-based, and work-based vocational training, combined with wraparound support services, to prepare participants for careers as fully licensed Merchant Mariners. Upon completing a registered apprenticeship, participants enter the maritime workforce through a direct pipeline to unions and employers, with U.S. Department of Labor data (November 2024) confirming a 90% workforce retention rate for registered apprenticeship graduates nationally. During the 2025 summer training cohort, MAP trained 12 individuals total, including 3 Opportunity Youth participants - representing 25% of the cohort - as part of a deliberate pilot to refine and scale the Opportunity Youth track within the program model. Opportunity Youth are young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither enrolled in school nor participating in the labor market, and who often face compounding barriers including poverty, justice involvement, housing instability, and educational disruption. MAP's model is specifically designed to meet these participants where they are, providing the structure, credentials, and mentorship needed to transition into a sustainable maritime career. Jamko Foundation's Southern California expansion includes a formal partnership with Orange Coast College (OCC) Waterfront Campus, which has signed on as a Local Education Agency (LEA) for the California Department of Apprenticeship Standards' California Opportunity Youth California Community College in Orange County, enabling the formal delivery of related technical instruction (RTI) and expanding access to the program for Opportunity Youth in the greater Los Angeles and Orange County regions. Goodwill Industries of South Los Angeles County (SOLAC) invited Jamko to co-locate its Southern California office and training classroom within their central workforce training facility in Long Beach, California. Goodwill SOLAC's facility is situated near the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles - the two busiest cargo ports in the United States - providing MAP apprentices with direct geographic proximity to the industry employers, union halls, and vessel operations. The partnership also positions MAP to leverage Goodwill SOLAC's existing wraparound support infrastructure and community relationships in the Long Beach and greater Los Angeles region. The SS Lane Victory - a National Historic Landmark vessel berthed in San Pedro at the Port of Los Angeles - will serve as MAP's primary hands-on maritime training site in Southern California. MAP Nor Cal training cohorts train on the SS Red Oak Victory in the Port of Richmond. Training aboard active, historic Merchant Marine vessels provides MAP apprentices with an authentically maritime learning environment, where vessel operations, safety protocols, and seamanship. MAP's training curriculum integrates U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) credentialing requirements, maritime safety protocols, vessel operations, and industry certifications. The apprenticeship model is structured to ensure that graduates are workforce-ready and credentialed upon program completion - not merely trained, but fully licensed and union-eligible. The maritime industry continues to face persistent billet shortages - a workforce gap that MAP is uniquely positioned to address by recruiting from communities that have historically been excluded from these careers.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 99.2%; rating input score 99
• Program expense ratio: 87.2%; rating input score 87
• Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: Limited
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: Limited
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 4 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 50
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Fail
  • CEO compensation review process: Fail
  • Other executive compensation review process: Limited
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Missing
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -13.7%; rating input score 15; 15th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.12; rating input score 8; 8th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 29.1%; rating input score 11; 11th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 53.2% per year; rating input score 100; 95th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 27.4% per year; rating input score 100; 91st percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 28.1% per year; rating input score 100; 89th percentile among comparable filings