JASON Foundation

1
JASON Foundation

• Ben Bloom
• Ransom Byers
• Lauren Cagle
• Krystin Stafford

2
Overview

• Teach Science Through Research
• Better way to teach science
• Use real world research to show the application
  and excitement of science
• Provide a link between researchers and students
• Provide a curriculum to teachers to facilitate
  the learning process

3
Conception

• Bob Ballard
• Response to letters following his discovery of
  the Titanic
• How do I get to be like you?
• Toured the country making speeches
• Decided to find a way to let others go on
  explorations electronically
• Fix a problem
• Rethink how science was taught in school

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Round 1 1989

• Expedition to Mediterranean Sea
• Sold to 12 museums
• 65k partnership 200k set-up
• Reproduced the control room of the ship in
  auditoriums with giant screens
• 80 hour broadcast
• 150,000 students watched
• Overall uneventful and too long

5

• Loosely organized
• Incorporated as a non-profit
• Financed by personally solicited grants that
  Ballard arranged and a little from museums
• Next expeditions grew in size, but little change

6
Round 2 Year 4

• Began to run into difficulties due to growth
• Reorganized into a more formal organization
• Financed primarily by corporate grants
• Friends of Bob
• Members of the board

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Round 3 Year 8

• Continued growth
• Began selling through universities
• Customers found by the institutions
• Able to focus on expeditions
• Financing
• Arranging

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Round 4 Present

• Changes in Finances
• Grants from philanthropic organizations
• Sales
• Large Federal grants enabled growth
• Broadened programs
• Jason Academy (teacher development)
• Mathmagica (math professional development)
• Building program for science literacy

9

• Marketing focus on school districts and
  institutions
• 35 institutions responsible for 350k-400k
  students a year
• Sell directly to 600k
• Main force of marketing towards school districts
• Still sell individual curricula for teachers
  (250)
• Institutional subscriptions (50k)

10

• Financials changed with growth
• Of 13.5 million budget, 3 million from sales
• Rest of money comes from grants
• NOAA, NASA, DoE
• Strings attached to money
• HUGE concern over federal grants

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Conclusion

• Demonstrating long-term, sustainable growth
• Financials changing with growth
• Developed new business plan for next 5-10 years

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Plan for the future

• Develop multiple expedition-based products that
  align with popular middle school science topics.
• There will still be the one bigger expedition a
  year.
• There will be less expensive expeditions
  throughout the year instead of the current
  two-week format.
• JASON is motivated to save money on what has
  historically been the most expensive component of
  the program but they also see an opportunity
  to spend their time and resources in the field
  differently, producing a variety of kinds of
  expedition content, delivered in different ways
  to suit our customers.
• Shift production resources in order to develop
  pre-produced material for classes that cant
  utilize the live broadcast.
• Target the various utilizations of the materials
  to better support the uses of the products by
  teachers.