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Mission And Vision

Smart Futures' vision is that every student graduating from a Pennsylvania high school is prepared for college and career success.

Smart Futures' mission is to provide Pennsylvania’s educators with innovative career education resources that help students “get real” – about who they are, where they are going, and how to get there.

Smart Futures is a 501c-3 non-profit organization and a leading provider of online career education resources and training to schools and community-based organizations in Pennsylvania. Our online programs include Keys2Work, PA eMentoring, My Career Journey, and Financial Literacy 101.

Each of Smart Futures' programs is aligned to the Pennsylvania Academic Standards for Career Education and Work. As a result, the content helps schools and community-based training meet required teaching standards while connecting students with the real needs and opportunities within today’s workplace.

Smart Futures' exists because absent from our education system is a curriculum-embedded focus on career paths — how ones skills, knowledge, interests, values and personality are inherently linked to economic opportunities that will be available to them. Smart Futures’ approach is to help teachers inject a career focus in within the classroom to help motivate and guide student learning. Smart Futures’ programs add relevance to academics. Career-focused education correlates education to jobs, jobs to wages, and wages to opportunities. Career education provides students with a roadmap motivated by realistic goals.

Through solid business planning, the cultivation of strategic partnerships, and ongoing sustainability planning, Smart Futures engages in regional program implementation that can grow to have ongoing statewide impact. Smart Futures maintains direct relationships with our Commonwealth’s many schools, community-based organizations, Workforce Investment Boards, Intermediate Units, and employers. Our programs are generally piloted locally with the support of charitable funding and then expanded and sustained through school fees and corporate contributions.


About Smart Futures

Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Tax-exempt: 501 (c) (3)

Mission: Introduce innovative, affordable career education programs to schools and community based organizations

Vision: A Pennsylvania known for the quality of its workforce

Founded: 2005; note: projects run through Tides Center of PA from 2001-2004

Area Served: Projects are piloted in Southwestern PA and expanded to Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Strategic Partners: The Commonwealth's Workforce Investment Boards and Intermediate Units

Current Programs: Keys2Work, PA eMentoring, My Career Journey, and Financial Literacy 101

Population served by programs: High School, Special Education, WIA Youth, Adult Ed, Community Education, Alternative Education, Prison Education