About Us
A Leadership-Focused Foundation Advancing Human Development and Institutional Excellence
We support evidence-based leadership development through research, education, and innovation.
Our Mission and Vision
Our Mission for CCJF
Our mission is to prepare young adults to lead with purpose—building the knowledge, skills, and confidence to serve and succeed in every arena of life.
Our Vision for CCJF
To be both a thought leader and a catalyst, accelerating the growth of youth leadership development globally.
Our Values
At the C. Charles Jackson Foundation (CCJF) believes that leadership is not just a skillset—it’s a way of being. Our values are the foundation for everything we do, ensuring that every initiative, partnership, and investment aligns with our mission to prepare young adults for life and career readiness by 21. These values define our approach to leadership education, program development, and institutional collaboration, setting the standard for the future of leadership excellence worldwide.
What You Know is Only as Good as Who You Become
Leadership is more than knowledge—it is the ability to apply what you know with character, competence, and purpose. We believe that true success is built on personal mastery and leadership capacity in every domain of life.
Leadership Development Must Be Holistic, Comprehensive, and Systemic
Leadership is not learned in isolation—it requires an integrated, whole-person approach. We believe in developing leaders across self-leadership, relationships, teams, organizations, and communities, ensuring that every young adult can lead and serve with purpose and impact.
Personal Mastery as the Foundation for Leadership
Before one can effectively lead others, they must first lead themselves. We emphasize the development of self-discipline, resilience, focus, and character, ensuring that young leaders build a foundation of excellence before stepping into leadership roles.
A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Leadership Education
Leadership is not a singular discipline—it is an interdisciplinary field that draws from psychology, philosophy,business, education, sociology, and more. The Attentional Leadership Institute (ALI) Framework provides the structure for integrating research, theory, and applied practice, ensuring that leadership education is informed by multiple disciplines and best practices across fields.
Education Must Serve the Whole Person
While technical and academic training are critical, they are incomplete without leadership, character development, and life skills. We support institutions in delivering a whole-person approach to education—ensuring students are not only skilled professionals but also capable, ethical, and effective leaders.
Life and Career Readiness for All
Leadership is not just for a select few—it must be accessible to every young adult, in every learning environment. We integrate leadership education into universities, schools, corporations, nonprofits, alternative education programs, and homeschooling networks, ensuring that leadership preparation is essential to life and career readiness.
Customized Solutions for Unique Needs
Leadership education is not one-size-fits-all. Every person, team, organization, and community has distinct needs, and we design flexible, tailored solutions that ensure leadership development works for everyone, at every level.
Scalability, Sustainability, and Long-Term Impact
Leadership development must be measurable, adaptable, and enduring. We help organizations track progress, measure outcomes, and implement frameworks that ensure leadership development lasts beyond a single course or experience—creating a lifelong impact.
Setting the Standard for Leadership Education
We don’t just support leadership programs; we define world-class leadership education. We help institutions establish best practices, research-based frameworks, and longitudinal measurement systems to assess the effectiveness of leadership development over a lifetime.
Collaboration and Partnership for Greater Impact
No single organization can solve the leadership gap alone. We strategically partner with forward-thinking universities, schools, nonprofits, corporations, and alternative education programs to expand the reach and effectiveness of leadership education worldwide.
Integrity, Purpose, and Service
Leadership must be grounded in humility, ethical responsibility, and a commitment to serving something greater than oneself. We believe that the best leaders are those who act with integrity, lead with purpose, and dedicate themselves to service-driven leadership.
Igniting the Spark for Leadership Development
We are strategic catalysts, helping launch, accelerate, and sustain new and existing leadership initiatives. Our goal is to ensure that leadership development is not an afterthought but a core expectation of education, career preparation, and personal growth.
OUR LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY
CCJF is Powered by 5 Main Pillars
Our premise is that wherever you are, wherever you’ve come from, no matter what country, no matter what circumstance, no matter what age, you have the right and the privilege to make a difference in the world in the context for which you exist and live.
We view leadership holistically, comprehensively, and systemically—seeing the whole person and how inner development becomes outer impact. In our model, what’s below the waterline are the human elements of systems over time that learn, process and engage for influence and impact.
Often we look at leadership at its fundamental starting point which is self–recognizing that the inner life developed across time (learning from the past, practicing in the present, and aiming the future) is where capacities are formed within Relationships, Teams, Organizations, and Communities.
We now live in a world where what you know is only as good as who you’ve become as you engage your work and life arenas–here your growth and evolution is an extension of your influence, leadership, and capacity for positive change inside and out.
The complexity of leadership can be seen in this 3 dimensional cube.Â
Leadership Philosophy Summary Sentence Goes Here
Personal
We recognize self-leadership as the foundation. Development across the inner dimensions (physical, emotional, psychological, philosophical, and spiritual) builds the competencies that become capacity—converting to influence, leadership, and change—linking technical/professional arenas with the human dimensions and factors that effectuate performance at every level.
Interpersonal
Strong relationships are the first outward expression of inner growth. Personal competencies translate into relational competencies through the recognition that knowing self is a gateway for building alignment and synergy with others.
Teams
Growing personal and interpersonal skills the application of which is applied within group and team settings for the individual to thrive, influence and lead within this larger social structure.
Organizations
When people thrive personally, in relationships, and on teams, they build the capacity to thrive, influence, and lead within the larger organizational systems in which they work, live, and serve.
Community
At all levels of human engagement, exercising influence, leadership, and change within one’s self, is what informs influence, leadership, and change in others, within groups, and within organizations and ultimately within the Communities that surround all of these physical, social, and cultural arenas.
At every level the principles of leadership are ever present with performance influence and change governed by the principles that drive human progress.
PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICE
In an Optimal World…
like every plant, like every tree, like every animal, it grows from birth to death from the inside out. But we recognize that in a complex world, the development of leadership however we structure it, people enter that equation wherever they are, whatever their circumstance, whatever their history, wherever they’re going, and whatever’s going on. We’re all in a position because we exist, to be influenced by and to influence the world around us.
We Favor Research Based Competencies That Are…
Demonstrable
Measurable
Impactful
Progress you can trace over time and map to the five pillars (from self to system) which lead to the more comprehensive framework of leadership competencies and framework as we define them.
In Short….
We endeavor to support institutions in the training and development of demonstrable leadership competencies grounded in research that have a long term impact on the individual in their relationships, in their teams, in their organizations, and the communities in which they live and serve.
OUR INNOVATION ENGINE
Charlie Life & Leadership Academy
Where we seek to support institutions who map to our competencies, Charlie Academy is an allied think-tank, research and development partner proactively identifying areas to support leadership education. CLLA looks for gaps for which there are great needs to solve problems and generate value for leadership educators that produce the greatest result for society.
A LEGACY OF IMPACT
A Record of Sustained Investment in Leaders, Organizations, and Long-Term Impact.
522
Grants Awarded
137
Organizations Supported
23
Years of Impact