Ohio Native Jonathan Jump has officially joined the Project Open Hand team as Vice President of Operations after leading fundraising operations for San Francisco AIDS Foundation for twelve years, as well as taking over Shared Services at Room to Read for an additional 4 years.
Jonathan spent over 10 years in Gainesville, Florida before making a move to San Francisco, never having been to the city and knowing no one.
“I had never lived in a city before and I was excited about that. Coming to San Francisco was like a movie, everything fell into place. It was the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow - exactly what I wanted it to be and more.”
With more than two decades of experience intersecting strategic planning, operations and customer service, Jonathan is passionate about implementing time saving and innovative tools that allow staff to work smarter in a resource challenged environment and advocating for solutions that integrate the organization’s mission in meaningful ways.
“My teammates already have the expertise to do their jobs; I want to help them take things to the next level. I want to help with the projects they have wanted to do for two years but have never been able to get the approval, get the funding, get the teams together to get it done. Logistically, I want to shepherd the project through or help be a project manager for those things.”
Q&A with Jonathan, Vice President of Operations
Q: What are you most excited about in this new role?
A: Having worked for an international organization, with an ocean between me and the people we were serving…it’s not that I didn’t feel the connection or couldn’t see the outcomes, but it’s just not the same as going to the second floor and seeing the grocery center, or chopping carrots with volunteers from cool organizations around the Bay Area that want to help out. That kind of experience was something I didn’t realize I missed. You cannot get any more of a direct connection to the mission. It’s a really cool aspect to the work here.
Q: What might someone be surprised to know about you?
A: I moved to San Francisco and immediately became a cheerleader on Cheer San Francisco, an intramural adult cheerleading squad. I was on the squad for three years.
Q: Hobbies?
A: My husband has family in Asia and we love to travel. We’ve been to some really remote places. Bonaire is a diving island in the Caribbean that we went to, even though we aren’t divers. We just went to a cool surf island in the Philippines, but neither of us are surfers. We will literally go to the olympics just to go to the mall. We do random things when we clearly don’t fit the mold of it.
Q: Meaning of life?
A: Shopping.
Q: Spirit Animal?
A: Billy goat. A tiny, cute, miniature billy goat that climbs and jumps off things. My dad called me Johnny goat.
Q: Most played song?
A: Call Me Maybe. But my favorite all time, ever, is "I wanna dance with somebody."
Q: Hardest thing?
A: Marathon. You do all of that training and it’s still really hard.
Q: Favorite recipe to make?
A: I’m gluten free, so anything gluten free.