New Door Ventures helps at-risk youth get ready for work and life.

New Door Ventures was founded as Golden Gate Community, Inc. in 1981 by a Christian faith community that desired to provide compassionate service to San Francisco’s homeless. The founders soon realized that solving the problem of homelessness required jobs, skills and opportunities, in addition to love and emergency shelter. The early leaders were social entrepreneurs before the term existed, creating businesses and opportunities for work that created pathways to sustainable lives.

Initially, New Door provided job internships only through its own businesses (Ashbury Images and Pedal Revolution). Since 2005, New Door has focused its programs exclusively on youth age 16-21, and in the fall of 2008, New Door launched the innovative Ally program, which creates job internships for youth through local business partners. Today, New Door provides over 130 paid internships a year and serves more than 200 youth annually through job-readiness training and supportive case management.

New Door has grown and changed through the years, but our desire to find creative and relational ways to give a hand-up, rather than a hand-out remains deeply ingrained in the New Door culture.

We are at an historic junction where youth employment and educational attainment are at their lowest point in decades; the needs of disconnected youth are just beginning to be understood; and very few effective solutions exist to reconnect them to employment.

As New Door grows and becomes more effective, we hope to continue sharing knowledge with colleagues across the country, so that together we will have a deeper, more lasting and meaningful impact on young lives.

Motivated by our faith and inspired by our history, the staff and board of New Door Ventures share these values:

Youth as Assets
We believe youth are assets, with God-given potential and resilience. They have the capacity to achieve and to contribute.

Work as Opportunity
We believe that work creates opportunities and provides dignity, self-esteem and a path out of poverty.

Community as Catalyst
Supportive community catalyzes Individual growth and change. As each member grows, the community becomes stronger.

Innovation and Effectiveness
We operate with deep integrity, and we are committed to broadening and deepening our effectiveness. We are creative yet disciplined entrepreneurs.