Our Story
CrossPurpose Beginnings
From a neighborhood commitment to a movement for economic mobility
We promised to give the best 30 years of our lives to these neighborhoods.
— Jason Janz, Co-Founder and CEO
“We promised to spend 30 years living, listening, and building relationships in this neighborhood.” What began in one neighborhood has grown to become one of Colorado’s largest career development nonprofits, serving 9,000 people on their journey from poverty to prosperity.
In 2008, Jason and Jennifer Janz moved to Northeast Denver and started Providence Bible Church, a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic church committed to building community across racial and economic lines.
For four years, the church and its neighbors focused on meeting immediate needs, from childcare to a computer lab to basic essentials. Every effort mattered, but none of them were driving lasting change. It was all too small, too silo’ed, too singular.
It wasn’t until Jen and her neighbor Tiffany became friends that the couple began to see poverty as a mutual problem. Through honest conversations, Jen and Jason began to recognize their incomplete understanding of systems of oppression. Meanwhile, Tiffany was determined to build a better career path but didn’t have access to relationships with people who could walk alongside her on that journey.
An Insight Took Root: Talent Is Equally Distributed, but Opportunity Is Not.
People struggled to break cycles of poverty without access to the opportunities, education, careers, and relationships that had been out of reach for generations. And without trusted people to walk alongside them, navigating systems not designed with them in mind was nearly impossible.
In 2012, CrossPurpose was officially founded with a simple invitation: Live Different Together. It challenged how we perceived poverty, built solutions, and approached our connections. We began to understand that for real transformation to occur, we had to invest deeply in the relationships and resources that support each person’s journey.
Relationships remain at the center of everything we do. Every week, families, volunteers, donors, and staff break bread around dinner tables where strangers become friends and community becomes family.
A Better Job Is Just the Beginning
CrossPurpose focused first on the core economic challenge: employment alone does not necessarily create stability. People needed a good job with a sufficient income and a growth path to a career. Participants began experiencing whole-life transformation when career development was paired with coaching, meaningful relationships, and opportunities for personal and spiritual growth.
In 2017, CrossPurpose established its first permanent location, designed with and for the community. During COVID, we developed a five-year plan to expand to multiple campuses to serve more neighbors; now Englewood, Arvada, and Aurora campuses all bring career development and holistic support closer to the families we serve.
Today in 2026, CrossPurpose has served nearly 9,000 people across Colorado.
Those families have shared their experiences, leading to another realization: poverty isn’t a single problem to solve; it’s a journey to navigate. Those lessons have informed our framework and our programs, which now shape how we serve families and how communities across the country think about economic mobility.
Over the next three years, we aim to double the number of families served while sharing our proven model across 25 cities so that families across the country have the opportunity to move from poverty to prosperity.