Opening Doors: Janet Krause Jones (COM’74), cofounder of the Single Mom Project
Janet Krause Jones (COM’74),
cofounder of the Single Mom Project
Janet Krause Jones (COM’74), cofounder and director of the Single Mom Project, wants to make life a little easier for single mothers, and in turn, grow their self-confidence and skills.
They are determined to use their experience, influence, and positions to help make their business, organization, and world more inclusive. They are breaking barriers—and then reaching back to help those behind them overcome the same hurdles. They are BU alumni, faculty, and staff—of every race, ethnicity, age, and gender—and they are “Opening Doors” for the next generation.
In 2017, Janet Krause Jones received a Mother’s Day card that included a check for $5,000 from a terminally ill friend. His reason: he wanted Jones , a single mother, and her two sons to thrive.
At the time, Jones (COM’74) had a master’s degree in public relations from BU and a steady career as a television producer and writer for Unsolved Mysteries (“I still get residuals,” she says) and later for networks including HGTV, MSNBC, and A&E. Still, the unexpected gift made a world of difference. “I assure you we used that $5,000 very carefully and very well,” she says. “He realized a little money can go a long way in changing a person’s whole view of the future. It certainly did for us.”
Jones and her sons recalled that gift in 2020 when they launched the Single Mom Project, which provides $1,000 grants to low-income mothers living in the Los Angeles area to help them get on steady financial footing. It expands on an organization near and dear to them: the Richstone Family Center, a Los Angeles–based nonprofit that provides counseling, after-school programs, and other services to low-income families impacted by domestic violence.
The need is great. According to a 2023 report from the Los Angeles County Commission for Women, more than 200,000 homes in the area are led by single mothers. Regardless of their race, single mothers have the highest poverty rates of all family types; for those homes with one to two children, 29 percent live in poverty, and in those with three to four children, 63 percent are in poverty.
Jones, who lives in Manhattan Beach, Calif., believes that helping people financially will boost their confidence. “They will feel more able to tackle the challenges they have every single day,” she says. “And if they feel more confident, their kids will too, because kids worry about their moms a lot. We launched our nonprofit honestly not knowing where it was going to go. And it has far exceeded our expectations.”
Q&A
with Janet Krause Jones
Bostonia: How did your family first find the Richstone Family Center?
When my younger son was a freshman in high school, he was hoping to join the basketball team. He was a great athlete, but he went on to break his leg. So, that was the end of trying out for the team. I said to him, “You’ve got two choices here. You can either have a four-year pity party until you graduate, or you can figure out how to take your time, talent, and smarts and do something with them.”
So, he hatched the idea of launching the Sweatshirt Project. He collected new and gently used sweatshirts from all over our community and looked into nonprofits in our area that might benefit from the donations. In our research, we discovered the Richstone Family Center, and we thought, that’s the one for us. They do extraordinary things for families dealing with domestic violence and domestic abuse, and we liked the whole idea of it. For the next few years, every Thanksgiving we set up a pop-up shop and gave out sweatshirts to hundreds and hundreds of people. And then we decided to offer Free Haircut Days, and, eventually, Free Family Portrait Days. The center grew to know us and know that they could trust us, so when we went to them with this idea about the Single Mom Project, they were 100 percent on board instantaneously.
Bostonia: What were the challenges when starting the Single Mom Project?
As a TV producer, you learn how to juggle 1,000 balls in the air at any one time. That was a useful skill set to have, because we needed to figure out logistically who would be the recipients. How would they be nominated? How would we fundraise, and could we fundraise? It was entering an unknown territory. I felt strongly that we could figure this out by starting small.
In our first year, we had 11 recipients, and they were nominated by the staff at the Richstone Family Center. The staff provides therapy and after-school programming, and they get to know the moms very well. Those 11 recipients were all compelling stories of hardworking mothers.
Last Mother’s Day, we gave out $39,000. So, we’re making headway. At this point, we’ve given out close to 70 grants total, around $70,000. We’re very young—it’s only been three years. But next year, we plan even more.
Bostonia: Is it all donation-based?
We have found fundraising to be the most daunting thing, but also the most exciting, because we keep improving on it. It started with the kindness of family and friends, and now, in our third year, we have garnered sponsors. We have, for example, Dunkin’, a credit union, and a local medical center.
Maybe the best thing that could have happened is that we are also sponsored by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, and last year they gave us a very generous grant. I bumped into our district’s supervisor at an event recently, and she said, “You are my nonprofit. You are doing exactly what I think should be done in this world, which is giving small amounts to deserving people to help them get on better footing.” So, we’re so happy to have that support.
Every single penny that comes in goes directly to the moms. We have no administrative costs; I am it, you know. Every penny goes to making the moms’ lives so much better.
Bostonia: What other things does the Single Mom Project help families with, in addition to grants?
We want to boost women and give them confidence. Besides the grants that we give out on Mother’s Day, we also have Confidence Day every February, where we turn a room at the Richstone Family Center into a spa. We bring in facialists, manicurists, and hair stylists, who all donate their time and make our moms feel fantastic.
It’s a really important day, because it’s our way of giving moms a day to show that they are being seen, and I think that’s the essence of the Single Mom Project. Over 90 percent of our moms are Latina, many of whom do not speak English, many of whom didn’t go beyond high school. And here I am with a graduate degree—and I found it daunting to be a single mother. So, you can imagine not speaking the language, not having the education, the skill set, and how tough it is to be a parent. This is their one day to feel completely seen, loved, and pampered, and they walk out of there 10 feet tall. This year, we just received a grant, and all of our moms will be able to select five new books to take home to their kids too.
We were also able to create a nutrition pantry last year. Every Thursday, we receive food from Trader Joe’s, which gets distributed to 250 people. We are, I think, making an impact on food insecurity, which among our moms is huge. We also have a project underway called the Single Mom Project Book Zones, where we will help renovate several classrooms in a very tough high school in an underserved LA neighborhood with couches, chairs, rugs, bookshelves, and new books to boost literacy. It will also include the Single Mom Project Parent Resource Center, which will have books on finances, budgeting, and parenting and encourage parents to get together to meet one another.
I bumped into a mom three weeks ago during our food distribution. She stopped her car, jumped out, and said, “Janet, look! I fixed my car, and it’s all because of the Single Mom Project. I have a job now. Look at all the weight I’ve lost. I was always so worried that I kept eating. And now I’m taking care of myself. I have a job, and my son is so proud of me.” She was euphoric. That’s what it’s all about, right there.
Bostonia: What was your experience like at BU?
I’ve made some great decisions in my life, and applying to BU for grad school is among the top three. It changed my life in the most magnificent ways, and by that, I mean I finished my undergrad years really not knowing what I wanted to be. I knew I wanted to do something creative when I grew up, but I honestly didn’t have a handle on it. Lucky for me I heard about BU, and miraculously, was accepted. Everything changed at that moment. It opened my eyes to the fact that I had some talent. I could write, and I could put ideas together. And I got acknowledgment from professors. And isn’t that what every grad student wants?
At BU, I saw a notice on a building bulletin board that interns were needed at WGBH. I was specializing in PR, but I thought I ought to go and interview. When I walked into the building at WGBH, I knew in under three minutes that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. There was no question in my mind—these were the people I wanted to be with, that was the control room I wanted to sit in, that was the bullpen of desks I wanted to be a part of. It changed my life for the better.
If it had not been for BU, I don’t know what I would have become or where I would have gone, but they gave me the absolute direction I needed in my career.
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