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Rags to Riches, JnF Edition
A panel of founders and professionals who grew up in Jane and Finch, followed by a live networking-education session and onboarding onto the platform. Built for high school and early-university students.
Free networking workshops and e-learning built for the Jane and Finch community. Four labs paired with an online curriculum, so career development reaches people the professional world has historically left out.
01 · Overview
Jane Finch Networking & Career Labs is a joint initiative between Nodalli and United Way Greater Toronto, bringing free networking workshops and e-learning into one of Toronto's most underserved neighbourhoods.
The program is built for youth, job seekers, and young professionals in Jane and Finch, with particular focus on Black and Indigenous residents who face systemic barriers to employment and mentorship. It runs out of spaces residents already use and trust: campus venues and the local public library.
Each lab pairs a keynote from someone who has walked the road with a hands-on workshop where participants do the work in the room, identifying real contacts, drafting real outreach, and sending it before they leave. Every participant gets free access to the Nodalli platform and contact network so the skills survive past the session.
Alongside the labs, the full curriculum lives online as self-paced modules and a shared resource library, so residents who cannot make a weekday evening still get the whole program.
Program at a glance
02 · Why we did this
Jane and Finch has no shortage of talent. It has a shortage of access. Every part of this program is built to close that gap for residents facing systemic barriers to employment and mentorship.
Not a lecture about networking, a working session. Participants identify real contacts, draft real outreach, and send it before they leave, with a facilitator over their shoulder.
Shift work, school, caregiving. The online modules carry the same curriculum as the in-person labs so nobody has to choose between showing up and showing up for their family.
Free access to the Nodalli platform and contact network, so participants leave able to apply what they learned instead of just having heard about it.
03 · The workshops
A panel of founders and professionals who grew up in Jane and Finch, followed by a live networking-education session and onboarding onto the platform. Built for high school and early-university students.
How to actually reach the opportunities named in Session 01. Post-secondary routes, apprenticeships, internships, and the outreach that gets you in front of the people who hold them.
Run online so residents could join from a phone, a shift break, or a kitchen table. Young founders and startup-ecosystem operators on building something of your own, plus a rapid ideation exercise.
The final in-person lab, back in the neighbourhood at York Woods. Keynote, hands-on workshop, and open networking, with the online resource library opened to everyone in the room.
After the June lab the program moved online permanently. The same curriculum, plus the guides, templates, and scripts used in the room, published as a free self-paced resource library that anyone in the community can work through on their own schedule.
Open the modules →Every session ran the same shape
04 · E-learning
Shift work, class, caregiving. Plenty of people who needed this program most could not make a weekday evening, so the labs became modules. Eight of them, self-paced, free, with the templates and scripts built in.
05 · Tools & resources
Every participant gets free access to the Nodalli platform and its contact network, plus the written material, broken out by topic so you can read only the part you need.
What a network actually is, why referred candidates beat cold applicants, and how to map the twenty people who matter for where you want to go.
Finding the right person, finding their email, and writing the six-line message that earns a response instead of getting archived.
A casual conversation with intent. How to prepare, what to ask, how to make the ask, and the same-day follow-up that keeps it alive.
The document and the profile a referral has to survive. Structure, bullet writing, and the LinkedIn presence that makes a stranger reply.
Turning your story into answers. Behavioural structure, the research that separates you, and how to close an interview properly.
Free access for every participant. How to run your outreach as a pipeline, use the contact network, and never drop a follow-up.
06 · Impact
labs delivered between March and June 2026, each pairing a keynote with a hands-on networking workshop.
self-paced online modules, carrying the full curriculum to residents who could not attend in person.
platform access and contact-network access for every participant. No cost, no sign-up fee, no catch.
Session 01 · attendee feedback
We asked attendees one question on their way out of the first lab: how did you find the session today? Thirty seconds of unrehearsed answers, plate of food still in hand.
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Jane Finch Networking & Career Labs is funded through United Way Greater Toronto's Jane Finch Community Action Grants, a resident-led granting stream that puts decisions and dollars in the hands of the people who actually live in the neighbourhood.
Thank you to United Way GTA, to the Jane/Finch Centre as grant trustee, and to the libraries, community organizations, and speakers who gave their space and their time to make these sessions happen.
We build and deliver networking programs with community organizations, schools, and funders. If you want a version of this for the people you serve, let's talk.