Jazz Forward Initiative Inc.

What We Do

Each year Jazz Forward Initiative (JFI) creates a free, open to the public, and family friendly jazz event, The Mo Jazz Music Festival, with five different styles represented within the genre of jazz. Also, we provide education to elementary schools about jazz music by bringing jazz groups to schools to perform and answer questions. The majority of our Festival volunteers are the board members of JFI.

Why We're Great

JFI is dedicated to the support, preservation, and continuation of America’s national treasure, jazz music. We have been doing this for 33 years. With all monies going to the festival and education, we are able to do a lot with a little. With an all-volunteer board and festival helpers, and with no paid staff, we can focus on our mission to share jazz with mid-Missouri, and anyone else who’d like to attend!

Why does your organization deserve community financial support?

Everything JFI does is for the citizens of mid-Missouri, and anyone else who would like to travel to Columbia to attend the Festival. Everyone is welcome.  We give back to the community with every donation we receive. We hope the community sees value in what we do.

What would $50 or $100 mean to your organization?

Every donation is appreciated. Fifty and $100 donations help us hire local, regional, and national music groups to bring to Columbia free of charge. The more monies raised, the larger the talent pool in which to search.

We used the funds raised during CoMoGives last year to benefit the community by:

We use the funds raised through CoMoGives to hire music performers of all styles within the genre of jazz. With more funds gathered, we can expand our talent search, both professionally and geographically, to hire for our free, open to the public, and family-friendly jazz festival.