Jakobsson began her public career in 1984, when she was elected Champaign County Recorder of Deeds.
From 1996 to 1998 she served as the executive director of A Woman's Fund, a domestic violence shelter, and from 1999 to 2002 she worked for the university YMCA and the university YWCA first as development officer and then as executive director.
[3] Her son, Garret, died due to frontotemporal dementia, a neurodegenerative disease, in 2013 aged 46.
Jakobsson had been at vigil by his bedside when she received word that a poll of members of the Illinois House showed that she was needed to cast the decisive vote in Springfield on the marriage equality bill she had co-sponsored.
During her drive to Springfield one member shifted his position, so the measure actually passed by two votes.