We were pleased recently to sit down with Michelle Gilliard from The Walmart Foundation for this month's Investor Profile. The Walmart Foundation is a National Investor.
Can you describe Walmart's involvement and interest in workforce development initiatives?
For our Investor Profile this month, we talk with Microsoft. The globaltechnology company supports the National Fund through its Unlimited Potential program. Andrea L.
The National Fund for Workforce Solutions is at a critical, exciting moment. The grant we received from the Corporation for National and Community Service as part of its landmark Social Innovation Fund is allowing us to expand the work of many of our current collaboratives and add six to eight new sites, primarily in the South and Southwest. At this critical moment, new leadership takes the helm of the National Fund.
BOSTON, MA (December 8, 2010) — Proclaiming the “transformational” potential of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, Damian Thorman of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation figuratively accepted the gavel as Chair of the groundbreaking effort to prepare jobseekers and workers for careers in a post-recession economy.
The Workforce Institute, a think tank that helps organizations drive performance by addressing human capital management issues that affect both hourly and salaried employees, features the National Fund in its latest post. Perhaps most interesting, is a podcast interview with Fred Dedrick, National Fund Executive Director – Dedrick explains, in a good bit of detail, the strategic approach of the National Fund and its 23 sites.
The Bradenton Herald (FL) reports (Aug. 5, 2010) on a site visit by Fred Dedrick, National Fund Executive Director, to the CareerEdge Funders Collaborative Manatee Sarasota.
Boston, MA (July 22, 2010) - The National Fund for Workforce Solutions, with its implementation partner Jobs for the Future (JFF), has been awarded a two-year $7.7 million dollar grant from the Corporation for National and Community Services under its Social Innovation Fund in Washington, DC.
First Lady Michelle Obama describes the Social Innovation Fund this way: “By focusing on high-impact, results-oriented nonprofits, we will ensure that government dollars are spent in a way that is effective, accountable and worthy of public trust.”
Coverage of National Fund sites receiving the Distinguished Grantmaking Award for Collaboration includes the Wichita Business Journal (April 28, 2010) reporting on the Preparation for Aviation and Advanced Career Employment System (PACES), the funding collaborative in Wichita.
The 22 sites of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions are working at “ground zero” of a national crisis: unemployment that appears stuck at almost 10 percent. More and more, local media are searching for innovative, local solutions. What they are finding is the National Fund.
New evaluation data reveals that the National Fund for Workforce Solutions is helping to redefine how America can prepare low-wage workers for careers.
Keisha Monique Blake, from Baltimore, tells us what the numbers really mean.
BOSTON, MA (June 15, 2010) – The National Fund for Workforce Solutions, involving more than 250 funders nationwide, is proving that innovative, local approaches to preparing jobseekers and workers for careers, built on strong partnerships with employers, can deliver results for local economies.
There are a thousand stories in the National Fund for Workforce Solutions. Well, actually based on our most recent evaluation data, at least 18,000 stories (that’s how many participants were served in 2009) – but it seemed like a catchy way to start a post about some of the recent press coverage generated by local National Fund sites.
Today, the National Fund for Workforce Solutions was presented the highest award bestowed by the Council on Foundations: the Distinguished Grantmaking Award for Collaboration. It speaks to the leadership role that philanthropy must take in helping America’s workers and businesses succeed in a post-recession economy. Even more important, it speaks to how the National Fund operates.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Jeff Rosenberg (301-545-1141)
BOSTON, MA (April 27, 2010) – Today, the National Fund for Workforce Solutions (www.nfwsolutions.org) received the Distinguished Grantmaking Award for Collaboration from the Council on Foundations, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit membership association of some 2,000 grantmaking foundations and corporations.
Boston, March 16 -- At a time when unemployment isn't budging, underemployment appears to be at record levels, and American workers are wondering what place they will have in a post-recession economy, the National Fund for Workforce Solutions announces that Fred Dedrick has joined the initiative as its first Executive Director. Dedrick most recently served as the Deputy Secretary for Workforce Development in Pennsylvania.
Today, Fred Dedrick, most recently the Deputy Secretary for Workforce Development in Pennsylvania, takes over as the first Executive Director of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions.
The National Fund is spearheaded by a group of leading foundations across the United States, along with a major corporation and a leading federal government agency:
The National Fund for Workforce Solutions is a partnership unprecedented in its scope. Nearly 300 funders are investing millions of dollars in local communities to help get people back to work and ensure that American businesses are able to compete. The economy is changing rapidly, as traditional jobs disappear and knowledge-based jobs, such as health care and precision tooling, take their place. That is leaving nearly 80 million Americans without the skills required to succeed.
Involving nearly 300 funders the National Fund is working to bring to national scale, and evaluate, new ways to prepare workers - who don't have the needed skills - for careers that can support them and their families.
The approach varies from community to community, and from industry sector to industry sector. What every National Fund site has in common though is intensive collaboration with employers and a keen focus on cultivating employee skills and career advancement.
The National Fund strives to advance three primary goals.
First, the National Fund will organize, support and develop a national network of regional funding collaboratives dedicated to investing in workforce partnerships that effectively assist low income individuals obtain and advance in careers paying family-sustaining wages and benefits, while at the same time ensuring that employers have the high quality human resources that will enable them to succeed in this dynamic and competitive economy.
We were pleased recently to sit down with Michelle Gilliard from 
For our Investor Profile this month, we talk with Microsoft. The global technology company supports the National Fund through its Unlimited Potential program. Andrea L.
© 2011 National Fund for Workforce Solutions
