Our Strategy

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.

Second, the National Fund will implement a systems change agenda both locally, in key states, and nationally that results in significantly improved opportunities for low-wage workers to advance in careers because of:

Employer commitments to human resources practices that lead to career advancement opportunities for low wage workers
Significant improvements to education/training practices for low wage workers and disadvantaged adults
Federal, state or local policy changes and/or innovations based on evidence-based research that advance career opportunities for low wage workers

Third, that National Fund will assist 50,000 low-income workers/job seekers find employment, advance in careers and/or receive a post-secondary or industry recognized credential that will likely lead to job placement and/or advancement while at the same time assisting two thousand employers find and retain the skilled workers they require to successfully compete in today’s global economy.

The approach to reaching these goals varies from community to community, and from industry sector to industry sector. Five strategies guide how National Fund sites put the approach to work:

Create regional funding collaboratives
Organize workforce partnerships
Develop strategies for specific industry sectors
Build career pathways
Coordinate local workforce programs

There are two other attributes that are common to every local site:

intensive collaboration with employers; and
a keen focus on cultivating employee skills and career advancement.

The results from six pilot projects (Boston, Baltimore, the Bay Area of California, New York City, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island) guided the development of the National Fund. For instance:

SkillWorks in Boston supported six workforce partnerships that worked directly with employers to create long-term career advancement programs for their industries. Over four years, 88 percent of unemployed participants graduated from training programs and 70 percent were placed in jobs earning, on average, nearly $4 more per hour than they were making in their previous jobs.
The Baltimore Workforce Collaborative funded, among other projects, the Baltimore Alliance for Careers in Healthcare, which worked with local hospitals to create career paths for entry-level employees and trained career coaches to support participants as they moved along the career path. From 2007 to 2008, they served over 400 low-income healthcare workers in six hospitals – wages increased by an average of 17 percent within the first nine months.

You can learn more about the regional collaborative and workforce partnership models that are integral to the National Fund approach.

Since the work of helping prepare workers to get and advance in the jobs available in a local market is designed at the local level, National Fund implements a specific set of activities to support local innovation.

1. Create regional funding collaboratives

Regional funding collaboratives bring together government agencies, foundations, and other philanthropic organizations to target financial resources and strategic thinking on creating jobs and careers. back to top

2. Organize workforce partnerships

Workforce partnerships create long-term relationships between employers and service providers. They offer job training and career supports that meet the needs of both employees and employers in industry sectors that are central to local economies. Each workforce partnership is different. Some are led by a local community college, others by an employer, some by organized labor, some by the local Workforce Investment Board, and others by community-based organizations.back to top

3. Develop strategies for specific industry sectors

The National Fund approach is sector-specific. For example, the expectations of employers in advanced manufacturing are quite different than those of an employer in health care. By focusing on the sectors that are important to the local economy, workforce partnerships can help employers in a sector save money and resources by sharing training expertise and costs. back to top

4. Build career pathways

The National Fund is working to create career pathways that, practically in a step-by-step fashion, offer entry-level workers and people seeking employment real opportunities for advancement to jobs that pay good wages. These career pathways are customized for local employers in each industry sector. back to top

5. Coordinate local workforce programs

The National Fund is working to align and coordinate the many programs, organizations, and funding sources that, together, make up a community’s approach to preparing people for new careers.back to top