Family-Supporting Jobs Needed
The workforce system has not effectively met the needs of workers looking to replace poorly paying, benefit-poor jobs with jobs that can support their family.
The National Fund for Workforce Solutions is an ambitious $50-million project designed to bolster and expand promising workforce development partnerships in communities across the country. The fund, formed in 2007, is the product of leaders from foundations, businesses, government, and nonprofit organizations and is intended to be a collaborative strategy improving workforce development.
National foundations, smaller local foundations and government agencies used lessons learned and carefully measured results to confidently craft an entity that would be capable and efficient. The collaborative effort across multiple industries provides a new, holistic perspective in the workforce field.
This report presents the extensive history of the roots of this project, and how various funders helped to shape this new national workforce development initiative.
The Ford, Casey and Rockefeller Foundations banded together to create a workforce development fund to use in six pilot sites. Success in these pilot cities led national funders to make concrete plans for a major national effort that would bring in new national and local funders and lead to expanded support for workforce partnerships in many more cities and communities across the country.