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The National Fund for Workforce Solutions is a partnership unprecedented in its scope. Nearly 200 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. In 22 sites across the country, the National Fund is working closely with employers and leaders from the public and nonprofit sectors to find solutions, testing how the lessons learned from groundbreaking pilot projects can be applied on a national scale. The ultimate goal: helping employers and employees succeed in a post-recession economy.

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Employers & Employees
Funders
Policymakers

National Fund Blog: The First Post

01/26/10

| by National Fund Staff

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, at few other times in our economic history have so many counted on so few.

Unemployment remains at a staggering level of 10 percent. In many of the communities where we are working, the percentage is much, much higher. Economists have recently reported that the past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times. Since, December 1999, net job creation has been zero. Economic output increased by the least amount in any decade since the 1930s. And, since data first started being collected in the 1960s, this past decade was the first one to see a drop in median incomes. (“...

Funders

First Stage of NFWS Evaluation Reveals Innovation Taking Hold

01/26/10

| by National Fund Staff

The National Fund for Workforce Solutions could best be thought of as an enabler of solutions. The foundations, along with the U.S. Department of Labor, that started the National Fund sought to learn how promising practices for preparing workers for careers could be taken to scale nationwide.

To do that, they relied on the creativity and entrepreneurial drive of local funders, employers, community-based organizations, and organized labor nationwide. A new report tells us that the National Fund sites are, indeed, redefining approaches to workforce development.

Six groundbreaking pilot projects, the first of which was launched in 2003, identified new ways to strengthen local approaches to preparing and training workers. But...

Employers & Employees

From Housekeeping to Hospital President

01/26/10

| by National Fund Staff

A persistent challenge at large urban hospitals is retaining frontline workers. From lab techs to nurses, these employees are invaluable to a hospital’s operation, but we have failed in offering a critical incentive to retaining and training these workers: a career path. Can investments in career path programs yield tangible bottom line results for the hospital? Can such investments yield career paths for workers who once had none? If done the right way, workforce investments can accomplish both goals.

In a recent interview, Larry Beck, president of Good Samaritan Hospital in Baltimore until the end of last year, and now a consultant with the hospital, told us why he is so committed to helping frontline workers at his...