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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.

Most Recent Blog Posts

Policymakers

From Rx for the Health Care Workforce: Going Big

03/02/10

| by Marc S. Miller Ph.D.

Day two at Rx for the Health Care Workforce, and the goal today is to think about the way the 90 leaders here—representing employers, labor, government, philanthropy, and the nonprofit sectors—think about scale up and sustainability. In other words, public policy.

The opportunity is great: as yesterday showed, future investments in building a skilled health care workforce can draw on many promising models from the education and workforce development sectors—on the job, in higher education, and in our communities.

At the same time, extending promising models broadly will require unprecedented action. Without strong public action, promising models cannot be implemented on the scale the nation requires in...

Employers & Employees
Funders
Policymakers

Writing Prescriptions for the Health Care Workforce

03/01/10

| by Marc S. Miller Ph.D.

Today is the start of a two-day meeting that both draws on the experience of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions and could provide important suggestions on how the Fund and its affiliates could move forward on a policy agenda to help low-wage employees succeed and businesses compete. Called Rx for the Health Care Workforce, the meeting’s goal is to address a central challenge to the potential of the nation’s health care system to deliver affordable, accessible care: the need for a skilled health care workforce, particularly on the front lines of care.

The National Fund is one of three of the initiatives that Jobs for the Future partners that are central to the convening, along with Jobs to Careers and...

Funders

Philanthropy’s Unique Role in the National Fund

02/17/10

| by National Fund Staff

We’ve often said that what may be most unique about the National Fund for Workforce Solutions is how many national, regional, and local funders have joined together to help employees succeed and businesses compete.

In a recent video interview, Donn Weinberg, VP/Chairman-Elect and Trustee of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, based in Baltimore and an original investor in the National Fund, talked about how philanthropy is helping to spark systemic change in workforce development. The one specific program he mentions, the Baltimore Alliance for Careers in HealthCare, or BACH, is supported by the...

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...