First Stage of NFWS Evaluation Reveals Innovation Taking Hold

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 figuring out how to take what these pilots taught us and put it to work nationwide is the challenge facing the National Fund, and most specifically, the 22 sites. Implementing the National Fund for Workforce Solutions: The Baseline Evaluation Report reveals these sites are indeed implementing innovation.

• Twenty-two funding collaboratives are in place. Several more are expected soon. The funding collaboratives support 37 local workforce partnerships– local organizations, ranging from community colleges to employers that join together to develop training. More than 100 workforce partnerships will soon be operating.
• The data regarding outcomes for individuals targeted by the National Fund, individuals who need training to strengthen skills, reveal early indicators of impact. In the first 10 communities to join the initiative, over 500 employers worked with community colleges and other partners to improve the skills and advance the careers of over 6,000 workers. These employers hired 887 unemployed low-income people in skilled jobs between October 2007 and September 2008. Nearly 700 of the working adults in National Fund projects completed a postsecondary degree or credential.
• The National Fund serves a population that has been hit hard in the economic crisis. In the baseline evaluation period, at least 45 percent of participants had a high school degree or less. Forty-six percent of participants were African American. Twenty-one percent were Hispanic.

Implementing the National Fund for Workforce Solutions provides a comprehensive overview of what the National Fund looks like at the local level, and its national structure and goals. It’s certainly valuable, perhaps must, reading for everybody involved in the National Fund.