Central Iowa Works Funding Collaborative

Des Moines

, Iowa

Central Iowa Works is an effort to revitalize, integrate, and improve the workforce development system in the Des Moines area. It brings together key partners in government, business, education, and the public sector to create a comprehensive workforce system for all employers and labor force members.

The Funding Collaborative, a project of Central Iowa Works, focuses on key programs and services for Des Moines-area low-skilled and low-income workers. It supports an agenda of policy and system change and improvement.

Funding Collaborative

Membership in the Central Iowa Works Funding Collaborative is composed of contributors and donors. Those members form the governance body of the collaborative. Current members include: United Way of Central Iowa, Greater Des Moines Partnership, Greater Des Moines Community Foundation, Iowa Workforce Development, and Des Moines Area Community College.

The Funding Collaborative creates guidelines, governance procedures, and operational processes for funding projects to achieve its goals and to align strategy with the goals of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions. The governance body identifies and determines projects that are consistent with the needs identified by the sector boards (workforce partnerships), other workforce partners, and with the strategies of Central Iowa Works.

The Funding Collaborative is co-chaired by the president of United Way and a business leader. The collaborative also gets support from a CIW Technical Team.

Key Strategies and Interventions

Funding Collaborative investments support innovative and effective outcome-driven strategies developed by sector boards (workforce partnerships) and partners whose purpose is to implement the employment strategies for low-skilled individuals. Through an RFP process, the collaborative makes strategic investments in workforce partnerships to develop outcome-driven programs. Grantees receive commitments of funding for several years so they can build and support a sustainable system.

An important expected outcome is to serve a total of 1,500 low-skilled and low-income individuals over three years.

Through communication and joint decision-making with CIW board, the Funding Collaborative supports an agenda of policy and system change and improvement that is focused on the needs of low-skilled and low income people in the Des Moines area.

Labor Market Analysis

The following powerpoint provides an analysis of the Des Moines regional labor market. The analysis is intended to provide a picture into overall employment conditions and structural changes in this local economy, focusing on the period from 2001-2007. Though this data does not capture changes associated with the recent 2008 recession, it should still provide useful insights into medium-term demographic and employment changes.

The data analyzed here comes from two major sources: The American Community Survey 2007 (and 1990 & 2000 Decennial Census for some charts) from the U.S. Census Bureau; and the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For a full guide to the data content, structure, and how it might be used, please listen to the June 16, 2009, recorded webinar available here.