Job Opportunity Investment Network

Philadelphia

, Pennsylvania

The transformation of Philadelphia over the past two decades into a spirited cosmopolitan hub with 360,000 college students, a booming tourism trade, unprecedented downtown residential growth, and a rich cultural life goes hand in hand with deep-seated problems that threaten the economic vitality of the entire region. A majority of working-age adults lack the basic skills and credentials to compete in the regional labor market. Only one in seven Philadelphians has a four-year college degree, while more than 60 percent of the city’s adults are low-literate. And tens of thousands of Philadelphians who have overcome significant barriers to find and keep work are only marginally attached to the workforce.

As a response, the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania joined forces with local public and private funders to launch the Job Opportunity Investment Network. JOIN is a regional funding collaborative organized to support workforce partnerships, effect change in the region’s strategic workforce vision, and align public and private resources in new ways around workforce development.

JOIN’s main goals include: become the primary vehicle for attracting and aligning investments by charitable foundations to advance low-skilled workers; advocate for policies that sustain workforce partnerships and enhance the advancement prospects of low-skilled adults; create career pathways for low-income workers; and match the needs of employers with advancement opportunities for low-skilled workers.

Funding Collaborative

United Way, JOIN’s lead organization, is responsible for fund management and administrative oversight. Other collaborative members include the Knight Foundation, the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board, the William Penn Foundation, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As new funders commit resources, they will become part of the collaborative, and each entity contributing $50,000 or more will have one seat on the board of JOIN and one vote on all investment decisions. The funding members are part of the Investors Committee, and an Advisory Committee informs JOIN’s work. The Advisory Committee consists of 10 to 15 members drawn from the region’s business groups, unions, civic officials, and provider community.

Other subcommittees oversee specific aspects of JOIN: program investments, policy work, and capacity building. The subcommittees are chaired by collaborative members and include members of the Advisory Committee.

Key Strategies and Interventions

The JOIN collaborative works with regional Industry Partnerships to embed a focus on lower-skilled workers in their efforts. Through an RFP process, JOIN invited the 13 existing IPs in the region to formulate strategies that engage and advance low-skilled adults. JOIN’s grantees can be the IP managing entities themselves or sub-clusters of employers and community partners that are organized through the IP and are focused on common skill requirements and target populations. Lead organizations eligible for funding include: WIBs; business consortiums or associations; nonprofit organizations serving as workforce intermediaries; organized labor; and labor/management partnerships.

JOIN’s grantees are:

Recruiting low-skilled workers through the public workforce system or in partnership with community agencies;
Aligning employer-driven training activities with existing basic skills resources and programs;
Developing support mechanisms for new, lower-skilled hires that improve their chances for sustained employment;
Fostering career ladders and advancement paths, and link pre-employment services to these paths;
Developing or deploy certification and credentialing processes for occupational advancement;
Promoting the spread of best practices across employers that improve the quality of entry-level jobs and possibilities for career advancement; and
Sustaining the costs of serving lower-skilled workers at the conclusion of the JOIN grant period.

JOIN also provides capacity-building and technical assistance to its grantees through Keystone Research Center and others. Capacity building aims at embedding in Industry Partnerships a focus on how employers can improve the hiring, retention, and advancement of low-skilled workers, enabling a dual customer approach.

Labor Market Analysis

The following powerpoint provides an analysis of the Philadelphia 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.