National Fund for Workforce Solutions
26
8
"Up" is the number of experts who agree that the nonprofit has had the most impact in the
field. "Down" is the number of experts who disagree that the nonprofit has had the most impact in field.
Headquarters Location: Boston, MA
Founded: 2007
Mission: The National Fund is dedicated to preparing jobseekers and employees for a career, not just a job. The National Fund brings together local and regional leaders from the private, public, and nonprofit sectors to spark and drive innovation. They work hand-in-hand to create practices and systems that can help employers and employees succeed in a post-recession economy.
Tags:
national, workforce development, advocacy, education strategies, global economy, policy, college achievement, workforce strategies, resource services
Summary
Stories
Expert Reviews
Leadership
From the Nonprofit
Leadership
Fred Dedrick.
Fred Dedrick joined the National Fund for Workforce Solutions as its first Executive Director in March of 2010. Mr. Dedrick has more than 30 years of experience in addressing local and regional needs, including improving workforce development through partnerships. Most recently, he served as Pennsylvania’s Deputy Secretary for Workforce Development, overseeing roughly $150 million in federal and state workforce funding.…
See full bio.
Financial Data
Overhead Ratio:
n/a
Total Revenue:
$27,488,432
From the Nonprofit
The nonprofit has not added any comments yet. If you are a representative of this nonprofit and would like to leave a comment, please email us at
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Contact Info
Address:
88 Broad St Fl 8
Boston, MA 2110, USA
Story:
White House selects the National Fund for Workforce Solutions for Landmark Social Innovation Fund, read more here:
On July 22, 2010, the White House announced that the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, with its implementation partner Jobs for the Future, has been selected as one of those high-impact nonprofit organizations. The National Fund has been awarded a two-year grant to help successful National Fund sites “scale up,” expanding their work in key industry sectors and increasing the number of active workforce partnerships, and start new sites in high-need geographic areas in the South and Southwest.
“The Social Innovation Fund grant award recognizes the importance of working with both employers and workers so that the investments we make in human capital yield significant benefits to individuals, industry sectors, and our communities," said Fred Dedrick, National Fund Executive Director. “This grant will challenge the National Fund for Workforce Solutions to expand its work of helping low-income workers succeed in this dynamic economy by responding to the skill needs of our communities' employers. We know that these strategies are effective and we are anxious to deepen their impact.”
Through a competitive process, the National Fund will award 12-16 sub-grants to existing National Fund sites where there is strong preliminary evidence that workforce partnerships are improving outcomes for low-wage, low-skilled workers and their employers. The National Fund will also award grants to start new sites in six to eight communities in the South and Southwest where the need is great and there exists strong local capacity to implement a sustainable, community-wide career advancement approach.
(Read more at: http://www.nfwsolutions.org/blog/social-innovation-fund)
Expert Reviews of National Fund for Workforce Solutions
Evidence of Impact Summary:
The National Fund for Workforce Solutions is praised for the volume of participants it has successfully trained, educated, and placed in meaningful roles on a national scale.See expert comments.
Organization Strengths Summary:
Multiple experts praise their advocacy efforts and the quality of their program design.See expert comments.
Areas for Improvement Summary:
Multiple experts consider leadership an area with potential for improvement. Communication was also mentioned by one respondent as an opportunity.See expert comments.
Expert Comments: Evidence of Impact
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Nonprofit Senior Staff (N)
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Other (consultants, journalists, policy makers) (O)
Impact |
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Involving nearly 200 foundations and 500 employers, the National Fund for Workforce Solutions is working to bring to national scale, and evaluate, new ways to prepare workers - who don't have the needed skills - for careers that can support them and their families. A national evaluation is being conducted and is now entering its third year. The results are impressive, to date: 18,036 jobseekers and incumbent workers received training and career support in 2009, an increase of 286 percent from the year before. The number of their funding collaborative across the country increased from 10 in 2007 to 22 in 2009. 9,736 participants received degrees or credentials in 2009, compared to 679 in 2008. 4,058 jobseekers secured jobs as a result of their participation in 2009, up from 893 in 2008; of those who got jobs in 2009, 81 percent are working more than 35 hours per week. | ||
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They have secured 4,000+ job placements with 81% working over 35 hours/week. They have also helped participants attain 9,000 degrees, skill certificates or work readiness credentials. | ||
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They are leveraging increased local investment in workforce development by foundations. | ||
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The Hartford CT area Workforce Solutions Collaborative spearheaded by the United Way of the Greater Hartford CT Region received a grant to support collaborative partnerships to educate and train a low-skilled, entry level workforce in three key industry sectors: Energy/Utilities, Manufacturing, and Healthcare. | ||
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They created local coalitions a large number of communities who have raised local matching funds (actually 80-20 local match) to create an almost parallel workforce system to the federally funded one. There are embedded sector strategies and workforce intermediaries into those local communities; they created a community of practice for site. | ||
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They seed funding collaborative that in turn provide direct support, and systems change models, for sector-based workforce partnerships focused on dual bottom line: meeting needs of employers in high growth/high wage industries and meeting the needs of low-income workers. | ||
Expert Comments: Organization Strengths
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Foundation Professionals (F)
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Other (consultants, journalists, policy makers) (O)
Scalability & Leadership |
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In addition to the results listed above: 1. The model is replicable in any community. 2. This organization is a private- public partnership. 3. Fred Dedrick, most recently the Deputy Secretary for Workforce Development in Pennsylvania, was just hired to be Executive Director of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions. He brings more than 20 years experience to a post that, as the nation remains stuck at almost 10 percent unemployment, offers great opportunity and truly significant challenge. 4. National Fund for Workforce Solutions was presented the highest award bestowed by the Council on Foundations: the Distinguished Grant making Award for Collaboration for 2010. It speaks to the leadership role that philanthropy must take in helping America's workers and businesses succeed in a post-recession economy. Even more importantly, it speaks to how the National Fund operates. | ||
Funding |
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Their ability to create regional funding collaborative, develop workforce partnerships, and develop sector-specific approaches are strengths. | ||
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They have a strong, collaborative funding model. | ||
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They are leveraging public and private funds which is a good thing. | ||
Program Design & Advocacy |
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This organization is helpful to workforce professionals by providing technical assistance, the ability to convene large diverse partnerships and assist with resources to support true partnership development leading to substantial positive change in the life of many residents of the Hartford CT region. | ||
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They have strategic vision, systems change, advocacy goals, and strong (though new) leadership. | ||
Evaluation & Funding |
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Rigorous evaluation model; clear vision for the model to be employed; garnered multiple foundation funders; widely respected in the workforce community | ||
Expert Comments: Areas for Improvement
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Foundation Professionals (F)
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Researchers and Faculty (R)
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Nonprofit Senior Staff (N)
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Other (consultants, journalists, policy makers) (O)
Communication |
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This organization could improve how information and what information is provided to the field. There are 22 locations working with over 500 funders, so there are a lot of people to communicate with about the organization. There could be more sector specific training and information sharing occurring among the 22 sites. | ||
Leadership |
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The management of this project has been very rocky at times; priorities have sometimes been unclear and leadership has sent mixed-messages to sites. | ||
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The leadership for this organization has changed over time and while change is necessary oftentimes a change in leadership results in different approaches or directions while partners are still following the map of the previous leadership. Their leadership needs to remain consistent, focused and driven at all levels with all non-profits in this area because of the diversity of the partnerships, as well as diversity of industries and needs of industries and the critical workforce development needs of the people in communities across the United States. | ||
Program Design |
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Their model may be too rigid and not recognize the varying needs of different locales. | ||
Focus |
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Unfortunately, they seem to be betting on sector-based solutions as the answer. This is short-sighted in a world where most advancement does not happen along a ladder. We need to teach people how to navigate their own individual career paths. | ||
Evaluation |
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They could strengthen evaluation and dissemination to increase rigor and add depth/specifics to descriptions of effective workforce partnerships and approaches to systems change. | ||
Overhead |
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I think the structure of a national entity and then regional entities which disseminate funds results in too much overhead. In addition, because they are often bringing public money to the table, they are sometimes required to flow their funds through local workforce investment boards to the real entities doing the work on the ground. These local boards also take an administrative cut off the top. Thus, it is just too much overhead. | ||
Leadership
Fred Dedrick
Executive Director
Executive Director
From the Nonprofit
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