For twenty-five years, i.c.stars has been jump-starting technology careers for Chicago-area low-income adults. While industry-guided tech training is a big part of the success, it’s not the whole story. The results we see– 80-90% full employment in high-quality jobs– are built on continued support even after the tech curriculum is completed. Our secret sauce in this work has been our employment social

In today’s fast-paced and ever-evolving business landscape, the ability to adapt to change is a critical determinant of an organization’s success. Developing the capacity for organizational change can occur in many ways, including cohort programs, where firms across industries – or, in some cases within the same industries – learn from one another as member companies implement new systems and

An Employment Social Enterprise (ESE) is a mission-oriented business that helps people acquire the job skills and experience they need to pursue a path of upward mobility and break cycles of poverty. ESEs have training programs to support individuals who are eager to enter the workforce but are facing barriers to accessing job opportunities. They act as a bridge between

A thriving early childhood workforce is needed for children and families to receive services, for educators to access rewarding careers, for organizations to achieve impact, and for Chicago industries to have strong childcare options for their workers. Chicago’s early childhood sector is focused on growing access to those services and to continuously improving their quality. In Summer 2019, CWFA was approached

The COVID-19 crisis has catalyzed an urgent need for large-scale public health and economic re-opening and recovery initiatives, which will create thousands of new employment opportunities. At the same time, it has created unprecedented and rapid unemployment and loss of income in ways that amplify the inequities already defining our region’s labor market. It is imperative that Chicago meets these

As the spring semester at the University of Michigan was winding down, I found myself still in search of a Marketing internship for the summer. With the guidance of my acquaintance Kimberley Rudd, I found myself eagerly applying for an internship within philanthropy—an industry I never explored before. Soon after, I was scheduling the extent of my internship with my

Apprenticeship 2020 is a new $3.2M fund to accelerate efforts to scale high-quality work-based learning programs in Chicago. Local and national foundations including JPMorgan Chase, Salesforce.org, The Joyce Foundation, The Chicago Community Trust, Pritzker Traubert Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and others, have launched this collaborative effort, in partnership with employers and other stakeholders to test new solutions and develop infrastructure to

What does collaboration mean to you? Merriam-Webster’s definition of collaboration is “to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor”. In this instance, the endeavor is Reimagine Retail – a workforce initiative focusing on turnover reduction and currently consisting of 10 Chicago organizations helping to improve the quality of jobs for entry-level retail workers, creating pathways for advancement in

The Genesis Movement developed from a collaboration between the Funder Alliance and the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center (IMEC) that began in 2013 and continues today. The Funder Alliance first awarded IMEC a planning grant to help develop an Industry Workforce Partnership for manufacturing. But what developed in 2014 was a different kind of initiative. IMEC and the Funder Alliance began

When the Funder Alliance started in 2012 it inherited an industry workforce partnership focused on manufacturing in Chicago’s Calumet region called the Calumet Green Manufacturing Partnership or CGMP. Initially it was a collaboration of community colleges, CBOs and local governments focused on improving career pathways for local residents into good jobs in manufacturing. The Funder Alliance has continuously sought to