Accelerating Change Through Cohort-Based Learning: A Model for Organizational Growth

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 [...]

Reflections and New Beginnings

Over the past year or so we have experienced a number of significant transitions and changes in the world of Chicagoland workforce development. For CWFA, some of those changes have been very close to home, like new Senior Leadership at our home organization, The Chicago Community Trust, and at one of our closest partners, The [...]

Our Next Ten Years

For the past year CWFA has been celebrating our first decade by lifting up the partners behind some of the most impactful projects and initiatives we have supported. I have been so proud to see the work of these amazing organizations and leaders featured in our Learning Communities, in videos, and in this newsletter. As [...]

ACKNOWLEDGING MY WHITE PRIVILEGE

George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others; I cannot start this post without saying their names and centering them in my thoughts. Structural racism affects our work at the Funder Alliance in so many ways. We see it in the occupational segregation influencing our work in the service sector, it has dictated [...]

My Summer with Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance

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 [...]

WINTER REFLECTIONS

This has been an exciting month for the Funder Alliance. We saw our partners launch the first Chicagoland Workforce Leadership Academy , we announced a new $3.2 million initiative to scale high-quality apprenticeship - Apprenticeship 2020, and we are (finally) unveiling our new website. This all comes at somewhat of a professional and personal [...]

COLLABORATION – BETTER TOGETHER

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 [...]

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