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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The Pro Path Fund is a funder collaborative established in 2015 and composed of the Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance and a group of education funders in pursuit of a shared vision: a Chicagoland education and workforce system with a seamless transition from secondary to postsecondary programs. The Pro Path Fund takes its name from [...]
The Financial Services Pipeline (FSP) initiative is a partnership that financial services firms created in 2014 to increase the representation of African Americans and Latinos in their sector. The Chicago Community Trust and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago were also integral to its formation. The FSP brings together about 18 financial services companies, [...]
The Chicagoland Healthcare Workforce Collaborative (CHWC) unites employers and industry partners to support an inclusive healthcare workforce, provide accessibility for Chicagoland’s unemployed and underemployed populations, and develop innovative responses to the evolving needs of the healthcare industry. The Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance has supported this work since its inception and funds CHWC’s projects, which are [...]
Since 2013, the Funder Alliance has invested in the worker center movement in Chicagoland, helping eight worker voice/worker empowerment agencies band together and form a new agency, the Raise the Floor Alliance (RTF). In that time, RTF has solidified its capacity, hiring staff and establishing a successful model of collective action. Together they work [...]
