TO JOBSCONNECTING PEOPLE

ºº

NEIGHBORHOOD WORKFORCE PIPELINES

Making Connections: an initiative of The Annie E. Casey Foundation

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: John E. Padilla is a Senior Fellow for the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s work inConnecticut, where he leads efforts to expand economic opportunities for all low-income families.As a former Casey Foundation consultant, he focused on workforce issues with local MakingConnections site teams and worked with them to plan and implement their pipeline work. He isparticularly interested in workforce development strategy and program design, and connecting low-income workers to asset-building services. Padilla is a graduate of Wesleyan University, and he earned an MBA from the Executive Program at the University of New Haven. He also earned a certificate from the Minority Management Training Program at the Tuck Business School atDartmouth College.

THE ANNIE E. CASEY FOUNDATION is a private charitable organization dedicated to helping build betterfutures for disadvantaged children in the United States. It was established in 1948 by Jim Casey,one of the founders of UPS, and his siblings, who named the Foundation in honor of their mother.The primary mission of the Foundation is to foster public policies, human-service reforms, andcommunity supports that more effectively meet the needs of today’s vulnerable children and families.In pursuit of this goal, the Foundation makes grants that help states, cities, and neighborhoodsfashion more innovative, cost-effective responses to these needs. The Foundation offers technicalassistance to Making Connections sites through its Technical Assistance Resource Center (TARC).For more information, visit the Foundation’s website at www.aecf.org.

THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF SOCIAL POLICY is a Washington, DC-based organization that providespublic policy analysis and technical assistance to states and communities. The Center’s work isconcentrated in the areas of family and children’s services, income supports, neighborhood-basedservices, education reform, family support, community decision-making and human resourcesinnovations. This guide was prepared by the Center as part of their overall management of theFoundation’s Technical Assistance Resource Center. TARC makes technical assistance available to Making Connections sites to assure that site leaders have access to the best possible ideas,expertise, evidence-based practice, and peer learning. For more information, visit www.cssp.org.

To download a pdf of this guide, please visit www.aecf.org/mcguides.aspx.©2007, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Baltimore, Maryland

Introduction

The basics

Why a neighborhood workforce pipeline is needed

What we mean by a neighborhood workforce pipeline

Why pipelines work

Identifying partners for a pipeline strategy

Building a neighborhood pipeline

Launching a pilot program

Looking ahead

Appendix 1: Template for a

Labor Market Analysis

Appendix 2: Setting Neighborhood

Employment Targets: Closing-the-Gap Analysis

Appendix 3: Performance Management

and Dashboard Indicators

Appendix 4: Asset-Building Pathway for

Income Improvement Case Management

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In November 2004, at a Cross-Site Learning Exchange Conference held in Seattle, senior managers of theAnnie E. Casey Foundation issued a challenge to Making Connections site teams: to develop and implementstrategies for helping large numbers of residents of their target communities obtain the skills and employmentopportunities needed to achieve a durable level of financial adequacy and stability. This publicationdescribes some of the efforts that Making Connections sites have made in response to that challenge, andthe operating framework the Foundation is developing through its Making Connections initiative. That frame-work has multiple contributors such as Bob Giloth and the Family Economic Success (FES) Unit at the AnnieE. Casey Foundation, Scott Hebert of Abt Associates, Sara Griffen, and myself.

I wish to thank all the individuals who helped to shape this publication through their ideas and reading ofinitial drafts: Bill Shepardson, Juanita Gallion, Chuck Palmer, Susan Gewirtz, Judith Taylor. My special thanksto Frieda Molina of MDRC for her advice and feedback. Gaining the insight of the work on the groundwould not have been possible without Theresa Fujiwara, Bob Watrus, and all the partners of the Seattle/White Center site team, as well as Dana Jackson, Jennie Jean Davidson, Kim Katz, and their partners inLouisville who took the time from their busy schedules to meet with me and share their experiences. I amalso grateful to Bill and the staff at the Center for the Study of Social Policy for providing me the opportunityto author this publication. Finally, I want to acknowledge the vision and energy of residents of the MakingConnections communities, and their commitment to creating better outcomes for themselves, their children,and their neighbors.

John E. Padilla

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INTRODUCTION

Poverty and unemployment aren’tspread evenly across cities orregions, but rather are concentratedin disinvested urban neighborhoodsand rural communities around thecountry. These communities arehome to the nation’s most vulnera-ble children and families. Despitesome signs of improvement ineconomic conditions for families inthe United States, persistent andwidening gaps in income, employ-ment, assets, and school successexist. Many families remain cut offfrom the opportunities and supportsthey need to succeed as parentsand in the workforce.

WHAT IS MAKING CONNECTIONS?

Making Connections, an initiative of the Casey Foundation, works toimprove the lives and prospects offamilies and children living in someof America’s toughest neighbor-hoods. Common sense tells us thatchildren do better when their fami-lies are strong and that families dobetter when they live in communi-ties that help them succeed. MakingConnections works to increasefamily income and assets; ensurethat young children have what theyneed to do well in school; and pro-mote strong resident leadership,civic participation, social networks,and community mobilization. It isour belief that improvements in allof these areas—income, educa-tion, and community connections—can add up to a better life forfamilies in some of America’s mostdistressed communities. MakingConnections was launched in 1999in ten sites around the country toput our ideas to work.

MAKING CONNECTIONS GUIDES

This guide is one of four that theFoundation’s Technical AssistanceResource Center has prepared thatreflect what we have learned fromthis initiative and the amazingpeople who have led it. We offerthe guides in the hope that youmight find something useful andinspiring that will encourage youjoin us and will aid your ownefforts. You may also want to take a look at the other three online guides at www.aecf.org/mcguides.aspx:

• Starting Early, Starting Right:Children Healthy and Prepared to Succeed in School

• Building Family Wealth: Earn It, Keep It, Grow It

• Sustaining NeighborhoodChange: The Power of ResidentLeadership, Social Networks, and Community Mobilization

THE BASICS

Connecting People to Jobs:Neighborhood Workforce Pipelinesis designed to help you—neighbor-hood residents, workforce agencies,community organizations, employ-ers, local foundations, nonprofitgroups, community colleges, andpolicymakers—decide whether aneighborhood workforce pipelinemight work for you and how to goabout building an effective collabo-rative organization to carry out thework. This guide documents someof the research, lessons, and bestpractices from our ongoing work inMaking Connections neighbor-hoods around the country that havecreated successful workforce pipe-lines. Vulnerable families need helpto connect to the kinds of economicopportunities that can improve theirlives and the prospects of theirchildren. Neighborhood workforcepipelines can add real value to theeconomic landscape of toughneighborhoods and have the poten-tial to help lift significant numbersof families and communities out ofpoverty.

Below are some basic questionsand answers, which will give you asense of what neighborhood work-force pipelines are all about. If you

feel this is something that could beuseful to you and your community,you’ll find more information in theguide on how to build an effectiveworkforce pipeline that can make a real difference to families.Connecting People to Jobs:Neighborhood Workforce Pipelinesoutlines our theory and assumptionsabout building neighborhood work-force pipelines; why we believe thepipeline approach can be effectiveand is worthy of consideration;what we know so far about how to put theory into action; and adiscussion of the inevitable chal-lenges that the work entails.

WHAT CHALLENGES DO NEIGHBOR-HOOD WORKFORCE PIPELINES

ADDRESS?

Residents of low-income neighbor-hoods face many difficulties ingetting and keeping good jobs.Lack of training opportunities, poortransportation systems, race-basedhiring discrepancies, and discon-nection from well-paying jobs andsupportive social networks all con-tribute to the challenge residentsface. Low-income neighborhoodsbenefit when residents are able tofind and keep jobs that enablethem earn more, save more, andbuild family wealth.

MANY NEIGHBORHOODS ALREADY

HAVE WORKFORCE PROGRAMS IN

PLACE. WHAT MAKES A NEIGHBOR-HOOD WORKFORCE PIPELINE

DIFFERENT?

A few things distinguish thisapproach to workforce develop-ment. First, pipelines reach deepinto the neighborhoods where low-income families live and build onexisting relationships with families,friends, and organizations. Success-ful pipelines provide more thanjobs. They offer formal and informalsupports like training, child care,and transportation that help resi-dents find jobs, stay employed,increase their earnings and assets,and move ahead. Workforcepipelines bring together people andorganizations with a shared visionfor change, to form partnershipsthat are accountable for achievingreal results.

Secondly, neighborhood workforcepipelines recognize that good jobsoften lie far outside the boundariesof poor neighborhoods—often inthe suburbs miles from the innercity. A dual-customer approach thattakes into account the specificneeds of regional employers and ofjob seekers from tough neighbor-hoods helps to ensure that theneeds of both customers are met.Workforce collaboratives that workin partnership with targeted employ-ers from the beginning help tocreate a realistic path to employ-ment that benefits businesses andworkers alike. The point is toalways recruit, train, and supportjob seekers for real jobs that offerdecent wages, opportunities foradvancement, and the supportnecessary for success.

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Finally, the workforce collaborativesalso encourage and support serviceproviders to work in more effectiveways. By assembling partners whowork to their strengths and fillassigned roles such as recruitment,assessment, case management, jobreadiness training, and retentionsupport, pipelines help providersoperate more efficiently andincrease performance and capacity.Engaging both residents andemployers in planning and creatinga clear path to job sources helpspipeline partners become known asreliable sources for quality employeeplacement.

WHAT ABOUT FUNDING?

As pipeline partners, providers maybe able to access funding that theycould not access on their own.Flexible dollars from sources suchas foundations, large nonprofits,and private donors can help buildin services that may not be fund-able through public sources. Byengaging partners who bringexpertise, experience, relationships,and an interest in serving the neigh-borhood, it’s possible to assemblethe workforce service delivery systemat a significantly lower cost thanthat associated with an organiza-tional start-up. Collaboratives inMaking Connections neighborhoodshave also come up with new andcreative ways to tap into publicfunding.

WHY IS THE FOCUS ON

NEIGHBORHOODS?

Neighborhood-based communityorganizations are skilled atrecognizing and tapping into neighborhood assets, and mayhave important personal relation-ships that public agencies and

employment training services lack.Neighborhood-based pipelines usethose relationships to create anadvantage for recruitment and out-reach in a context where trust andconnectedness matter. Pipelinesoffer neighborhood residents manypoints of entry to workforce services,customizing support for vulnerablepopulations, including immigrantand refugee families; people withlimited education, literacy, andEnglish-language skills; and men andwomen who have been in prison.

HOW IS THIS BETTER FOR SOMEONE

LOOKING FOR WORK?

Pipelines are based right in theneighborhoods and are convenientto residents, steering them towardjobs and training that can helpsecure a decent wage and offeradvancement opportunities and on-the-job supports. Pipelines helpmap, reorganize, and clarify jobservices that are often fragmented,creating visible pathways so thatresidents and neighborhoods caneasily access career ladders. Throughtheir advocacy role and focus onbuilding employer relationships onbehalf of residents, neighborhoodpipeline partners can collectively actas job brokers for residents.

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN A

NEIGHBORHOOD PIPELINE IS

WORKING SUCCESSFULLY?

Performance tracking measures theeffectiveness of community out-reach, training, and job placementto help providers manage the serv-ice delivery process and make sureno one is left behind. Pipelines alsohelp improve systems by identifyingways to streamline services. Apipeline effort that is recruiting forjobs in the construction trades can

use many of the same strategies,testing instruments, assessmenttools, and case managers for jobsin other fields, such as health care,without having to reinvent the wheelfor each opportunity.

CAN A PIPELINE WORK IN ANY

NEIGHBORHOOD? WHAT ARE THE

KEYS TO SUCCESS?

• Residents must want the servicesthat a workforce pipeline can offer.

• There must be a core of organi-zations with sufficient organiza-tional capacity—and politicalsavvy—to work with residents,launch the work, and build it intoa fully functioning servicecontinuum.

• Residents and community organi-zations must view employers andarea businesses as customers andclients.

• The pipeline needs to identify thepeople in each community whocan get things done and lead thework, through commitment to thework and a “whatever it takes”attitude.

• Organizations need to be savvyenough to advocate, influence, or lobby multiple funders, govern-ment agencies, employers,organized labor, and serviceproviders.

• The pipeline must offer partnersa clear benefit, beyond funding,that makes participation in theirbest interest. Partners need ashared vision of economic suc-cess for the neighborhood, andan understanding of the pro-grammatic benefits participationcan bring them.

“Making Connections Works has proven to be a valuable community partnership for Norton Healthcare.

Through the Network we have hired nearly 100 employees. Their rate of retention has been better than

average and that is critical in health care, a profession that often experiences workforce shortages. It’s a

win-win situation for us.” –Russell F. Cox, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, Norton Healthcare

HOW DO WE ACTUALLY GO ABOUT

BUILDING A NEIGHBORHOOD WORK-FORCE PIPELINE? WHAT IS THE STRUC-TURE AND WHO ARE THE PARTNERS?

Each Making Connections site orneighborhood took a differentapproach, but they all consideredlocal political, social, and economicconditions and how those wouldaffect the development of a pipelinestructure. Potential partners in theeffort include neighborhood resi-dents and leaders, employers,community organizations, serviceproviders, and existing workforceagencies, all committed to workingtogether to achieve real results. Aresults-based approach to work-force development has the bestchance of succeeding when allparties mobilize around a clear setof desired outcomes. With the mostto lose or gain by the process,residents are crucial participants.They bring energy and passion,their labor (often volunteer), andknowledge of local needs and reali-ties to the table. The connectionsbetween residents and their partnersin the neighborhood workforcepipeline effort literally fuel theongoing effort. Without the mean-ingful and central involvement ofresidents, efforts to achieve resultsalmost always fall short.

Once a broad group was identifiedand signed on to the vision of the

collaborative, developing an effec-tive organizational model wascrucial. Several models have beentried by Making Connections sites.

One model has a lead organizationoverseeing the work, inviting part-ner organizations to participate,securing funding for the partners,and being accountable for results.Governance of a lead organizationcan be a shared function where keystakeholders are represented andhave input in determining serviceobjectives.

A second model is a formal part-nership of several organizations,with agreements that articulateexpectations, roles, and responsi-bilities. Governance is typically ashared responsibility among thepartners, though a lead organi-zation can also play this role.Performance accountability is mutu-ally enforced by the partners, andthey have input in inviting new part-ners to participate, or removingpartners for lack of performance.

In the third model, a neighborhoodintermediary coordinates, networks,and provides support for its partnerorganizations. This is the roleMaking Connections site teamshave taken on in implementing theirpipelines. Their primary role hasbeen to nurture the partnerships,coordinate mobilization of residents

and service providers in support ofthe pipeline strategy, act as a trustedbroker, and attract flexible fundingto the pipeline. The intermediarysets the stage for the service providerpartners to collaborate, and keepseveryone focused on the big-picturegoals.

Pipeline partners should be respected,credible community organizationsthat have positive relationships withresidents. Providers can propose theroles they would like to play, but thepipeline partnership must negotiateagreements, based on perform-ance, that meet the needs of thepipeline and residents.

The service components of a pipe-line include outreach/recruitment,orientation, intake and assessment,testing, coordinated referral, place-ment, and retention. Relatedsupport services, such as second-chance bank programs, asset-building services, license recoveryinitiatives, and car ownershipprograms are also needed. Theseservices help residents stay attachedto the workforce and begin toaccumulate savings.

The pipeline should enlist employ-ers willing to become part of theeffort. A neighborhood pipeline canonly work if there are employers atthe other end. Employers can pro-vide job descriptions and profiles,

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co-design training curricula, improveprogram quality, co-design opera-tional process flows for the pipeline,and participate in pipeline gover-nance, in addition to their commit-ment to hire qualified recruits.

SHOULD WE GO FOR THE GUSTO OR

START OUT SMALL?

Launching a pilot program beforescaling to a larger effort has provenvery effective for Making Connectionssites. Pilot programs allow partnersto assemble the components thatmodel the same workflows, use ofdata, and performance levels thatwill be needed for the larger effort.The pilot is the proof of conceptand an opportunity for sharedlearning.

An environmental scan of the localworkforce field and a closing-the-gap analysis are two planningstrategies that provide the frame-work for quantifying employmentgoals and determining the scale ofeffort needed to achieve them.These strategies help identify fund-ing sources for the pilot and thenumber of placements needed forprogram success.

Data are a crucial tool for strength-ening program and policy out-comes. For the workforce pipelines,partners must share a commitmentto use data to improve perform-ance, and must be willing to sharetheir performance data with otherpartners. Making Connections siteshave used a web-based commonclient tracking system that is acces-sible by all the partners and suffi-ciently flexible to accommodate thedifferent outcomes that each sitewanted to track.

CAN YOU OFFER EXAMPLES OF

SUCCESSFUL NEIGHBORHOOD WORK-FORCE PIPELINES FROM THE MAKING

CONNECTIONS INITIATIVE?

Certainly. Each Making Connectionsneighborhood has come up withsomething different that works forthat neighborhood and reflects itsparticular strengths, assets, andneeds. Below are three shortsketches of successful efforts thatshow plenty of potential and mayoffer you ideas about how youmight proceed in your community.

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY

People in Louisville simply call it theNetwork and 2,200 of them—including the mayor—count them-selves as members. The Network isa group of friends, neighbors, andcommunity partners who are work-ing together in new ways to expandopportunities and improve life inLouisville’s poorest neighborhoods,where unemployment runs threetimes the metro average. NortonHealthcare is the third largestemployer in Kentucky. ThoughNorton’s flagship hospital sits onthe border of a Making Connec-tions neighborhood, residents foundit difficult to get a foot in the door.The Network worked in partnershipwith Norton to build a pipeline forworkers that would function like afriend on the inside, pointing theway. Together they developed apackage of training and supportsthat promote job success andretention. Norton gained trained,reliable workers and stronger con-nections with the community, andresidents now enjoy a new sourceof jobs, income, and pride. TheNetwork’s pipeline partners alsocultivated solid working relation-ships with other employers and

unions in the region, including UPSand a state construction trainingprogram, and have steered morethan 300 men and women to jobsthat offer a decent wage and a newstart. Eighty-four percent of the jobsinclude health benefits. All together,neighborhood pipeline jobs haveyielded more than $1.5 million innew income for families in MakingConnections neighborhoods in thefirst two years of the effort.

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Sea-Tac Airport is a short bus ridefrom the Making Connectionsneighborhood of White Center,near Seattle, but it might as well bea thousand miles away. While newconstruction and security proce-dures have opened up new jobs at the airport, residents of WhiteCenter’s refugee and immigrantcommunities have had troubletapping into those opportunities.Enter Airport Jobs. With supportfrom Seattle/White Center Making

“Almost everyone

gets a job because

they are so well

prepared.”

–Ruth Westerbeck,Program Manager,

Airport Jobs

Connections, Airport Jobs is work-ing with community organizations inWhite Center to recruit, screen, andrefer job seekers to a training pro-gram to prepare for the airport’sapplication process. The commu-nity-based recruiters are familiar toWhite Center residents and providea handy, neighborly entry point intothe neighborhood pipeline and therobust regional economy beyond.New employees with limited Englishskills find support from an airport-based case manager, who alsohelps new hires resolve on-the-jobissues. Follow-up during the firstyear helps ensure good job reten-tion. Wages start out around $8.50an hour. To support other pipelineefforts, the Making Connectionsteam has tapped into the under-utilized Food Stamp Employmentand Training (FSET) program. Apilot program brought togethercommunity partners eager to gener-ate additional revenue, collaboratewith other agencies, and expandtraining programs with FSET dollars.

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

The Westside Education andTraining Center (WETC) is no ordi-nary college. Housed in the heartof one of San Antonio’s toughestneighborhoods, WETC grew out of

a grassroots effort among residents,advocates, community groups,elected officials, and educators totransform a closed-down schoolinto a positive institution that wouldact as a neighborhood workforcepipeline to good jobs in theregional economy. Even though theregion is enjoying an economicboom, unemployment in the WestSide neighborhood is about 11percent, nearly double the countyrate. A staggering 55 percent ofhouseholds scrape by on less than$20,000 a year. When WETCopened its doors in 2006, adminis-trators expected less than 400students. More than 1,300 enrolledthe first year. Alamo CommunityCollege District anchors WETC,offering classes and critical supportservices, and linking graduates andtrainees to jobs in manufacturing,health care, utilities, and financialservices. Community organizationsand neighborhood associationshave deep and genuine roots in thecommunity and are critical tomaking the neighborhood pipelinework. They steer job seekers toopportunities at WETC, help themover barriers, and offer supportsand services to help them reachtheir goals.

“We don’t just offer a service—‘thank you’ and out the door. We offer connections and opportunities. All

these organizations, all these people that have come together—the city’s involved, the college, neighbor-

hood organizations. We walked the blocks. We invited people to meetings. We got to know the officials.

Little by little it started to grow.” –Irma DeLeon, West Side Resident, Coordinator, Centers for Work and Family

The residents of MakingConnections neighborhoods faceconsiderable challenges in findingand keeping good jobs that cansupport their families. They mustcontend with:

• few training opportunities for realjobs;

• few jobs nearby that pay family-sustaining wages;

• race-based hiring and advance-ment discrepancies that persist inthe labor market even in times ofrelative prosperity;

• a disconnect between residents inlow-income neighborhoods andgood jobs in the regionaleconomy;

• poor transportation systemsbetween low-income neighbor-hoods and regional job centers;

• weak connections to the socialnetworks that provide referrals togood jobs; and

• deep skepticism about existingworkforce efforts that haven’tresulted in jobs.

Neighborhood workforce pipelineshave emerged as a strategy forcombating these challenges andbarriers by connecting residents tocareer-track jobs in health care,manufacturing, and the buildingtrades. Successful pipelines providemore than jobs; they offer formaland informal supports—such astraining, child care, and transporta-tion—that help residents stayemployed, increase their earningsand assets, and move ahead.

Pipelines reach into the neighbor-hoods where low-income familieslive and build on existing relation-ships with families, friends, andorganizations to connect people togood jobs and new opportunities.

Pipelines also help address issues offragmentation that have hinderedtraditional workforce developmentstrategies. Workforce programs atthe service provider level are oftenlimited in scope and scale, or areso under-resourced that they mustrefer clients to other providers whooffer additional needed services.The referrals may not be effective,a number of clients fall through thecracks, and lack of accountabilityfor results contributes to an uncoor-dinated state of workforce develop-ment services. The issue of programquality is also a variable. Serviceproviders often operate with a “wewill serve everyone who comesthrough our doors” philosophy.Even when the provider is a largeworkforce intermediary that canoperate on a broad scale, the verynature of its programs precludesfocus on a designated neighbor-hood or community.

In addition, multi-agency collabora-tion is often, in effect, nothing morethan the sharing of a contract.Each partner receives a negotiatedportion of the funding and providesservices to a pre-determinednumber of clients, with the resultsfrom all the partners rolled up tomeet the contract requirement. Thecollaboration rarely touches theinternal operations of each partner,and each partner provides only thedata needed to confirm perform-ance to the funder. Rarely is theretrue shared governance of the

collaborative. This enables businessas usual with contract targets oftenrelated to placement numbers, 90-day retention rates, or startingwage rates.

Pipelines are different. By organiz-ing service providers and employersinto a continuum where eachorganization works within assignedroles, this approach plays to thestrengths of each partner. Pipelinesadd value by improving coordina-tion among providers and makingbetter use of resources, which canthen equate to better access toservices for residents. Ultimately,pipelines can also help low-incomeneighborhoods better organizethemselves to advocate for long-term improvements through policyand system funding changes.

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WHY A NEIGHBORHOOD WORKFORCE

PIPELINE IS NEEDED

WHAT WE MEAN BY A

NEIGHBORHOOD WORKFORCE PIPELINE

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Neighborhood workforce pipelinesare high-performing collaborations,where workforce agencies, employ-ers, community-based organiza-tions, residents, and other partnersshare a common vision for changein the neighborhood, understandthat business as usual has notworked, and join together to developnew models and approaches.Pipelines present a programmaticopportunity for the service providersand employers that can lead todemonstrable benefits, including:

• access to new funding;

• opportunities to build programcapacity and/or improve programquality;

• access to populations providerscan’t currently serve;

• a reliable source of qualityemployees for area business andindustry; and

• an enhanced ability to bettermeet commitments on existingworkforce contracts.

Pipelines are sparked by a sharedvision to use large employmentgains as a driver for economicrevitalization in low-income areas.Several major characteristics setpipelines apart, including:

• A focus on specific neighbor-hoods and residents with diverseneeds. Pipelines can offer resi-dents multiple points of entry toworkforce services within theirown neighborhoods, and/or con-nect them to larger workforceefforts and opportunities outside

the neighborhood. Pipelines cancustomize support for vulnerablepopulations, such as formerlyincarcerated men and women,immigrant and refugee families,and people with limited educa-tion, literacy, and Englishlanguage skills.

• Service providers work in newand different ways. Pipelines aimto assemble partners who willwork to their strengths and fillassigned roles such as recruit-ment, assessment, case manage-ment, job readiness training,retention support, etc.

• User-friendliness. Pipelines aredesigned to be convenient to resi-dents. Pipeline staff are known toresidents and are responsive totheir needs, steering them towardjobs or training that are wantedand appropriate.

• A clear pathway to employment.Pipelines help map, reorganize,and clarify job training and sup-port services that are often frag-mented. Pipelines create visiblepathways, so that residents andneighborhoods can easily accesscareer ladders.

• A dual-customer approach toneeds of employers and workers.Neighborhood workforce pipe-lines recognize that good jobsoften lie far outside the bound-aries of poor neighborhoods—often in the suburbs miles fromthe inner city—in the regionaleconomy. A dual-customerapproach that takes into accountthe specific needs of regionalemployers and of job seekers

from tough neighborhoods helpsto ensure that the needs of bothcustomers are met. Workforcecollaboratives that work inpartnership with targeted employ-ers from the beginning help tocreate a realistic path to employ-ment that benefits businesses andworkers alike. The point is toalways recruit, train, and supportjob seekers for real jobs in theregional economy that offerdecent wages, opportunities foradvancement, and the supportnecessary for success.

• Close connections with employersand unions. Pipelines respond towhat employers want and need,and help businesses recruit andretain their employees in moreeffective ways. Unions are oftenthe gateway to training andapprenticeships. Successful pipe-lines cultivate close cooperativerelationships with unions andtheir apprenticeship programs(often through communitycolleges).

• Transparency. Pipeline efforts arewell known to community resi-dents, demonstrating that there isno wrong door for accessing theservices offered by the pipeline.

• Use of data for continuous qual-ity improvement. Pipelines useperformance tracking to measurethe effectiveness of communityoutreach, training, and job placement. This helps providersmanage the service deliveryprocess and make sure no one isleft behind.

• Gathering data on how systemsuse their resources. Pipelines canhelp improve systems by high-lighting gaps in, and reducingduplication of, services.

• Offering flexible dollars to helpproviders collaborate, rather thancompete. Pipelines can offer anattractive funding opportunitywhen a clear strategy andprogram design is articulated.Providers may be able to accessnew funding that they could notget on their own. Small grantscan make a big difference whencombined with other categoricalfunding, and can lead to inno-vations in data gathering andservice delivery across cash-strapped workforce systems.Flexible dollars from sources suchas foundations, United Ways, andprivate donors can help build inservices that may not be fundablethrough public sources.

Working in new and different waysalso means changing the servicedelivery, intake or assessmentprocess, as well as agreeing toshare data with other pipeline part-ners. While working to improve the

skills of neighborhood residents andbring new opportunities to the com-munity, workforce pipelines alsobuild an integrated system of labordemand and supply that connectsneighborhood residents to regionalbusinesses and sectors that needemployees.

For low-income residents, the lackof quality job networks often puts them at a disadvantage with prospective employers, whofrequently recruit new workers by asking existing employees for referrals. A neighborhoodpipeline acts as a surrogate thathelps rebuild these networks andconnections by moving large num-bers of residents into employment,so they can become a source ofnew employee referrals. Serviceproviders, on the other hand, workto better understand the employer’sbusiness, engaging employers aspartners in the effort to improveprogram quality, and gaining aclear understanding of their hiringneeds. As staff from pipeline part-ner organizations demonstrate theability to consistently provideemployers with quality employees,relationships with employers are

strengthened. Pipeline staff becomea trusted source of new referrals foremployers.

The pipeline approach has thepotential to improve overallprogram quality, build strongerconnections to employers, andorganize an efficient and value-added delivery of training andsupport services that neighborhoodresidents need to get and keepgood jobs.

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WHY PIPELINES WORK

RETHINKING THE SERVICE DELIVERY

APPROACH

A fundamental premise of thepipeline approach is that no singleentity has the capacity to addressthe scope of neighborhood jobless-ness. Building an organization largeenough to handle a large-scale,multi-year project is impractical formost communities. Rethinking howworkforce services can be pack-aged and delivered to hard-to-servepopulations is a prerequisite for asuccessful pipeline implementation.

Building a workforce pipeline doesnot require implementation of allcomponents at start-up. MakingConnections sites have beenencouraged to start with the mostbasic functions and build fromthere. This phased approach toimplementation has helped sitesassemble their partnerships, achievesome initial successes, map theirservice delivery processes, andsecure funding for additional services.

An initial obstacle is the tendency ofcommunity organizations to want toprovide the full range of workforceservices—regardless of whetherthey have the capacity to deliverthose services well. Pipeline partnersare recruited in part on their abilityand willingness toplay assigned roleswithin the servicedelivery process, and

to be held accountable for results intheir part of the process. Strongpipelines assign and enforce veryspecific roles and responsibilities.This helps a pipeline play to partnerstrengths and creates a program-matic scenario where serviceproviders deliver at very high levelsof quality.

BENEFITS OF PIPELINES

Making Connections can providecompelling reasons for using apipeline approach, based on thesite’s experience to date of workingwith providers, residents, communitygroups, local government, andemployers.

• Cost effectiveness. By engagingpartners who bring expertise,experience, relationships, and aninterest in serving the neighbor-hood, it’s possible to assemblethe workforce service deliverysystem at a significantly lowercost than that associated with anorganizational start-up. Using apipeline approach where partnersfocus on performing their well-defined roles at a high-qualitylevel creates an environmentwhere “the whole exceeds thesum of the parts.” For example,Making Connections Seattle/

White Center has used targetedoutreach and recruitment,coupled with pre-screening andassessment in the neighborhood,to dramatically improve the qual-ity and number of applicants forjobs at Seattle-Tacoma Airport.

In all Making Connections sites,the partners have brought fund-ing with them, from multiplesources. In many cases, the fund-ing was categorically restricted,and providers had to be mindfulof who was being served with thefunds. However, since all the subpopulations that the fundingwas intended to serve—such asWorkforce Investment Act (WIA)-eligible, Temporary Assistance forNeedy Families (TANF) recipients,refugees, and returning prison-ers—are found in the neighbor-hood, the use of blended fundingstreams was not an obstacle topipeline implementation. In fact,many partners said the pipelinebrought them clients they hadn’tbeen serving.

• Building on existing neighbor-hood assets. Most communityorganizations are skilled at tap-ping into neighborhood assetsthat are often overlooked ordismissed. These organizations(formal and informal social net-works, resident groups, the faithcommunity, and neighborhood-based businesses) may haveimportant personal relationshipsthat public agencies or employ-ment training services lack, andcan use those relationships tocreate an advantage for place-based efforts at recruitment andoutreach. Seattle/White Center’suse of its Trusted Advocates

network is a good example of theuntapped resources that can beemployed by a pipeline when itcarves out roles for differentstakeholders. In Louisville, theemergence of a Making Connec-tions Network with more than2,200 members is making greatstrides in re-creating an employ-ment-related social network.

• Meeting employer and residentneeds. Employers in low-wagemarkets can exhibit behaviorsand practices that work againstpeople of color and other resi-dents of low-income neighbor-hoods. Through their advocacyrole and focus on buildingemployer relationships on behalfof residents, neighborhoodpipeline partners can collectivelyact as job brokers for residents.They can vouch for the employa-bility of residents, offer supportservices to keep new employeeson the job, and build relation-ships based on the ability of thepipeline to consistently meet theneeds of employers. By workingto understand employer needs, as well as bringing residents andemployers into the design of thepipeline itself, partners canincrease understanding of mutualworkforce development needsand reconcile those needs withcustomized services.

• Portability. Once the pipeline hasbeen established, and partnershave ironed out the initial operat-ing challenges that inevitablyarise during implementation1, it is relatively simple to use thatinfrastructure in various sectors.Making Connections sites arerealizing that prospective job

seekers can be served with a setof common services, and then ledto specific pathways based on thecareer opportunities they wish topursue. For example, a pipelineeffort that’s recruiting for employ-ment in the construction tradescan use many of the same strate-gies, testing instruments, assess-ment tools, and case managersfor jobs in the health care field.While the profiles of successfulcandidates may vary, and thepartnerships may be configureddifferently, a pipeline provides thevehicle for resident access toemployment services withouthaving to reinvent the wheel foreach opportunity.

• Modeling a functional system.Pipelines offer an opportunity tomodel what a responsive work-force system—one that trulymeets the needs of hard-to-servepopulations—could look like inday-to-day practice. In a contextwhere trust and connectednessmatter, the pipeline assemblespeople who care about place,maximizes existing workforcefunding to serve those most inneed, and attracts and organizessupportive services—all whilemaking them more accessible toneighborhood residents who arehardest to employ. Problemsrelated to long distances betweenhome and work opportunities,inadequate transportationsystems, a lack of informal refer-ral networks for informationabout work opportunities, andemployer prejudices againstresidents of particular neighbor-hoods can all be addressed byworkforce pipelines. In Hartford,Seattle, and Louisville we are

already seeing evidence of howthe pipelines have influenced the design and functionality ofregional workforce systems.

CONNECTING THE DOTS

The term “pipelines” is used oftenin the field of workforce develop-ment to describe high school-to-career transition programs,strategies to move workers fromentry level to second- and third-tierjobs, or programs that work withspecial populations, such as thosewho have been involved in thecriminal justice system, immigrantand refugee families, or peoplewho have limited proficiency in theEnglish language. Each of thesepipelines shares some commoncharacteristics:

• assembling employment, educa-tion, and/or training services thatform clear pathways for partici-pants to build skills needed toenter and advance in the labormarket;

• providing job seekers withemployment supports needed tofacilitate job retention and careeradvancement;

• identifying key policy and systembarriers that need change; and

• providing complete and timelyinformation to participants

Pipelines also refer to vehicles fortransporting large quantities ofproduct from one point to another.Compared to other methods, suchas railroads, shipping, or trucking,pipelines are more efficient becausethey carry higher volumes of prod-uct, which leads to lower costs per

13

R E C R U I T M E N T / R E F E R R A L

unit. Workforce pipelines coordinateresources, programs, and servicesto move much larger numbers ofpeople from a specific neighbor-hood to employment, more costefficiently than if the public work-force system were left to conductbusiness as usual.

The schematic on pages 14 and 15is a depiction of the functionalcomponents of the workforcepipeline. These are the steps thatexist in almost any workforceprogram. While we know that theprocess of finding and keeping ajob is not linear, the diagram illus-trates a framework by which theseprocesses could be reorganized,with assigned partner/provider rolesfor specific pieces of the work, tobuild a service continuum that canserve a neighborhood at a muchlarger scale than any single partnercould.

The varying workforce needs, abili-ties, and interests of residents posethe greatest challenge to a neigh-borhood-focused employmentstrategy. Meeting that challengerequires assembling workforce part-ners who can bring together therange of resources and servicesneeded to serve residents well, and

packaging and delivering resourcesand services with the intensity, care,and attention needed make a realdifference at a neighborhood level.Attempting to build this level ofexperience and expertise within oneorganization is difficult, especiallygiven the current funding environ-ment that pushes workforce agenciestoward broader-based employmentprograms at the expense of place-based strategies. In response, sitesand local partners are developingstrong collaborations that addressthese challenges through sevencore elements:

1. Targeted outreach/recruitment to those residents interested in andable to meet the requirements ofspecific employment opportunitiesthat may be available, or wantaccess to education and trainingservices to prepare them foremployment.

2. Orientation on specific employ-ment opportunities, job require-ments, and services availablethrough the pipeline.

3. Standardized testing and assess-ment with service providers using acommon assessment instrument(s)that accurately determines the

educational skill levels of aprospective job seeker.

4. Coordinated referral to employ-ment opportunities, as well asopen-entry/open-exit educationaltraining to improve job readinessskills, provide basic skill remedia-tion, or occupational skill training.

5. Access to jobs and quality train-ing programs that residents maynot—or have not—been able topreviously access. Employmentopportunities are identified throughneighborhood organizations,resident groups, or as part of aregional or sectoral strategy to meetemployment needs in a given sector,such as health care or construction.

6. Retention support that is proac-tive, utilizes ongoing soft skills train-ing and peer support groups, anduses income supports (public bene-fits) and other financial services2 asthe basis for developing a newretention relationship. Employmentretention begins early on with agood match between the interestsof the employee and the needs ofthe employer. Pre-employmenttraining includes building skills inthe areas of teamwork, conflictresolution, and timeliness.

14

R E F E R R A L

to school, training,pre-apprenticeship program,

or job

O U T R E A C H / R E C R U I T M E N T > O R I E N T A T I O N > A S S E S S M E N T >

INDUSTRIES AND UNIONS >

L ARGE LOC AL BUSINESSES >

SIN GLE JOB OPENIN GS >

>>6 - M O N T H 1 - Y E A R R E T E N T I O N R E T E N T I O N

R E T E N T I O N / A D V A N C E M E N T

7. Case management orientedtoward income improvement.Layered throughout the pipelineframework is a case managementphilosophy that addresses careeradvancement; the employee’sability to earn a bigger paycheckand learn the skills needed to moveahead.

The income improvement approachto case management departs fromtraditional social service modelsand moves toward a financially-oriented philosophy that focuses on three objectives for workeradvancement and earnings:

• help new employees assumeresponsibility for their ownadvancement: learn how to findhelp when needed, and under-stand the skills that employersdesire and will pay for;

• maximize family income by com-bining earned income with accessto cash and non-cash incomesupports (public benefits); and

• use the income supports toprovide financial assistance thatwill help relieve pressure on theemployee so s/he can focus onthe job.

Income improvement case manage-ment begins before actual jobplacement, and emphasizes theproblem-solving skills an employeeneeds to advance within the work-place. Case managers who focuson income improvement teach arange of job advancement skills,such as how to ask for a raise ormore hours at work, as well as howto inquire about job shifts that paymore. At the same time, case man-agers screen job seekers to deter-mine which income supports theyare eligible for, such as the EarnedIncome Tax Credit (EITC), Child TaxCredit, food stamps, medical cover-age, low-income heating assistance(LIHEAP), and others. One assump-tion of this approach is that whenresidents become engaged in theirown income growth, they will dealwith their barriers more effectively.3

15

IDENTIFYING PARTNERSFOR A PIPELINE STRATEGY

ASSEMBLING THE PARTNERS

The workforce pipeline is greatlyenhanced by the involvement ofpartners that are respected, crediblecommunity organizations who enjoypositive relationships with residents.Since trust relationships are soimportant to establishing the work,the credibility of the staff will influ-ence the community’s perceptionsof the program as well as theirability to maintain good relation-ships over longer periods of time.Other considerations for partnerselection include:

• Which service providers arealready working in the commu-nity and what services do theyprovide? Consider the reputa-tions—real or perceived—ofproviders who could be potentialpartners. If residents are reluctantto go to a particular provider,how will that reluctance beaddressed if the service provideris counted on to play an integralrole? Ask providers to self-assess

their organizational capacities,strengths, and weaknesses andpropose the roles they would liketo play, but negotiate agreementsbased on performance that meetsthe needs of the pipeline andresidents.

• Assemble the needed servicecomponents. These include out-reach/recruitment, orientation,intake and assessment, testing,coordinated referral, placement,and retention. In addition to directworkforce services, there will be aneed for related support servicessuch as second-chance bankprograms, asset-building services,license recovery initiatives, andcar ownership programs. Theseservices will help residents stayattached to the workforce andbegin to accumulate savings.

• Enlist employers willing to bepartners with the pipeline effort.Employers should be treated asboth partners and customers ofthe pipeline. A neighborhood-

focused employment strategy canonly work if there are employerswilling to work with the other endof the pipeline. Beyond the com-mitment to hire qualified referrals,employers should be enlisted toprovide job descriptions and pro-files, co-design training curricula,improve program quality, co-design operational process flowsfor the pipeline, and participatein pipeline governance.

• Determine the organizationaland governance structures. Thereis no single model for organizingthis work. Each Making Connec-tions site considered its localconditions and how those mightaffect how everything comestogether in developing pipelinestructures. Regardless of the struc-ture ultimately chosen, thereshould be signed memoranda ofagreement (MOA) outliningagreements, expectations, andperformance requirements, asapplicable.

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R E F E R R A L

to school, training,pre-apprenticeship program,

or job

O U T R E A C H / R E C R U I T M E N T > O R I E N T A T I O N > A S S E S S M E N T >

Block ClubsCBOs

Community OrganizersFaith Community

Neighborhood BusinessesResident Groups

Schools (Adult Ed)Social Clubs

CBOsCommunity College

EmployersOrganized LaborOne Stop/WIB

CBOsCommunity College

One Stop/WIBSchools (Adult Ed)

Workforce Intermediaries

CBOsCommunity College

EmployersOrganized Labor

Proprietary SchoolsWorkforce Intermediaries

R E C R U I T M E N T / R E F E R R A L

WHO ARE POTENTIAL PARTNERS FOR A PIPELINE STRATEGY?

DEVELOPING THE PARTNERSHIP MODEL

The best pipelines provide residentswith a continuum of seamlessly inte-grated, high-quality services, andremain accountable to improvedneighborhood-level outcomes. InLouisville and Seattle/White Center,the sites have developed anoperating model where the MakingConnections site team plays theconvener role and takes the lead in organizing the work. For theNeighborhood Jobs Initiativedemonstration, MDRC selected leadorganizations in five cities. In con-trast, the Hartford Jobs Funnel (HJF)is overseen by an advisory boardthat includes state and city repre-sentatives, funders, the WorkforceInvestment Board, the organizedbuilding trades, and others.4

Here are some partnership examples:

• A lead organization oversees thework, invites partner organiza-tions to participate, secures

funding for the partners, and isaccountable for results. Gover-nance of a lead organizationcould be a shared function wherekey stakeholders are representedand have input in determiningservice objectives.

• A formal partnership of severalorganizations where there arememoranda of agreement thatarticulate expectations, roles, andresponsibilities. Governance istypically a shared responsibilityamong the partners, though alead organization could also playthis role. Performance accounta-bility is mutually enforced by thepartners, and they have input ininviting new partners to partici-pate or removing partners forlack of performance.

• A neighborhood intermediarycoordinates, networks, andprovides supports for its partnerorganizations. This is the roleMaking Connections site teams

have taken on in implementingtheir pipelines. Their primary rolehas been to nurture the partner-ships, coordinate mobilization ofresidents and service providers insupport of the pipeline strategy,act as a trusted broker, andattract flexible funding to thepipeline. The intermediary setsthe stage for the service providerpartners to collaborate, andkeeps everyone focused on thebig-picture goals.

Regardless which governance/management structure is selected,the lead organization or intermedi-ary should not be a service providerthat is competing for resources withpipeline partners. This situation willoften lead to tension, create servicegaps when partners drop out, ordistract attention from the primarywork of serving neighborhoodresidents.

17

CBOsOne Stop/WIB

Workforce Intermediaries

CBOsCommunity College

EmployersOne Stop/WIB

Organized LaborProprietary Schools

Workforce Intermediaries

INDUSTRIES AND UNIONS >

L ARGE LOC AL BUSINESSES >

SIN GLE JOB OPENIN GS >

>>

R E T E N T I O N / A D V A N C E M E N T

6 - M O N T H 1 - Y E A RR E T E N T I O N R E T E N T I O N

TARGETING SERVICES TO REACH

VULNERABLE POPULATIONS

Strategic outreach to the formerlyincarcerated, immigrant andrefugee populations, and othergroups requires a proactiveapproach. Making Connectionssites are paying attention to ques-tions such as “Who is beingserved?” “What services do theyneed?” “And where do they live?”

One of the most important lessonsof the Casey Jobs Initiative5 was theneed for employment-related strate-gies and investments that specifi-cally addressed the needs of peopleof color.6 The Jobs Initiative foundthat, even during a time whenemployers were in hiring booms,race-based discrepancies persistedin the labor-market experiences oflow-income people of color. Thefollowing generalizations can bemade about employer hiringbehavior in low-wage and low-skilllabor markets:

• employers seek basic work-readiness in prospective employ-ees, while many seek additionalhard or technical skills and softskills such as teamwork andpunctuality;

• employers generally seek appli-cants with certain credentials thatsignal employability and skill, andtend to avoid those with certainstigmas, such as ex-offenders;

• recruiting and screening choices(as well as compensation, promo-tion, and retention decisions) areoften made informally, and canreflect employer prejudices, per-ceptions, and experiences; and

• employer access to a reliable andsteady pool of applicants is alsoaffected by their physical proxim-ity to various neighborhoods andgroups, their employee networks,as well as the tightness of thelabor market locally and/ornationally.

Employers with limited experiencewith African Americans and Latinosmay be less able to assess theiremployability simply because theyhave little social experience withthem. Since many employabilityqualities and skills are often notdirectly observable, employers usecredentials such as attainment of ahigh school diploma, previous workexperience, and references toassess job readiness. It is also notuncommon for employers to makeinferences regarding basic skills onthe basis of the quality of writing onthe application, and/or verbal inter-views for screening. Though moredifficult to prove, employers canalso discriminate against job seek-ers who live in certain zip codesbecause they exhibit biases—ormake unfounded assumptions—about the employability of allresidents of that area. In contrast,Latino immigrants are frequentlyperceived as being reliable andhaving good work attitudes and arethus preferred for jobs wherecognitive skill or language demandsare minimal.

Making Connections sites are learn-ing that opportunities to work out-side the neighborhood are noteither/or propositions. Partnerorganizations involved in neighbor-hood-focused workforce pipelinescan take advantage of funding,training, services, and supportsprovided by the public system, or

others, by acting as brokers. Forexample, a sectoral employmentinitiative operating outside theneighborhood through a workforceintermediary, or the local One Stopoperator, may have a need to fill100 positions in the health carefield, or with a large employer withwhich the pipeline partners have norelationship.

It is appropriate for pipeline part-ners to assume the role of connect-ing qualified neighborhood jobcandidates to the sectoral initiative’sprograms—even though they areoutside the scope of servicesoffered by the pipeline itself. In thisinstance, the pipeline staff maynegotiate to fill (recruit) a numberof slots, helping the intermediary oremployer fill their positions morequickly. The pipeline would fill thoseslots with neighborhood residents,bringing more opportunities into theneighborhood.

This way, the pipeline is workingmore systematically on behalf ofresidents, and improving opportuni-ties for the neighborhood becauseit’s identifying more opportunitiesand resources that meet the needsof residents. By identifying high-quality skill training, education, andemployment services, and buildingnew relationships with other pro-grams, the pipeline can literallydeliver candidates to the front ofthe line for the better workforcedevelopment programs and jobopportunities. This linkage roleallows pipeline partners to partici-pate in larger programs that maynot be place-focused, by providingthe kind of access that residentswould have if the training programwere operated directly by thepipeline.

18

Neighborhood surveys, focusgroups, and soliciting input fromresidents are activities that providea much deeper understanding ofsystem issues, residents’ percep-tions, frustrations, priorities,opinions, and desires. Involvingneighborhood residents early in thedesign process contributes to build-ing trust, establishes credibility,gains buy-in from residents, andshould lead to a program designthat reflects residents’ needs andaddresses their stated employmentpriorities. Similarly, surveying areaemployers can provide invaluableinformation about employer atti-tudes and experiences hiring localresidents as well as their experi-ences working with local commu-nity-based organizations. This canstart the process of identifying whichemployers are open to working withthe pipeline.

Building a neighborhood-focusedpipeline also requires a cadre ofprovider partners who can embracethe vision that a different approachto serving neighborhood residentscan make a demonstrable differ-ence. Without a shared vision, andan unwavering commitment topursuing large-scale employmentgains for neighborhood residents,there is a risk of the pipelinebecoming another employmentprogram whose results get dilutedonce the emphasis on a neighbor-hood and a large number of jobplacements is compromised.

Can a pipeline be implemented inany neighborhood? The presenceof opportunity is not enough for aworkforce pipeline to be successful.Building a pipeline is complicatedwork. And even though pipelinescan be simplified—particularly as

start-ups offering limited services—Making Connections sites havelearned that there are criticalelements that neighborhood-focused pipelines need to becomesuccessful:

• Demand from within the neigh-borhood. Residents must want theservices that a workforce pipelinecan offer. Employment—or thelack thereof—has to be the issuethat mobilizes residents to action.Community-based organizationscan support residents by facilitat-ing, advocating, and coordinatingactivities on their behalf, but noone can impose solutions forwhich there is no communitysupport.

• Sufficient organizational capac-ity. The pipeline relies on com-munity organizations that arealready serving the neighbor-hood, so there must be a core oforganizations with sufficient orga-nizational capacity—and politicalsavvy—to work with residents,launch the effort, and build it outinto a fully functioning servicecontinuum. Community organiza-tions should be experiencedproviders of workforce develop-ment services, with experienceadministering public and privatefunding. They should have anautomated client-tracking systemand staff that know how to usethe data to do more than pro-duce reports. These organizationsmust be willing to embracefocused technical assistanceaimed at improving their resultsand organizational infrastructure.

• Meaningful involvement of thebusiness community. Residentsand community organizations

must view employers and areabusinesses as customers andclients. This dual-customer focusshould lead service providers toforge stronger connections withemployers, better understand theirbusinesses, be more responsive totheir changing needs, and betterunderstand their hiring processesand job requirements. Moreover,employers should be engaged tohelp providers improve programquality, and participate in thegovernance of the pipeline.

• The right staff, in the rightpositions. In each community, thepipeline needs to identify thepeople who can get things doneand lead the work. They are notnecessarily the heads of the part-ner organizations, but theydemonstrate a commitment to thework with a “whatever it takes”attitude, and they are results-driven. They understand that theworkforce pipeline is a processthat can be managed, fine-tuned,and eventually “throttled open” toserve large numbers of people asthe work matures. They must beadept at management by influ-ence as they will be responsiblefor outcomes of people or groupsthat do not directly report tothem.

• Political savvy. Organizationsneed to be savvy enough toadvocate, influence or lobbymultiple funders, governmentagencies, employers, organizedlabor, service providers, etc. They must be experienced work-ing with local, state, and federallegislators and officials, as wellas funders.

19

BUILDING A NEIGHBORHOOD PIPELINE

An altruistic vision of communitychange is not enough to motivateservice providers to partner in apipeline strategy. There has to be aclear benefit that makes participat-ing in the pipeline in their bestinterest. The sooner the “What’s init for me?” question is addressedand answered, the better the likeli-hood of assembling the right part-ners and developing a programdesign that works for everyone.While funding is often the mostsought-after benefit, typically noindividual partner stands to receiveso large a portion of the totaldollars that funding alone is themotivating factor. Partners mayneed help in seeing the pipeline asa programmatic opportunity, andthe other benefits that participationcan bring them.

In several Making Connectionssites, workforce partners quickly sawthe added benefits that a pipelinestrategy could bring, includingaccess to new funding such asFSET7 dollars. Others saw theopportunity to build programcapacity and/or improve servicequality with assistance provided by

the Casey Foundation’s TechnicalAssistance Resource Center (TARC),the sharing of data with otherproviders, and access to a clienttracking system provided by the siteteam. Some simply realized that thepipeline could help them reachmore people than they werecurrently serving, which helpedthem reach their contractualnumbers more quickly.

For most of the Making Connec-tions sites, building a shared visionof ways to achieve large employ-ment gains is a continuing process.Several sites have been very suc-cessful in building collaborativescommitted to a new approach. Inother sites, the local environment issuch that this is more challenging.Sites used a variety of tactics toengage with residents and localworkforce stakeholders, includingbringing teams of local partners toFoundation-hosted MakingConnections Cross-Site LearningExchanges in Baltimore. Theexchanges provided a forum for siteteams to learn about successfulpipeline projects in other cities,hear from consultants and practi-

tioners who haddone this workon the ground,and work inteams to brain-storm ideas withCasey staff and

consultants to consider what itwould take to launch a project intheir respective community.

Vision-building sessions often beganwith asking basic questions in orderto flesh out new ideas, surfaceunderlying assumptions, and iden-tify the sacred cows—those thingson which service providers wouldnot be willing to compromise aspart of their participation in a pipe-line. The vision-building process isgreatly helped by the use of neigh-borhood-level data to build thecase for an employment-drivenapproach to community change.The data tools used by MakingConnections sites are a workforceenvironmental scan and a closing-the-gap analysis.

CONDUCTING AN ENVIRONMENTAL

SCAN OF THE LOCAL WORKFORCE

FIELD

Making Connections sites used twoplanning strategies to collect thepreliminary data needed to buildthe local case for a pipelineapproach. The first was an environ-mental scan of all local activity inthe workforce field within the com-munity. The second was a closing-the-gap analysis to determine thescale of effort that would beneeded to increase the employmentrate of the neighborhood to a levelcloser to that of the city.

VISION-BUILDIN G

QUESTIONS

1 2 3 4“What do you think wouldhappen in our neighborhood if1,000 residents went to workand held on to those jobs overthe next 3–4 years?”

“What do you think it wouldtake to double—or even triple—the number of neighborhoodresidents that we [serviceproviders] are currently placingin jobs?”

“If we could design a workforceservice delivery system thatreally worked for our residents,what would it look like?”

“Are we willing to change theway our organization operatesworkforce programs in order toachieve large employment gainsfor our community? How so?What am I not willing to do inorder to help large numbers ofneighborhood residents findjobs and hold on to them?”

The environmental scan8 proves tobe an invaluable exercise for localsites teams as it collects data on allthe different workforce efforts underway in the community and theapproximate levels of funding asso-ciated with each. The scan seeksanswers to several basic questions:

1. Which organizations are provid-ing workforce programs in ourcommunity?

2. Which population (i.e., TANF,income-eligible, displaced workers,etc.), if any, do these programstarget?

3. How many people are served bythese programs?

4. What is the funding source andapproximate level of funding foreach program?

The scan is conducted by a smallgroup that interviews the One-Stopsystem, community colleges, com-munity-based organizations, work-force intermediaries, vocationalschools, proprietary schools, andothers. As each program is identi-fied, the interview team also deter-mines the number of people theprograms serve and the approxi-mate level and sources of funding,including WIA and other federaldollars, such as Housing andUrban Development (HUD) or FSET,state and local funds, foundationgrants, corporate contributions, andother private funding.

In almost every Making Connectionssite, the results of the environmentalscan were strikingly similar. Sitesquickly learned that a lack of moneywas not the overriding problem ora barrier to providing workforce

services. In fact, in most MakingConnections sites the environmentalscan revealed that there was farmore money flowing in the work-force system than anyone imagined!And when the numbers of personsto be served by the different pro-grams were rolled up, the totalnumber of people far exceeded thenumber of unemployed persons inthe city. As a result, the scan pro-voked a number of core questionsregarding program quality, duplica-tion of effort, and effective use offinancial resources. The data seemto indicate that there is a lot ofmoney flowing through the work-force system, and many people are already being touched by thesystem in one way or another—butwith an unknown result.

CONDUCTING A CLOSING-THE-GAP

ANALYSIS

The idea of using large employmentgains as a driver for comprehensivecommunity change was articulatedby the Neighborhood Jobs Initiative(NJI), a national demonstrationdesigned and managed by MDRCduring 1998–2001. NJI’s goal wasto increase adult employment ratesin target neighborhoods to those of the surrounding region. Defininga clear result at the outset helpedmobilize NJI’s community-basedpartners and communities andreinforced that genuine collabora-tion was the only way to achievelarge gains.

For Making Connections, a closing-the-gap analysis provides a frame-work for quantifying the number ofjob placements, as well as the scaleof workforce efforts needed toachieve significant employmentresults. Unlike other approaches

that might target numbers of avail-able job openings in a particularsector, employer, or region, theMaking Connections approachfocuses on raising the number ofneighborhood residents who areactually working to a level thatapproximates the city and/or regionemployment rate.

Traditionally, the prevailing labormarket measure of workforce activ-ity in a given area has been theunemployment rate. Yet we knowthat unemployment rates do notaccount for people who are notactively looking for work, “discour-aged workers” who have stoppedlooking for work, or those who areno longer collecting unemploymentbenefits.

Keeping the focus on “employmentrates,” sites sought to understandhow many people in their commu-nities were actually working, as wellas what the employment rates wereat the county, city, and neighbor-hood levels. It was not surprisingwhen sites found that the employ-ment rate for the region was higherthan that of the city, which is higherthan that of the neighborhood. Thispattern was consistent across allMaking Connections sites; in somesites, the spread between the threewas as much as 25 percentagepoints. The reasons for loweremployment rates in the urbancenters are well known: urbandisinvestment, concentration ofpoverty, the relocation of many jobsto areas outside the city, transporta-tion barriers, and low skill levels.

We believe that calculating anemployment rate is the betterindicator to measure because itaccounts for everyone potentially

21

available to work. To estimate anemployment rate among a givenpopulation, compare the number of working age adults in the area(people age 16–64) who areemployed, to the total number ofworking-age adults in the area,using the following equation:9

For example:

In the Milwaukee Making Connec-tions target neighborhood, thereare 8,726 employed persons out ofa total labor force (person ages16–64) of 19,080. Using the abovecalculation, this equates to a 45.7percent employment rate.

WHAT DOES CLOSING THE GAP MEAN

FOR MAKING CONNECTIONS

COMMUNITIES?

The concept of closing the gap withsignificant employment gains (satu-ration) is premised on implementingworkforce strategies that lead to anotable increase in the employmentrate of a defined geographic areaover time by adding a significant

amount of net new workers to thelocal workforce. The measures usedto develop the target employmentrates involve comparisons toneighborhood, city, and region.Ultimately, if the work is sustain-able, the goal is to bring the neigh-borhood employment rate up to alevel that mirrors the employmentrate of the city or region.10

Using the same calculation, weestablished that the employmentrates for the city of Milwaukee were57.9 percent, and 60.8 percent forthe county. Starting with the size ofthe labor force in the MakingConnections Milwaukee neighbor-hood (19,080), the following num-bers establish a baseline for closingthe gap so that the employmentrate in the neighborhood is closerto the employment rates of the cityand county:

For the employment rate of theMaking Connections neighborhoodto be equal to the employment rateof the city (57.9 percent), 11,047adults would need to be perma-nently employed. If the goal is toraise the employment rate to thatof the county (60.8 percent),

11,601 adults need permanentemployment.

CLOSING-THE-GAP CALCULATION

The gap is the comparison betweenthe number of target workersneeded to equalize employmentrates, and those who are actuallyemployed. The number of adults inthe Making Connections Milwaukeetarget neighborhood who wouldhave to find and keep jobs (the newworkers) to meet regional employ-ment rates is:

It is highly unlikely that any singleorganization will produce thesetypes of placement numbers in aneighborhood. However, wherethere are several service providersalready involved with workforcedevelopment programs in a givencommunity, these numbers are notas daunting as they first seem. Thefollowing table breaks it down evenfurther by calculating the rate atwhich new workers would need tobe placed in permanent employ-ment over a three- to five-yearplacement period.

22

MC Neighborhood 8,726 19,080 45.7%

City 256,244 442,845 57.9%

County 436,878 718,569 60.8%

Number of

Persons Employed

TotalSize of LaborForce

Employ-ment Rate(A/B)

A B C

FIGURE 1:COMPARISON OF EMPLOYMENT RATESIN MILWAUKEE

TO REACH THE LEVEL OF:

City 19,080 57.9% 11,047

County 19,080 60.8% 11,601

TotalNumber of

Adults in MCLabor Force

Employ-ment Rate

Target # ofEmployed

Adults inMC

Neighbor-hood (AXB)

A B C

FIGURE 2:CALCULATING THE TARGET NUMBER OFNEW WORKERS IN MILWAUKEE

TO REACH THE LEVEL OF:

City 11,047 8,726 2,321

County 11,601 8,726 2,875

TargetNumber of Employed

Adults

EmployedAdults in

MCMilwaukee

Number of New

WorkersNeeded

(C-D)

C D E

FIGURE 3:CALCULATING THE NUMBER OF NEWWORKERS NEEDED IN MILWAUKEE

(# of employed adults in area) = Employment Rate

(total # of adults 16–64 in area)

Using this methodology, MakingConnections sites developed aclearer sense of what it would taketo close the employment gap intheir respective communities. Thenext step was for them to determineachievable goals, which requiredaccounting for a number of factorssuch as available resources, thecapacity of their workforce partners,existing skills levels of residents, etc.For example, a site may havechosen—for any number ofreasons—to select a closing-the-gap goal that would bring it closerto, but still below, the city employ-ment rate.

Employment placements are onlyone of several metrics that MakingConnections used to define andmeasure workforce gaps. MakingConnections site teams alsoaddressed two additional elementsin their closing-the-gap analyses:

• reducing the number of MakingConnections residents who are at150 percent and 200 percent ofpoverty levels; and

• increasing the number of MakingConnections residents with jobsthat include health benefits.

Experience also tells us that thepath from unemployment to sus-tained employment is not linear,and is often characterized by falsestarts. The goal of the closing-the-gap approach is to add a predeter-mined number of net, new workersto the neighborhood’s workforce.This analysis assumes a new workerhas joined the workforce oncehaving been employed for a mini-mum of 12 months, but not contin-uously with the same employer.Sites need to understand the 12-month retention rates of the pro-grams run by partner organizationsto develop a sense of how manypeople actually need to be placedto achieve the target results. Usingthe same sorts of calculations, we can estimate the effect on theemployment rate of differentnumbers of new workers findingand keeping jobs each year.

Stronger retention rates mean fewerplacements will be needed toachieve the net placement goals.As the above chart illustrates, a 25percent difference in the quality ofretention rates can equate to 134additional placements to achievethe same net goal of 200 perma-nent placements. It is easy to seehow programs with low retentionrates create undue stress for staffdue to the added work and pres-sure, and consume more resourcesto achieve the same result.

In all the Making Connections sites,completion of the closing-the-gapanalysis helped local partnersaspire to a better way of doingbusiness which achieves concreteresults. Time and again, thecommon reaction was, “Is that allwe need to do to make a differencein the neighborhood’s employmentrate?” When broken down over athree to five year timeframe, theannual number of required place-ments was between 250 to 400people. The number became moremanageable once the partnersrealized that there would always be some number of residents whowould be served through otherworkforce efforts, including thepublic (WIA) system.

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TO REACH THE LEVEL OF:

City 2,321 773 464

County 2,875 958 575

Number of NetNew Workers in

MCNeighborhood

AnnualNumber

Employedat 3-year

Pace (E/3)

AnnualNumber

Employedat 5-year

Pace (E/5)

E F G

FIGURE 4:CALCULATING AN ANNUAL PLACEMENTRATE IN MILWAUKEE

Numbers of Net Workers Placed Annually 200 200 200 200 200

Numbers of Total Placements Required to Yield (B) 400 363-333 333-307 307-285 <266

OVERALL RETENTION PERFORMANCE 50% 55-60% 60-65% 65-70% +75%

LAUNCHING A PILOT PROGRAM

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To test their respective pipelineefforts, Making Connections siteslaunched prototypes, or pilots, oftheir program designs prior tobroader-scale implementation.Louisville piloted its partnership withNorton Healthcare by setting a goalof 30 placements during a six-month period. Seattle/White Centerimplemented a one-year pilot pro-gram before moving to scale totarget more residents. In Denver,where the Making Connections teamhas been a partner in securing acommunity benefits agreement for amajor urban redevelopment project,the pipeline pilot will target 150placements in the construction andbuilding trades apprentice programsover the coming year.

Making Connections sites wereencouraged to get their pipelinesup and running in pilot to beginbuilding partnerships and assem-bling services. The pilot is the proofof concept and an opportunity forshared learning. In sites where therewas little experience with similarcommunity development efforts, the site teams were breaking newground. Bob Watrus of theSeattle/White Center site teamrecalls that “The light went off forus at our cross-site exchangemeeting where we realized we didnot have to have all the answersfigured out prior to implementation.Knowing that our initial assump-tions about the process would prob-ably need to be revised, we did nottry to plan out the program designin great detail—we just got startedand developed it from there. Ourpartners also brought ideas so theyhad an opportunity to shape howthe services would be coordinated.”The Airport Jobs pilot ran for oneyear and placed over 40 residents

at the airport before moving tolarger scale.

Based on the sites’ experiences,there are some early lessonslearned on developing the pilotpipeline:

• Start small and put the pieces in place. Decide on a targetnumber of placements for thepilot and assemble the compo-nents. Deploy or hire staff thathave or will develop trust rela-tionships with residents. Staff willmake or break the program, sothey should be carefully chosenand fully oriented to the overallgoals of the pipeline strategy.Hiring staff that reflect the ethnicor racial makeup of the neigh-borhood is important. Staff of thesame ethnic/racial groups whohappen to know the neighbor-hood can build relationshipsmore quickly or bring thoserelationships with them. Includesupport services at implementa-tion so the early residents placedinto employment have thesupports they need to remainemployed. Pursue flexible fundingthat is not categorically restricted,so all pipeline clients can beserved in creative ways. Modelthe workflows, use of data, andperformance levels that will berequired of the larger effort sothose are established early in thepartnership. Pay particular atten-tion to how clients move throughthe service delivery process, howthey are handed off from oneprovider to another, and thequality of case managementprovided to clients. Once all thepartners are satisfied with how thework is operating, move to targeta larger number of residents.

• Focus on program quality. Buildin performance requirements andquality levels, and use data tomanage the overall performanceof the service delivery process. Ifpartners are contributing staff tothe pipeline, clarify how thoseday-to-day reporting relationshipswill function. Establish protocolsfor making referrals to programsboth in and outside the pipeline’sscope of services so clients arenot lost in the referral process.Through targeted assistance thatpromotes shared learning,Making Connections sites areprovided with consultant support(from Casey’s TechnicalAssistance Resource Center) towork on all facets of the pipelinestrategy, including drafting ofMOAs, standardization of work-force functions among partnerorganizations, process mappingto better understand the workflow,and other components of thestrategy.

• Use data to assess and improveoverall performance. Data are acrucial tool for strengtheningprogram and policy outcomes.Data can be used to assess labor market opportunities, as amanagement tool to improveprogram performance, and toinfluence state and federal work-force policy on behalf of neigh-borhood residents and workingpoor families in general. For theworkforce pipelines, partnersmust share a commitment to usedata to improve performance.Therefore, they must be willing toshare their performance data withother partners.

COLLECTING DATA

Relevant data for planning workcan be found in a number ofsources. Census data, populationsurveys, and similar sources provideinformation on numbers of neigh-borhood residents. Labor marketanalyses describe current and futureemployment opportunities. Residentsurveys and focus groups can pro-vide a deeper understanding ofresidents’ experiences, perceptions,and desires. Resident voice alsoprovides insight into how commu-nity needs can be served by theprogram design, and which servicesare needed to address skill gaps.Because resident experience mayalso contradict what the data indi-cate, it is important to understandthese differences and how theymight impact program designs.Additional sources of informationcould come from other nonprofits,local colleges or universities, cham-bers of commerce, city or countygovernment, and other researchsources. Some questions to beanswered during data collection are:

• Where are the jobs? What labormarket conditions will the projectbe operating in? What are thedemand occupations, and arethose found in a sector or groupof employers, or are they drivenby 1–2 larger employers? Whatdoes the labor market analysisproject as the number of potentialopenings that will be available incoming years? What do the jobprofiles or hiring requirementslook like? What career paths existin the occupations or sectorsbeing identified? Answering thesequestions will help determine thenumber of people to be targetedfor a particular sector, and

identify who the initial employerpartners might be.

• What does the labor supply looklike? Demographic informationon residents’ skills and assets,education levels, employment his-tories, and other employment-related needs, such astransportation, are needed toinform the program design andprovide for the needs of residents.Attention should also be given tospecific needs of subpopulationgroups such as the formerlyincarcerated, limited Englishspeakers, and immigrant andrefugee families. For example, inEast Baltimore, a workforcepipeline has a strong basic edu-cation component to address thefact that 50 percent of residentslack high school diplomas.

• How can we use the completedenvironmental scan? With acomprehensive inventory ofcommunity service being pro-vided, pipeline partners canbroker access to high-qualitytraining, education, and supportservice resources. Other providerscan be invited to formally join thepipeline effort, or simply serve asreferral sources for those clients

in need of their services. Theenvironmental scan should bekept current and used by allpartners.

• What will it take to close thegap? Once actual calculationsare completed (see Appendix 2),convene the pipeline partners toassess the number of placementsneeded to completely close theemployment gap and establishtargets accordingly. Partners mayconclude they cannot close thegap entirely and choose a lowertarget. Be mindful that thesetargets can change as the workmatures and partners becomemore confident in their pipelineand ability to find jobs for resi-dents. As the goal is to increasethe number of net permanentadditions to the workforce, part-ners must factor in their retentionrates in order to accurately deter-mine the scale of work needed.Translate the overall targets intomonthly placement rates, andconsider other elements such astarget goals for starting wagerates, and numbers of jobs withemployer-provided benefits, etc.

DEFINING THE TARGET AREA

• Define the neighborhood.Target areas for a place-basedapproach may not always alignwith what local residents considerto be the neighborhood.

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Residents’ definitions of the geo-graphic boundaries may differ, orthe target areas might be definedon a political basis (wards, coun-cil districts) or census tracts. Forthe Making Connections sites,communities were defined duringthe initiative’s planning phase, sothose boundaries were known toall the partners as they enteredthe work. In other instances, thepartners can negotiate theboundaries of the target areabased on their own criteria orlocal conditions.

• Set numerical targets. Initialtargets are largely focused onemployment outcomes at a com-munity level. Pipeline targetsshould answer questions such as:

o How many more employedresidents is the pipeline tryingto add to the workforce?

o How much of an increase inthe level of household incomeis sought?

o How do we improve thequality of jobs that residentsare gaining?

Consider the possibility of creatingdifferent targets for different sub-population groups within the neigh-borhood. The formerly incarceratedshould have different targets thanlimited English speakers; men mighthave different targets than women.11

Lastly, numerical targets should beaggressive enough to reinforce theneed for a large-scale effort thatrequires strategic partnerships andprogram linkages. Focusing onlarge numbers can keep partners

from letting the pipeline becomejust another workforce program.

• Decide how to handle servingclients who live outside the targetarea. The tension created by serv-ice providers who are inclined toserve everyone who comes to themand the need to focus on placeto make a difference is an opera-tional challenge. In reality neigh-borhood boundaries are oftensomewhat blurred, and programswill inevitably draw people fromoutside. Rather than turn awaynon-residents, a practical solutionis to set a parameter for howmany of the total number ofpeople served will come fromoutside the neighborhood. ForMaking Connections sites, thisgoal has been negotiated amongthe partners. In general, 70 per-cent is considered an adequatedegree of focus; that is, thepipeline is meeting its intent togeographically target a neighbor-hood when at least 70 percent ofall people served come from thatneighborhood.

ASSESSING EARLY OUTCOMES

Preliminary outcomes or successindicators for workforce and com-munity development could include:

• increased employment opportuni-ties for residents;

• increased entry into the economicmainstream for some residents;

• increased asset accumulation;

• improved organizational capacityamong nonprofit providers, andimproved leadership potential oflocal residents;

• expanded network and connec-tions between individuals, busi-ness, and organizations relativeto economic development;

• increased number of residentswho can serve as resources androle models for unemployedyouth and/or residents; and

• improvements in the price,quality, and mix of goods andservices that are locally availableto community residents as moreresidents are employed andconsumer demand increases.

CONTRACTING FOR SERVICES

Assembling the pipeline partnersrequires identifying which organiza-tions can best fill defined roles inthe service delivery process, thencontracting for those specificservices. For example, when theHartford Jobs Funnel initiallylaunched in 1999, two organiza-tions with strong community con-nections were selected to providethe outreach and recruitment serv-ices for the Funnel. The focus of theinitiative was to place Hartford resi-dents in construction employmentwith the unionized building trades,so the goal of initial outreachefforts was to recruit candidateswho could meet the requirementsfor entry to the apprentice trainingprograms.12 As the work of theFunnel evolved, additional supportswere put in place to assist candi-dates who could be job-readywithin 1–6 months if given supportto improve their math and readingskills.

At first, this notion of contracting forservices that did not include jobplacement or retention support

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seemed difficult for the serviceproviders. The result was to craftcontract language that specified:(1) numerical goals for the numberof people who were recruited toattend weekly orientation sessions;(2) the number of people in atten-dance that met the job require-ments; and (3) the number ofpeople who enrolled for services asa result of attending the weekly ori-entation sessions. The goal was notto simply fill the room with neigh-borhood residents. The goal was tofill the room with neighborhoodresidents who were interested inconstruction employment and couldmeet the entry-level apprenticeshiprequirements. The contract require-ments supported this objective bydefining a weekly rate of recruit-ment, as well as quality indicators.Performance results were reviewedon a regular basis and data wereused to inform the overall man-agement of the pipeline and itsfunctional elements.

The Seattle/White Center MakingConnections site provides anotherexample. Through a subcontractingprocess, five neighborhood-basedorganizations with strong ties toarea residents were selected andawarded performance-based fund-ing to do outreach, recruitment,and pre-screening in White Center/Park Boulevard. Training was pro-vided to the organizations so theyunderstood the needs of airportemployers and developed a clearsense of who would be a suitableemployment candidate.13 Byscreening prospective candidates,neighborhood-based organizationshave been able to provide a richerpool of candidates to Airport Jobs,thereby increasing the success rate

of hires from the neighborhood.Prior to implementing this project,White Center residents hired at theAirport accounted for less than 11percent of all hires. The rate now isapproaching 22 percent. For 2006,221 residents of White Center/ParkBoulevard were hired at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

In Louisville, the initial attempts bythe Making Connections team torecruit prospective employees forNorton Healthcare using thepipeline approach was done by avariety of groups and partnerorganizations. Responding to whateveryone acknowledged was aproblem, Career Resources, Inc.,one of the pipeline partners, agreedto deploy one of its staff as aneighborhood recruiter dedicatedto Making Connections andNorton. The recruiter is solelyresponsible for identifying suitablecandidates, and referring them toCareer Resources, where theyattend mandatory preparatory work-shops before they are referred toNorton. Career Resources plays adefined role in the pipeline by pro-viding the Neighborhood Recruiterand offering the group workshopson a regular basis.

Another example of contracting fordefined services is the use ofRetention Support Specialists withthe Hartford Jobs Funnel. Thesespecialists, provided under contractwith a partner organization, areresponsible for maintaining regularcontact with apprentices once theyhave been placed, and providingfollow-up services as needed for upto two years. The retention special-ists have no other role in the servicedelivery process, and only meet

their clients once they have beenplaced in an apprentice slot.

SELECTING A DATA TRACKING SYSTEM

A robust client tracking system isperhaps one of the first tools thatthe lead agency or pipeline imple-menter can bring to the partnershipto add immediate value. Manyorganizations lack computerizedclient tracking systems and rely oneither Excel spreadsheets, smalldatabase systems developed in-house, or pencil and paper to man-ually track client data and results.Lack of funding is often the reasonfor the absence of a client trackingsystem, which could range in costfrom $10,000 to $50,000. MakingConnections sites have used a web-based common client trackingsystem that is accessible by all thepartners and sufficiently flexible toaccommodate the different out-comes each site wanted to track.

The real value of the client trackingsystem is that it informs managerialdecision-making. A client trackingsystem will allow a program directorto monitor the overall progress ofthe pipeline, review performance ofindividual staff, and look for eventsor trends that could impact theprogram or might be cause forimprovement. For example, a pro-gram director can use the datasystem to determine the following:

• How many clients enrolled in thepipeline this month? How manyof those clients were from thetarget neighborhood?

• Which services are being usedthe most? By whom?

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• How are clients progressingthrough the services they need?

• Which staff are producing thestrongest results?

• What are the characteristics ofour most successful clients?

• What are our process outcomes(pipeline performance) lookinglike?

Process and organizational-leveldata should be reviewed by thepartners on a regular basis—preferably more frequently as thework begins, then less so as itmatures. The goal is for the part-ners to review program reports anduse data analysis as a learningexperience, and develop a thor-ough understanding of what isactually happening at each func-tional stage of the pipeline process.This information is only useful if thepartners act upon it to make pro-gram improvements.

SECURING FUNDING FOR PIPELINE

EFFORTS

Making Connections sites havelaunched their neighborhood-focused pipeline efforts bycoordinating existing programs,resources, and supports, includingpublic funding streams for work-force development. As sustainabilityof the work is an ever-presentconcern, it is critically importantthat public funding is incorporatedinto financing the pipeline from theoutset because (1) public fundersgenerally represent the largestamount of money available foremployment services in a commu-nity, and (2) the pipeline can betterconnect those funds to the people

they are intended to serve. By itself,WIA funding will not support aperson’s path through the full con-tinuum of pipeline services, or payfor the type of case managementthat is really needed. But eventhough most workforce develop-ment funding is structured to sup-port specific types of populationsand programs, it can be used tosupport a neighborhood-focusedemployment pipeline. This isbecause residents who meet thefunding criteria also live in theneighborhood. The environmentalscans conducted by MakingConnections site teams are invalu-able in identifying potential fundingsources that may already be presentin the community.

LEVERAGING FSET

With technical assistance from theCasey Foundation’s TechnicalAssistance Resource Center (TARC),some Making Connections siteshave had strong success with theuse of the 50 percent match fund-ing from the Department ofAgriculture’s Food StampEmployment and Training (FSET)program. FSET is a generous, user-friendly, and readily availablesource of funds for state and localagencies, community colleges, non-profit community organizations, andother education and training enti-ties. When state FSET plans includeaccess to these funds as part oftheir food stamp administrationplans, they can receive millions ofdollars of additional support foreducation and employment activi-ties that serve food stamp recipi-ents. Although FSET funding isrestricted to people who receive

food stamps, it is a remarkablyflexible funding stream that will payfor a number of services not fund-able through WIA. Moreover, FSETis ideal for financing most of thefront-end (pre-employment) servicesprovided in the pipeline. The serv-ices FSET program participants can engage in include job search,English as a second language,adult basic education, GED,vocational training, and workexperience. For program providers,allowable costs under FSET include(but are not limited to) direct andindirect costs for education, train-ing, job placement, case manage-ment and career coaching as wellas for the administrative costs ofmanaging the program. TheSeattle/White Center MakingConnections site has drawn downover $700,000 in reimbursablefunding from the Department ofAgriculture under its FSET program!

Making Connections sites havebeen able to accomplish three spe-cific objectives using FSET funding:

1. Increase the number of able-bodied adults without dependents(ABAWDS) and food stamp recipi-ents receiving employment services,including education, training, andemployment assistance;

2. Leverage the current localinvestment of public and privatenon-federal funds in the workforcedevelopment system to improve and broaden services for thispopulation; and

3. Increase the enrollment rate forfood stamps among eligible per-sons who are not currently enrolled.

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Financing the pipeline requirescreativity in assembling and blend-ing public funds expressly desig-nated for employment with fundsdesignated for special needs popu-lations, then augmenting them withflexible, public/private funding tofinance the pipeline’s wrap-aroundservices. Case managers, for exam-ple, can access funds that supportservices for ex-offenders, TANFrecipients, or people with employ-ment barriers. A foundation orUnited Way grant can be used tofund a job club, life skills work-shops, and so forth. In addition toWIA funding, sources of funding tosupport the neighborhood-focusedpipeline model include:

• Community Development BlockGrant (CDBG) funding managedthrough the local municipality,which is often an existing part ofan organization’s governmentfunding stream.

• U.S. Department of Health andHuman Services programs suchas Refugee Assistance orCompassion Fund dollars forfaith-based organizations provid-ing employment services.

• Foundation funding and fundingfrom workforce intermediaries,such as Seedco (NYC) and theLocal Initiatives Support Corpora-tion (LISC) can be used as gapfunding to pay for those servicesnot covered by public fundingdollars.

• Other federal, state, and citysources of funding for designatedpopulations such as ex-offenders,recovering substance addicts,female-headed households,public housing residents, foodstamp recipients, etc.

• The local United Way supportseconomic development projectsthrough its focus on communityimpact.

• Incremental Tax Financing (ITF)and developer fees have alsobeen used to partially financeservices by those projects thatfocus on employment in theorganized construction buildingtrades. Developer fees can comefrom a wage tax of one or twocents per hour for all hoursworked by tradesmen on aproject.

• State and city budget allocation.The Hartford Jobs Funnel hasbeen successful in securing bothstate and City of Hartford budgetallocations to fund its work.

LOOKING AHEAD

Much of this guide has describedthe science behind a frameworkthat seeks to reorient and reorgan-ize the way service providers,government and residents worktogether to use large employmentgains as a driver for economicdevelopment. This work is a combi-nation of both art and science, andthe art is hard to capture. Work insites to date demonstrates that theart often comes from the peoplepower and assets that exist within acommunity: the program capacityof community-based organizationsand their ability to act opportunisti-cally; having the right individuals inleadership roles who know how toget things done, or have the abilityto manage laterally as well asmanage by influence.

A principal operating assumption ofthe strategy for neighborhood-focused workforce pipelines is that,if operating at sufficient scale, thereturn of large-scale employmentamong residents will lead to apositive spiral or related positiveinfluences that can help-jump start neighborhood revitalization.Higher employment leads to higherincomes, which then lead toincreased consumer demand, whichwill spur increased investments in

the community by residents andsmall businesses, and could lead toother changes such as reducedcrime, increased education levels,and a general improvement inopportunities for all residents.

The challenge, however, is that noneighborhood exists in a vacuum.All communities are part of largereconomic markets, and while theyare influenced by the economicactivity and decision-making thathappens in those markets, neigh-borhoods have little influence overthem. We know neighborhoodpipelines exist in a labor marketcontext where nonprofits, for-profits,and government entities play differ-ent, if not complementary, roles.We also know that, within the labormarket, people move in and outand up and down. In addition,high-poverty, inner-city neighbor-hoods often suffer from a broadrange of social, economic, andenvironmental problems. The samebroad economic trends and govern-mental policies that contributed toconditions of isolation and povertyin urban neighborhoods continue tohave a major impact.

A secondary challenge is that whilethe theory of change guiding thepipeline strategy seems plausible,there is precious little evidence thatit works. Few if any studies providegood evidence or guidance to

community development practition-ers about the relative effectivenessof an employment-driven economicdevelopment approach. The evi-dence is weak or lacking largelybecause there have been few sys-tematic efforts to articulate and thenevaluate the hypothesized theory ofchange and outcomes. MDRC’sNeighborhood Jobs Initiative, forexample, had an explicit goal ofusing increased employment as adriver for economic revitalization,but no research component.Currently, the field is left to rely onexamples of best cases, such as the Alameda Construction JobsCoalition, the Hartford Jobs Funnel,Airport Jobs (Seattle/White Center),and others, to gather insights intowhat works and what doesn’t. Asthe Making Connections sites con-tinue their work, they are capturingand using data, to track progressand adapt their efforts as needed tobetter support program goals.

Assembling and managing a work-force pipeline is complicated workthat will test the organizationalcapacity and management skill ofall its partner providers. Core oper-ational issues emerge: buildingworkforce development capacity incommunity-based organizationswith minimal prior experience in theworkforce field; fostering effectivepartnerships among community-based organizations and withexisting public workforce systems;providing technical assistance thatis clear, timely, and not overwhelm-ing to local staff; and maintainingthe focus on employment as localpartners are tempted to addressmultiple issues at once.

As Making Connections sites buildout their pipelines, many havelearned valuable lessons about theissues common to complex com-munity change initiatives. Sitescontinue to track, measure, anddocument progress as they addressthe following areas:

OWNERSHIP OF THE PIPELINE

In most Making Connections sites,site teams have played the role ofconvener-broker for the local pipe-line efforts, with partners comingtogether to implement the work.The situation that may result is, asone site team member put it, “Ifeveryone owns the pipeline, then no one owns it and accountabilityfor results get muddled.” As the focus on sustaining the work ofMaking Connections increases, and sites transition management to Local Management Entities—including United Ways, communityfoundations, or new organiza-tions—governance mechanismsthat include residents, serviceproviders, and employers are beingdeveloped to ensure accountabilityto results, track performance,expand services, secure funding,and advocate for policy andpractice change.

PROGRAM QUALITY

The issue of program quality con-nects directly to the organizationalcapacity of prospective partnersand cannot be ignored as the priceof collaboration. The landscape ofnonprofit organizations in MakingConnections communities varies.Some sites have significantly moreprogram capacity to implement a

pipeline framework and have beenable to launch pilots quickly andachieve results. Staff turnover,another problem common incommunity-based organizations, is another challenge. Site teams are working with their partners toaddress program quality issues byattempting to respond quickly andeffectively to staff turnover. In addi-tion, site teams have brokeredfocused technical assistance toaddress specific needs of their part-ners, including the need for arobust client tracking systems.

FUNCTIONAL TRANSITIONS AND

PIPELINE LEAKAGE

We know some participants dropout of—and often drop backinto—the pipeline for any numberof reasons. While we recognizesome of this leakage is endemic tothe nature of the work, developinga solid understanding about whyparticipants drop out is important tobuilding a quality pipeline that isresponsive to resident needs. Weknow from experience that there arecritical points in the pipeline—thefunctional hand-offs and transitionpoints—where the drop-off tends tobe more acute. Examples includethe point between an orientationsession and actual enrollment/intake for services; the timebetween testing/assessment andreturning to discuss the results orget referred to additional service;and the transition from literacy totraining. This is an area where siteteams are building knowledge tobetter manage these transitions andhandoffs and minimize the loss ofpipeline participants.

INTEGRATING WORKFORCE SERVICES

AND INCOME SUPPORTS

Case management based onincome improvement is enhancedwhen the workforce pipeline bun-dles and sequences a continuum ofemployment and training serviceswith economic supports andresources, organized by the goal ofresidents achieving financial stabil-ity. The goal is to repackage oppor-tunities, information, resources, andbenefits so that residents not onlyfind jobs, but also maximize earn-ings (through supports such as theEarned Income Tax Credit), takeadvantage of child care and healthinsurance programs, and pursuecareer advancement. In practice,sites must be relentless about con-necting the dots between workforce,income supports, and asset services.

DATA FOR PERFORMANCE MANAGE-MENT AND QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

One of the defining legacies ofMaking Connections is the roleresidents have played in usingcommunity-level data to informlocal planning and implementationstrategies. Every site has a LocalLearning Partnership (LLP), whoserole is to collect, manage, andanalyze data for the local team, aswell as to help residents developtheir own capacity to use data toadvocate for public policy andpractice change. While partnerorganizations recognize the needfor continuous quality improvementfor all pipeline activities, putting thisinto practice is difficult. In somesites, pipeline partners continue towork at overcoming inherent reluc-tance to share internal program or

31

performance data. Some partnersare not at the point where theyappreciate data as fundamental toimproving the overall performanceof their programs. To help addressthis issue, the Foundation hasdeveloped a series of dashboardindicators for sites to use to bettermanage their pipelines.14 As sitesbegin to build out their pipelinesand engage larger numbers ofparticipants, they are realizing theneed to better manage and trackpipeline participants, and areasking for technical assistance touse the dashboard indicators tobetter understand what happens toresidents at different points in theservice delivery process.

Making Connections believes thatorganizing neighborhood-focusedworkforce pipelines adds real valueto the economic landscape of the neighborhood—even if they fail to achieve all the significant

employment outcomes. The qualityof community organizations’relationships with neighborhoodresidents, and their knowledge ofemployment barriers, has improvedthe type, quality, and accessibility ofemployment services offered insites, and has accelerated progressin the pilot projects. In addition,pipelines have packaged and madeaccessible a range of programsand services that provide significantbenefits to residents. These includebasic skill building, pre-employmentskills, child care, asset-buildingprograms, access to financialservices, transportation, and jobs.Most important, pipelines affordcommunity-based organizations thechance to partner and cast deeperand wider nets to reach and con-nect highly vulnerable and isolatedfamilies to the kinds of economicopportunity that improve their livesand the life chances of theirchildren.

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33

1. Implementing the pipeline, thenmanaging it operationally presentscontinuing issues that need constantattention. The challenges associatedwith operationalizing a pipeline arediscussed later in this document.

2. Examples include access to finan-cial education, credit repair counsel-ing, membership in a credit union,lower-cost loans, etc.

3. MDRC has used this income-oriented approach to case manage-ment with several demonstrationprograms, most recently the WorkerAdvancement Support Center (WASC)demonstration.

4. The Hartford Jobs Funnel is not anindependent 501(c)(3). It is a pro-gram housed within the local work-force investment board, yet it has adistinct Advisory Board that overseesits functioning.

5. The Jobs Initiative was a six-city,eight-year, $30-million demonstrationlaunched in 1995 by the Annie E.Casey Foundation. The purpose ofthe Jobs Initiative was to explore newstrategies for helping disadvantaged,low-skill workers secure family-supporting jobs.

6. Jobs and Race, Annie E. CaseyFoundation, 2001.

7. Funding for employment and train-ing services available for food stamprecipients.

8. See the template included inAppendix 2.

9. Note that in this context, adults willrefer to people age 16–64.

10. For the purpose of this analysis,Making Connections sites assume thata permanent placement is a minimumof 12 months of employment. Thedata needed to make the calculationsare available from Census dataand/or city planning data.

11. During the Neighborhood JobsInitiative demonstration, the FortWorth, Texas, site developed differenttargets for men and women based onthe findings of the neighborhoodplanning survey. The lead organiza-tion, the Near Northside PartnersCouncil (NNPC) found that neighbor-hood men were already largelyemployed (over 75%) at a rate com-mensurate with men throughout thecity. However, their wage rates were30% lower than the city median,confirming that many men were stuckin low-wage jobs. Women, on theother hand, were employed at anapproximate 38% rate. Under-standing that one cause of the lowemployment rate for neighborhood

women was, in part, a decision tostay home with young children,NNPC did find neighborhood womenwere interested in part-time work forthat time while their children were inschool. In order to improve overallneighborhood employment andhousehold income rates, NNPC’spipeline aggressively targeted women,while working on career advancementskills with men.

12. The minimal requirements wereU.S. citizenship, high school diplomaor GED, proficiency in reading,writing and math at an eighth-gradelevel, and a valid driver’s license.

13. Among the requirements thatprospective employees needed tomeet were level 3 English proficiency,willingness to work evenings, ability topass a security screening, in someinstances a valid driver’s license, anda high school diploma or GED.

14. See Appendix 3: PerformanceManagement and DashboardIndicators for a thorough descriptionof the process measures used for theworkforce pipeline framework.

ENDNOTES

34

APPENDIX 1:

TEMPLATE FOR A LABOR MARKET ANALYSIS

DESCRIPTION

This Labor Market Analysis template was developed by Seedco to assistworkforce development providers withprogram design and planning. Theinstructions are included below, alongwith a summary of resources for yourresearch and assessment processes.

KEY STEPS

There are four key steps to completing aLabor Market Analysis:

1 Create a list of the questions you want to answer.

2 Consider your target population and add questions to the list based on what you already know.

3 Customize the attached Labor Market Analysis Research Template to reflect your questions and objectives.

4 Complete your research using the attached resources for labor market information, as well as any local resources you may have (e.g. contact at a local workforce development research organization).

TOOLS

• Instructions and Key Steps (this document)

• Labor Market Data Sources (attached)List of good places to begin your research

• Labor Market Analysis Template (attached)Key data fields for your research

Copyright@ 2007 Seedco

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT TOOLKIT

C ASE STUDY

The Stonyfarm Fathers Program (SFP) is deciding

which training to offer to participants in the Fall.

They have not been able to place many of the

customers who graduated from their hospitality

program in jobs. Key staff met to discuss why they

thought they were not successful in the past and

agreed that they needed to research jobs available

in the local area to determine which ones would be

the best match for their customers.

Specifically, they wanted to know:

The Basics

• High-growth opportunities in their area

• Skill/Education requirements

• Starting wages and benefits

Reality Check

• Do those jobs match their customers’ skills? (e.g.

Does your customer’s knowledge of another

language strengthen his/her application?)

• Will employers hire applicants with their

customers’ barriers? (e.g. criminal records)

• Are the wages high enough for their customers?

(e.g. Most non-custodial parents need higher-

wage jobs because of child support arrears).

If you worked at SFP, what other questions would

you add to your list?

35

Bureau of Labor Statisticswww.bls.govWages, Earnings, and Benefits

America’s Career Info Netwww.acinet.org

New York Career Zonewww.nycareerzone.org

Workforce New Yorkwww.workforcenewyork.org

1 Wages by industry and occupations within industries

2 National wage calculators3 Demographic workforce information4 Industry overviews5 Job openings and labor turnover 6 Employment projections

1 Occupation information including fastest-growing and highest paying industries

2 Highest paying occupations by median hourly wage

3 Wages by occupation and local area4 Employment trends and comparisons

by industry and occupation

1 Find trainers in the New York Metropolitan and NYS area

2 Description and breakdown of high growth industries

3 Comprehensive resources for youth

1 Mapping career ladders in key industries (Department of Labor)

2 Eligible training provider list 3 Links to local labor market information

in New York State

Provides data and analysisof an enormous span oflabor market and workforcedevelopments and trendsnationally.

Local and state information.

Efficient breakdown of workforce information most relevant to workforceproviders’ needs.

Break-down of occupationswithin industries to showopportunities within sectors.

Trainer information relevantto these opportunities.

Massive data-bank.Can be difficult tonavigate.

New York-specific

New York-specific

Notes:• Bureau of Labor Statistics. www.bls.gov. Upper right-hand corner on front page in Employment and Unemployment contains industry information.

Wages, employment, wages for occupations within the industries. • Census Bureau Community Fact Finder for workforce information both at local and national level(s). American Community Survey is in People and Households.

Economic Census-draws information.

LABOR MARKET ANALYSIS

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT TOOLKIT

LAB

OR

MA

RK

ET D

ATA

SO

UR

CES

SOURCE INFORMATION PROVIDED/USES PROS CONS

36

APPENDIX 2:

SETTING NEIGHBORHOOD EMPLOYMENTTARGETS: CLOSING-THE-GAP ANALYSIS

The Neighborhood 8,726 19,080 45.7%

The City 256,244 442,845 57.9%

The County (region) 436,878 718,569 60.8%

Number of Persons Employed

Employment Rate (A/B)

Total Size ofLabor Force

A B C

A B C

C D E

1. Calculating Employment Rates (# of employed adults in area) = Employment Rate

(total # of adults 16–64 in area)

2. Comparison of Employment Rates

TO REACH THE LEVEL OF:The City 19,080 57.9% 11,047

The County 19,080 60.8% 11,601

Total Number ofAdults in

Neighborhood Labor Force

Target # ofEmployed Adults

in Neighborhood(AXB)

Employment Rate

3. Calculating the Target Number of New Workers

TO REACH THE LEVEL OF:The City 11,047 8,726 2,321

The County 11,601 8,726 2,875

Total Number ofEmployed Adults

Number of NewWorkers Needed

(C-D)

Employed Adultsin MC

Milwaukee

4. Calculating the Number of New Workers Needed

E F G

TO REACH THE LEVEL OF:The City 2,321 773 464

The County 2,875 958 575

Number of Net NewWorkers in MCNeighborhood

Annual NumberEmployed at 5-year Pace (E/5)

Annual NumberEmployed at 3-

year Pace ( E/3)

5. Calculating on Annual Placement Rate

37

APPENDIX 3:

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND

DASHBOARD INDICATORS

The following slides dissect thefunctional elements of a genericworkforce service delivery processto illustrate what a process man-agement approach could look like.At each major step of the process,data indicators can be looked at tocontinually assess and answer thequestion “How are we doing?” interms of how the pipeline is work-ing. Rather than wait for periodic

reporting, a process managementapproach promotes continuouslearning and quality improvement,and allows partners to respondquickly to process problems andunderstand what is happening atvarious steps of the service deliveryprocess.

The questions identify data indica-tors that can be used to support the

performance managementapproach, and keep sites focusedon achieving high employmentresults for the target neighborhood.

OUTREAC H/RECRUIT

SCREENIN G

JOB-READY C ANDIDATES

STABLE EMPLOYMENT

ADVAN CEMENTWITH NEW SKILL S

ACCUMUL ATIN GASSETS

HOMEOWNERSHIPC OMMUNIT YINVESTMENT

TEST/ASSESMENT

REFERRAL S

TRAININ GEMPLOYMENT

E&T PROGRAMS OFTEN SEEM LIKE FUNNELS: THE END VOLUME DEPENDS ON THE FLOW AT THE START.

1 How many people do you need to start with in order to achieve the desired number of job-ready participants?

2 What is happening at each stageof the program process?

3 How do you begin to “measure” what is happening at each program component?

4 How can you better understand what is really happening along the way?

QUESTIONS

38

APPENDIX 4:

ASSET-BUILDING PATHWAY FOR INCOMEIMPROVEMENT CASE MANAGEMENT

• VITA/EITC Services• Referrals (from faith-based

groups, CBOs, employers, etc.)• Offer Access to Workforce

Services• Screen to Increase Take Up of

Income Supports• Credit Union Membership• Access to Other Financial

Institutions (accounts)• Financial Education• Credit Repair

• Financial Counseling• Enroll in Income Supports• Second Chance Bank Programs• Low-cost Remittance Services• Car Ownership Programs• Credit Builder Loans• Individual Development Accounts

(IDAs)• Alternative Financial Products• Workforce Advancement

Coaching• Down-Payment Assistance

• Section 8 and FSS Programs• Favorable Rate Mortgages• Refinancing of Sub-Prime

Mortgages• Retirement Counseling• Matched 529 Plans• IRAs• 401(k)/401(b) Accounts• Term Life Insurance• Home Equity Loans• Reverse Mortgages

• Inform & Engage Participants (re:savings, increasing assets, build-ing a secure financial future)

• Explore Ways to Increase FamilyIncome through Use of IncomeSupports

• Build Relationships• Knowledge & Awareness• Participant Develops Financial

Improvement Plan• Reduce “Bad” Debt• Car Ownership• Stable Bank Account

• Housing and Food Security• Increase Family Income (cash and

non-cash)• Stable Employment• Savings Account with Pattern of

Savings• Reduce or Eliminate Use of

Predatory Lenders• Improved Credit Score• Career Advancement• Wage Progression• Visible Homeownership Path• Asset Protection

• Career Advancement• Homeownership• Accrued Savings• Retirement Security• Education Savings (for children)• Investments• Manageable Debt• Homeowner• Secure Retirement• Significantly Higher Net Worth• Accrued Savings & Investments• Estate Planning (wealth transfer)

ASSET-BUILDING PATHWAY

O U T R E A C H /R E C R U I T M E N T

O R I E N T A T I O N /E N R O L L M E N T

O U T C O M E S S H O R T - T E R MI N D I C A T O R S

L O N G E R - T E R MI N D I C A T O R S

GOALS & OUTCOMES

STRATEGY & TACTICS

$

Editing: Audrey Zekonis / Design & Production: Kathryn Shagas Design / Photography: Susie Fitzhugh, André Chung

TO JOBS

The Annie E. Casey Foundation

701 St. Paul Street

Baltimore, MD 21202

410.547.6600

410.547.6624 fax

www.aecf.org

1575 Eye Street, N.W., Suite 500

Washington, DC 20005

202.371.1565

202.371.1472 fax

www.cssp.org

Center for the Study of Social Policy