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Bay Area Workforce Funding Collaborative

Introduction

The Bay Area Workforce Funding Collaborative (BAWFC) is a nationally recognized initiative, led by local and national foundations, to address the skills gap that leaves too many job-seekers and workers in poverty while employers are unable to meet needs for a skilled workforce. Launched in 2004, the BAWFC seeks to enhance economic competitiveness and reduce poverty by strengthening the ability of the workforce development system to meet the needs of employers and low-skilled adults.

The BAWFC is a partnership of 13 philanthropic foundations, the California Employment Development Department, and the Economic and Workforce Development Division of the California Community Colleges System. Together these partners leverage public and private resources to support high-quality job training programs and improve workforce development practices in the Bay Area and throughout California.

Grantmaking

Community College Initiative

In 2008, the BAWFC launched a new initiative aimed at building the capacity of community colleges to offer career pathway programs that prepare economically and educationally disadvantaged adults for career ladder jobs.

Career pathway programs provide a series of connected education and training programs and support services that enable individuals to secure employment within a specific industry or occupational sector, and to advance over time to successively higher levels of education and employment.

Career pathways:

Target jobs in industries of importance to local economies
Create both avenues of advancement for current workers, jobseekers, and future labor market entrants and a supply of qualified workers for local employers
Build partnerships between the institutions and organizations involved in education, employment, and social services in order to improve their individual and collective capacities to respond to the needs of local residents and employers

During the first phase of the initiative, the BAWFC is focusing its grantmaking in three areas:

Developmental education that provides basic skills for specific career pathways
Support services tailored to the distinct needs of Career Technical Education students
Job placement and retention services that assist students in finding and retaining employment in industries for which they were trained.

Policy and Systems Change

The BAWFC also supports policy and systems reform efforts aimed at improving access to and alignment of public resources and other funding streams for sector workforce training programs, so that these programs become sustainable over time.

The BAWFC distributes funds through a combination of competitive Request for Proposals and invitational only grants. For more information about applying for a grant from the BAWFC contact:

Jessica Pitt

Coordinator, Bay Area Workforce Funding Collaborative

The San Francisco Foundation

415.733.8560 or jmp@sff.org

Partners

The BAWFC is a partnership of the following funders:

The California Endowment

East Bay Community Foundation

Economic and Workforce Development Division of the California Community Colleges

Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund

Grove Foundation

Kaiser Permanente Northern California

Living Cities

National Fund for Workforce Solution

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The San Francisco Foundation

Silicon Valley Community Foundation

State of California Employment Development Department

Walter & Elise Haas Fund

Walter S. Johnson Foundation

Y & H Soda Foundation

Current Grants

BAWFC Community College Initiative Grants

Academic Senate for California Community Colleges
To embed contextualized basic skills into the Basic Skills Initiative, a $33 million statewide initiative to improve basic skills education in California community colleges.

Cabrillo College
To develop a Career Technical Education Pathway Improvement Process and create a Career Technical Education version of the Digital Bridge Academy.

City College of San Francisco
To undertake a comprehensive planning process to redesign support services for Career Technical Education students.

Faculty Inquiry Network
To provide professional development opportunities to community college faculty to improve contextualized basic skills instruction for Career Technical Education students at five community colleges.

Peralta Community Colleges District
To implement strategies that will increase student support services for students in the East Bay Career Advancement Academy.

Research and Planning Group of the California Community Colleges
To develop a professional development infrastructure for the Basic Skills Initiative with a focus on contextualized basic skills within Career Technical Education programs.

Skyline College
To establish a one-stop center where students can access multiple services related to employment and career development, work supports, public benefits, financial literacy, and asset building.

Policy and Systems Change Grants

California EDGE Campaign
To develop an advocacy strategy to influence state workforce education, training, and related policies and practices.

East Bay Green Corridor
To undertake a planning and development process to coordinate federal stimulus funding for green jobs and create an integrated process that will tie workforce development to the region’s energy efficiency strategies.

Insight Center for Community Economic Development
To support technical assistance and advocacy to increase the use of Food Stamp Employment Training funding directed toward sector initiatives.