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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.
A partnership of 13 philanthropic foundations which leverages public and private investments to strengthen and expand the Bay Area’s workforce training system, the BAWFC has made over $10 million in grants to programs that prepare low-income adults and displaced workers for jobs in high-demand industry sectors that offer family-sustaining wages and career advancement opportunities. The BAWFC also supports a complementary set of policy and advocacy efforts aimed at developing sustainable funding streams for workforce training programs and strengthening the regional workforce system.
Since 2008, the BAWFC has focused its investments on building the workforce training capacity of community colleges. The California Community Colleges System, which enrolls 2.9 million students annually, is the largest workforce training provider in the state. As open access institutions community colleges are the portal through which economically and educationally disadvantaged individuals seek education and vocational training. In the wake of the current economic recession, community colleges are increasingly attracting large numbers of displaced workers who are enrolling in training programs in the hopes that it will speed their re-entry into the workforce. Recognizing their role as linchpins in the workforce system, the BAWFC is making strategic investments in community colleges to position them to become workforce intermediaries.
Grantmaking
BAWFC Community College Intermediary Initiative
Over the next three to five years, the BAWFC will make deep investments in Bay Area community colleges to build their capacity as workforce intermediaries. The BAWFC has identified five core capacities which are the foundation of a high-performing workforce intermediary:
- Sector-customized training from basic skills education and bridge programs through sector-specific entry-level skills training, vocational certificates and degrees, and skills upgrade training.
- Student support services including academic and career counseling, case management, personal guidance and counseling (crisis intervention, mental health counseling, and life-skills counseling), and other services such as childcare, transportation, book vouchers, and asset building activities that help students succeed in their training programs.
- Collaboration with other workforce development entities that build linkages and increase coordination between community colleges and other key entities in the workforce development system such as Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs) and community-based service providers.
- Employer engagement to strengthen the involvement of employers in designing career pathway programs and ensuring that they meet the ongoing needs of industry.
- Job placement and retention services to support students in finding and retaining employment in the sector for which they were trained.
Over the next three to five years the BAWFC will make grants to Bay Area community colleges to build their capacity in these core areas with the aim of demonstrating how these strategies reinforce each other and lead to better outcomes for both employers and low-income job seekers. In addition, the BAWFC will develop a policy agenda to complement our community college investments. The policy agenda will support efforts to promote administrative and fiscal policies and practices — within community colleges, across the broader workforce system, and at the state level — which will lead to the growth and sustainability of workforce intermediaries.
The BAWFC has also formed a professional learning network in order to disseminate innovative practices across the four colleges and support replication and institutionalization of these practices throughout the Bay Area region. The network will bring together community colleges, WIBs, local government, and other workforce development entities to engage in a structured peer learning process with the goal of replicating models at other colleges.
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
Bay Area Workforce Funding Collaborative, Coordinator
The San Francisco Foundation
415.733.8560 or jmp@sff.org
California Community Colleges System, Chancellor’s Office
East Bay Community Foundation
Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund
Grove Foundation
Kaiser Permanente
Living Cities
National Fund for Workforce Solutions
Silicon Valley Community Foundation
The California Endowment
The San Francisco Foundation
Thompson Family Foundation
Walter and Elise Haas Fund
Walter S. Johnson Foundation
Y & H Soda Foundation