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For more than 30 years, The Community Foundation and our donors have demonstrated a deep commitment to our diverse communities. Going forward, working together we can bring positive change to the most difficult issues facing our region today.
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The Greater Washington Workforce Development Collaborative
The Greater Washington Workforce Development Collaborative (GWWDC), organized in 2006, grew as a strategic initiative of The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region. The Foundation’s strategic agenda is focused on enabling children, youth and families from low-income households to participate in and benefit from our region's prosperity. The approach has two primary planks: education and workforce development. The Foundation’s board is committed to increasing its investment and impact in these areas during the next 7-10 years.
The Collaborative's overall vision is to strengthen the regional education and skills-training systems and nonprofit workforce providers through systems-change so that employers’ needs in high demand sectors are met, and low-skilled residents have increased opportunities to advance their skills, employment, and earnings in two to three industry sectors. The GWWDC will do this by leveraging existing opportunities (e.g. Anacostia Waterfront Initiative in construction), expanding on previous work (e.g. health care sector work), enhancing and strengthening the workforce development system through building capacity and investing in workforce partnerships, promoting systems change through policy advocacy, through the development of common outcome measures and metrics for employers and low-skilled workers/job-seekers.
By engaging employers in specific high demand sectors with the Collaborative, we will build relationships that inform the design of the workforce partnerships. We will recruit employers or their association representatives (through the Chamber of Commerce and Greater Washington Board of Trade) to participate in sector committees to broker relations with the workforce partnerships. We will use employer input for development of the RFP for the health care workforce partnerships and to inform the policy advocacy work.
Background
The structure, grantmaking priorities, strategies, and decision-making processes of the GWWDC will be defined by contributing funders who agree to serve on the Steering Committee and agree to minimum annual contribution of $15,000 for Committee members. This core group will serve as the planning group to guide the development of the Collaborative’s structure. Non-contributors will be invited as members of the broad Collaborative to inform and participate in discussion regarding workforce development efforts in the region.
Key Strategies and Proposed Interventions
The GWWDC will begin its RFP process with a focus on healthcare. Research will focus on three other occupational areas identified by the collaborative as key opportunity sectors. When fully developed, the GWWDC will focus funding and workforce development efforts on two key industry sectors and one occupational cluster:
GWWDC will build on existing efforts and planning to address workforce development such as the Greater Washington Board of Trade convening and recommendations of its Health Care Task Force, of hospitals, pharmacies, educational institutions, insurance companies, health care advocates, and nonprofit organizations to examine various aspects of the health care challenge in the area. In construction, GWWDC will build linkages with the District Council created the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation charged with redevelopment of the geographic area around the Anacostia River. The Anacostia Waterfront Initiative creates an important opportunity to link redevelopment sponsored by the city with a sectoral workforce strategy targeted to low-skill residents.
Moving Forward
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