National Funders

National Funders form a funding intermediary that aligns grants from multiple foundations and other national workforce development funders into a funding pool to carry out the work of the initiative.

Investment in the National Fund for Workforce Solutions provides a highly effective way for foundations to create better lives for low-wage or low-income individuals and improve the vitality and sustainability of communities:

• Leverage: Investors in the Fund significantly leverage their investments. New investments will build on the initial foundation investments, and will help spur even greater local investments.

• Scope: Investors reach local partnerships in regions across the United States, including rural and urban sites.

• Local Impact: Over five years, beginning in 2007, the Fund expects to engage approximately $200 million in funding from local foundations, the public sector, and businesses. The goal is to help 50,000 or more individuals gain jobs and/or advance in their careers.

• National Impact: The Fund has had a demonstrated impact on state and local policies, resulting in expanded resources and improved efficiency, and it aims to increase this impact on a national basis over the next several years.

Current investors:

Annie E. Casey Foundation

Founded in 1948, the primary mission of the Annie E. Casey Foundation is to foster public policies, human-service reforms, and community 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 neighborhoods fashion more innovative, cost-effective responses to these needs.

In general, the grantmaking of the Annie E. Casey Foundation is limited to initiatives in the United States that have significant potential to demonstrate innovative policy, service delivery, and community supports for disadvantaged children and families. Most grantees have been invited by the Foundation to participate in these projects.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation uses its resources to partner with and forge collaborations among institutions, agencies, decision makers, and community leaders so they can work together to transform tough places to raise families. The foundation funds research, technical assistance, and multi-site demonstrations that help service and support systems like public schools, juvenile justice agencies, and child welfare systems get better results for kids and families. It directly delivers exemplary services, identifies and measures what works, and shares lessons learned to demonstrate the potential of reforming public policies and services on behalf of children and their families.

Ford Foundation

The Ford Foundation is a resource for innovative people and institutions worldwide. The Foundation’s goals are to:

• Strengthen democratic values;

• Reduce poverty and injustice;

• Promote international cooperation; and

• Advance human achievement.

A fundamental challenge facing every society is to create political, economic, and social systems that promote peace, human welfare, and the sustainability of the environment on which life depends. The Ford Foundation believes that the best way to meet this challenge is to encourage initiatives by those living and working closest to where problems are located; to promote collaboration among the nonprofit, government, and business sectors; and to ensure participation by men and women from diverse communities and at all levels of society. In the Foundation’s experience, such activities help build common understanding, enhance excellence, enable people to improve their lives and reinforce their commitment to society.

The Ford Foundation works mainly by making grants or loans that build knowledge and strengthen organizations and networks. Since the foundation’s financial resources are modest in comparison with societal needs, it focuses on a limited number of problem areas and program strategies within its broad goals. The foundation’s three program areas are Asset Building and Community Development, Peace and Social Justice, and Knowledge, Creativity and Freedom.

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation annually distributes approximately $100 million to a wide range of charitable organizations. The Foundation is dedicated to assisting the poor through operating and capital grants to direct service organizations primarily located in Baltimore, Hawaii, Northeastern Pennsylvania, New York, Israel, and the Former Soviet Union. Grants are focused on meeting basic needs such as shelter, health and socialization, nutrition, and on enhancing an individual’s ability to meet those needs. 

Hitachi Foundation

The Hitachi Foundation is a nonprofit, independent, philanthropic organization established to enhance the well-being of economically isolated people in the United States. The Foundation systematically invests in path breaking practices for use by business and nonprofit organizations to mutually address community problems. These practices alleviate conditions that perpetuate poverty and also help to strengthen business.

The Foundation has three major programs: the Business and Communities Grants Program, the Hitachi Community Action Partnership, and the Yoshiyama Award for Exemplary Service to the Community. Combining philanthropy and community engagement, these programs expand our understanding of corporate citizenship and allow the Foundation to inform the corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives of Hitachi, Ltd.

U.S. Department of Labor

The mission of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration is to contribute to the efficient functioning of the U.S. labor market by providing high-quality job training, employment, labor market information, and income maintenance services, primarily through state and local workforce development systems. The ETA’s vision is to promote pathways to economic liberty for individuals and families working to achieve the American Dream. On behalf of American taxpayers, it administers programs that have at their core the goals of enhanced employment opportunities and business prosperity.

ETA has eight guiding Principles:

• Be faithful to the American taxpayer and support programs that are outcome-focused and results-oriented.

• Encourage business growth through the creation of an agile workforce—one that can respond quickly and effectively to the changing needs of business and the new economy.

• Strive to turn individuals into career entrepreneurs by equipping them with the information they need to develop the knowledge, skills, and abilities sought after in the new economy.

• Bolster opportunities for those less fortunate so they can gain the freedom to make sound economic decisions for themselves and their families.

• Uphold the principles of federalism and understand that states and local communities are the most competent administrators of our domestic concerns.

• Administer a workforce system that partners and connects with public and higher education systems to prepare the workforce of the 21st Century with career opportunities and skills in high-job-growth sectors.

• Ensure that our youth workforce training programs have a strong educational component, since it is clear that income and opportunities increase exponentially with education credentials.

• Support strong families and vibrant communities by working with community and faith-based organizations.

John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

The Knight brothers' passion for journalism and communities found its spark in Northeast Ohio. Their private, independent foundation originated with the Knight family's belief in the value of education. The brothers' father, editor-publisher Charles Landon Knight, had a tradition of helping financially strapped students pay for college. To honor his memory, the brothers established the Knight Memorial Education Fund in 1940 to provide financial aid to college students from the Akron area. The fund existed until December 1950 when its assets of $9,047 were transferred to the newly created Knight Foundation.
The Knight Foundation was organized principally to carry out the work of the Knight Memorial Education Fund. Even then, the foundation made small grants to local educational, cultural and social service institutions as well as to a few journalism-related causes.

For the first 10 years, the foundation's assets came from contributions from the Akron Beacon Journal and The Miami Herald, and personal gifts by Jack and Jim Knight. Other Knight newspapers began to contribute small amounts in the early 1960s – a move that led to a limited number of grants to cities from which the contributions came.

On Jan. 1, 1993, the foundation became the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to honor the memory of the brothers who had created it.

Across the 26 Knight cities, the Community Partners Program deploys program directors who provide community leadership, seeking big ideas with the potential to transform a community,  a system, a network. Each city benefits from the wisdom of a Knight Community Advisory Committee – a panel of local residents offering community connections and guidance on opportunities for funding.

Knight's 26 Communities

The Communities Program aims to improve the quality of life in 26 U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. In every community, Knight Foundation’s program directors look to local advisory committees to provide critical insight and help identify big ideas and transformational opportunities.

Microsoft

Microsoft Unlimited Potential is Microsoft’s commitment to citizenship and emerging segments market development efforts in communities around the world. Through Unlimited Potential, Microsoft is helping to build the Knowledge Economy by enabling sustained social and economic opportunity for everyone.

There are currently five programs where Microsoft is partnering with local communities: Education, Jobs and Economic Opportunity, Security and Internet Safety, Local Innovation and Research, and Technology Solutions.

Jobs and Economic Opportunity Program

Most people want a better life for themselves and their families so they can achieve the safety, security, and prosperity they desire. But there are challenges—starting with ensuring that needed skills are being developed in communities; connecting skilled people with available jobs; and managing business operations and growth in a competitive world.  In partnership with governments, NGOs, local businesses and academic institutions, technology can help foster entrepreneurship and support job creation.

Education Program

Microsoft recognizes that fundamental change takes both time and a consistent application of resources. Our aim is to help create sustainable models for education through long-term partnerships with governments as well as primary and secondary schools. Through the Partners in Learning program, these partnerships offer schools, teachers, and administrators a spectrum of educational resources, including tools, programs, and practices.
The Partners in Learning Grants Program provides grants to help create sustainable models for improving the use and understanding of technology by both teachers and students. Current grants have supported the establishment of local Microsoft IT Academy Centers through partnerships with educational institutions.

ICT Skills Curriculum

Developing Basic Applications Using Microsoft Visual Basic .NET

• Integrating ICT Skills into Teaching and Learning

• Understanding and Building Basic Networks

• Using Microsoft Office XP for Learning Projects

• Making Opportunities for Upgrading Students and Education

Prudential Foundation

The Prudential Foundation provides support to innovative direct-service programs that address the needs of our communities in three areas: education, economic development, and Civic Infrastructure.

Each year, The Prudential Foundation invests over $25 million in grants in efforts that support the revitalization of communities. In order to promote sustainable communities, and improve outcomes for community residents.

In 2008, The Prudential Foundation will focus its efforts in the following locations: Newark, NJ; Hartford, CT; Philadelphia, PA; New York, NY; Chicago, IL; Los Angeles and San Francisco, CA; Dallas, TX; Dubuque, IO; Jacksonville, FL; Minneapolis, MN; Phoenix, AZ; and Scranton, PA. The Foundation is addressing local needs in other countries, including Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India and China.

The Prudential Foundation supports nonprofit, charitable organizations and programs whose mission and operations are broad and non-discriminatory. The Foundation focuses its resources to support organizations whose activities address social needs or benefit underserved groups and communities.

Fund Launch Statement by Emily Stover DeRocco

 The Wal-Mart Foundation

The Wal-Mart Foundation strives to provide opportunities that improve the lives of individuals in Wal-Mart communities including Wal-mart customers and associates. Through financial contributions, in-kind donations and volunteerism, the Wal-Mart Foundation supports initiatives focused on enhancing opportunities in four main focus areas:

    1. Education
    2. Workforce Development / Economic Opportunity
    3. Environmental Sustainability
    4. Health and Wellness

The Wal-Mart Foundation has a particular interest in supporting the following populations: veterans and military families, traditionally underserved groups, individuals with disabilities and people impacted by natural disasters.  In its giving efforts, Wal-Mart strives to meet the unmet needs of underserved populations and to support organizations that give individuals access to a better life.

< http://walmartstores.com/CommunityGiving/203.aspx>