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FROM THE JOBS & TRAINING BLOG

April 12, 2012 in Blog Post, Uncategorized

Three Keys to Completion

Reposted from the Jay & Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota

It’s predicted that by 2018, 70% of Minnesota’s jobs will require some sort of post secondary education or training, but currently only 40% of working-age adults in Minnesota have a post secondary degree. To address this ever-pressing issue, The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota and Greater Twin Cities United Way hosted the Three Keys to Completion: Higher Education, Business Leadership, and Community-Based Workforce Services seminar on March 27. This was the second in a series of workforce development seminars, and was focused on the role nonprofit-community college partnerships play in increasing completion rates and the overall success of low-income adult students. Maureen Conway, Executive Director of the Economic Opportunities Program at the Aspen Institute, presented key findings from Aspen’s Courses To Employment (C2E) project, which focused on how adult students can achieve education and employment goals through the coordinated work of community institutions, and the positive impact that it has on a region’s overall economic competitiveness. Read the rest of this entry →

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Think. Talk. Take Action. Talking About Poverty & Unemployment

April 12, 2012 in Blog Post, Events

Starting April 16, 2012
Login, go to “All Conversations” and Join Us

Minnesota had 17,400 residents that had been unemployed for more than six months in 2007. Four years later, in June 2011, this had increased to 75,800, including 47,700 that had been unemployed for more than a year.

Join us here on United Front for a series of conversations designed to stimulate and deepen thinking in response to poverty data recently released in United Way’s Faces of Poverty Report. LEARN MORE

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FROM THE JOBS & TRAINING BLOG

February 20, 2012 in Archive, Uncategorized

Social Impact Bonds: Lessons from the Field

Reposted from the Stanford Social Innovation Review

A year after the British Ministry of Justice piloted social impact bonds to reduce the 60 percent recidivism rate for the 3,000 criminal offenders who passed through the doors of a private prison in Peterborough, UK, the innovative funding mechanism captured the imagination of many social entrepreneurs. These bonds, also known as pay-for-success contracts, promise to transform the relationship between governments, nonprofits, and funders. “Social impact bonds” became one of the top ten buzzwords of 2011. And local governments in England, Australia, Canada, and the US have started exploring these contracts. As state governments at home and abroad prepare to pilot these bonds next year, the processes have already yielded some lessons from the field.

The first lesson is that pay-for-success contacts may ultimately encompass several ways of engaging pure for-profit investors, impact investors, and foundations in producing social returns. Steve Rothschild, an Ashoka Fellow and CEO of Twin Cities RISE! has had some success in Minnesota with one form of pay-for-success contract, which he calls human capital performance bonds. In this mechanism, a state raises funds by issuing general obligation bonds, directs those funds to nonprofits that have generated positive social outcomes and created government savings, and uses cash unlocked by those savings to repay the bondholders. Because the full faith and credit of the state backs these bonds—and no state since World War I has defaulted on its bond obligations—these bonds will allow social entrepreneurs to access capital markets. The $10 million designated toward human capital performance bonds in Governor Mark Dayton’s July 2011 budget made Minnesota the first—and so far the only—state to pass legislation on pay-for-success contracts. Read the rest of this entry →

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Getting Americans Back to Work Event

February 9, 2012 in Archive, Events

Job Clubs and Career Ministries: On the Front Lines of Getting Americans Back to Work

Date: Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Time: 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Registration Time: 9:00 a.m.
Location: Temple Israel, 2324 Emerson Ave S., Minneapolis, Minnesota 55405
Free Parking at Fremont Avenue Entrance between 22nd and 24th Streets

Please join Deputy Secretary of Labor Seth Harris and the Department of Labor’s Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships for a symposium on the important role of job clubs and career ministries in getting Americans back to work. Participants and attendees will include job club coordinators, workforce development officials, faith leaders, nonprofit leaders, employers, and job seekers and workers who will discuss the various ways job clubs and career ministries support communities to help the unemployed regain their footing and transition back to the workforce.

Job club programs based at religious institutions, community colleges, and community-based organizations offer an opportunity for unemployed individuals to come together and share professional networks, learn the latest job search techniques, and receive emotional support. The Department of Labor’s Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships recently launched a new project to connect with job clubs and facilitate partnerships between job clubs and the workforce investment system, including One-Stop Career Centers, community colleges, and nonprofit service organizations.
MORE INFORMATION

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Building Talent Today for Tomorrow’s Careers

January 18, 2012 in Archive, Events

We entered the new year with no signs that the sluggish economy will rebound in force anytime soon. Ongoing concern about the burdens suffered by many in this economy brought more than 130 stakeholders from around the Twin Cities together on January 12 to think collectively about strategies that can build regional job growth and improve employment opportunities for all. Download a copy of the program.

The United Way teamed up with the Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation to host this important conversation, which featured a
keynote address from Eric Seleznow of the National Skills Coalition (NSC). As State Policy Director for NSC, Eric was well positioned to describe innovative education and training strategies that are being successfully implemented across the country. Erick Ajax, of the metal forming company, E.J. Ajax and Sons, and Valerie DeFor of HealthForce Minnesota, offered a local perspective on successful industry-driven training programs. READ MORE

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National Release

January 17, 2012 in Archive, Events, Financial Fitness

2012 Assets & Opportunity Scorecard: How Financially Secure are Families?

Tuesday, January 31, 11:00 a.m.
CFED will release the 2012 Assets & Opportunity Scorecard in a national webinar on Tuesday, January 31. The webinar will highlight key national and state findings, including the latest asset poverty rates and other measures of financial security and opportunity.

Register today to find out how your state fares in helping its residents achieve financial security.
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FROM THE JOBS & TRAINING BLOG

December 9, 2011 in Archive, Public Policy, Uncategorized

Channel that “99 percenter” energy by linking to the SKILLS@WORK movement

Protesting the increasingly unfair advantage of the top 1 percent (arguably,  economic conditions have gotten at least marginally better in recent decades for a somewhat larger 10 percent at the top) underlies much of the new energy around politics and policy these days. And that can be healthy, because the economic decline of the middle class and the working class is the biggest challenge of our times.

But it’s important to stay active and informed on a more constructive front as mainstream Minnesotans try to channel that anger and enthusiasm in 2012.

And one of the best new positive things going in Minnesota, coinciding with the Governor’s Job Summit this fall, is a new campaign called SKILLS@WORK, a joint project led by two major partners, the United Way of the Greater Twin Cities, and the Governor’s Workforce Development Council. Read the rest of this entry →

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