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.

The seminar, held at the Wilder Center in St. Paul, was well-received and sparked continued conversation within the community. Ms. Conway’s PowerPoint presentation and other materials from Three Keys to Completion can be found on this page. Greater Twin Cities United Way and The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota would like to extend their sincere gratitude to all who attended, and look forward to hosting another seminar again in the fall.

The materials used in the seminar are listed below.

• Agenda
• CBO-Community College examples
• C2E brochure
• FastTrac Data
• Three Keys Initiatives
• Skills@Work brochure

Starting April 16, 2012
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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

• H.F. 2181 / S.F. 1751: Establishes and funds the FastTRAC adult career pathway program statewide.*

• H.F. 2177 / S.F. 1779: Creates a pilot Minnesota Opportunity Grants program, which would provide financial assistance to adults seeking training in high-demand fields.  Ideally the program will also include support services for grant recipients, and we’re working on amendments that would address this.  The opportunity grant idea comes out of a fantastic program started in Washington state.*

• H.F. 0040 / S.F. 0843: Establishes lifelong learning accounts (LiLa) and tax credits for workers and employers who invest in training.

• H.F. 1272 / S.F. 1073: Encourages all high schools to ensure that students are planning for careers and postsecondary education opportunities.

*Part of the Governor Dayton/DFL Caucus jobs proposal from January.

Track these bills, learn more, and show your support
Head to the GWDC website to track workforce-related legislation, learn more about our recommendations, and see how you can get involved!

Thanks for your support!

Nick Maryns, Contributor
Senior Policy Analyst, Governor’s Workforce Development Council (GWDC)

This convergence has presented significant opportunity for nonprofits to adopt and adapt for-profit practices for social good. Steve Rothschild, United Way board member and an Ashoka fellow, recently released a book entitled “The Non Nonprofit – For-Profit Thinking for Nonprofit Success” that highlights how nonprofits can leverage principles practiced in the for-profit sector. The 7 For-Profit Principles Rothschild lays out push nonprofits to stay relevant and quantify value in an environment where social service funding simply cannot keep pace with need.

As nonprofits and other social purpose organizations look outside the sector for ways to innovate and adapt, a number of advocates and community leaders caution against widely adopting for-profit thinking and other market-based strategies. In his new book, “Disciplining the Poor,”  Joe Soss demonstrates how market rationality, performance benchmarks and penalties, and financial incentives to social service providers has in many instances resulted in less effective antipoverty programs, larger system bias and prejudiced practices, and competition amongst providers that undermines collaboration.

We look forward to engaging a distinguished panel to explore the opportunities and challenges of adopting for-profit practices for nonprofit success.  While the event has been sold-out, we hope to continue the conversation on United Front and will post highlights from the evening’s discussion.

Our Panelists:

• Moderator: Laura Bloomberg, executive director of the Center for Integrative Leadership and graduate faculty at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs
• Joe Soss, inaugural Cowles Chair for the Study of Public Service at the University of Minnesota
• Sarah Caruso, president and chief executive officer of Greater Twin Cities United Way
• Steve Rothschild, founder and board chair of Twin Cities RISE! and an Ashoka Fellow
• Dr. Terrie Rose, founder and president of Baby’s Space, child psychologist and Ashoka Fellow
• Tony Wagner, executive leadership fellow at the Center for Integrative Leadership within the Humphrey School of Public Affairs

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.

Social Finance, Inc., in Massachusetts is exploring a different approach to engage capital markets. Like its sister organization in the UK, Social Finance might front working capital, raised from investors with a range of risk-return appetites, to nonprofits in return for a government promise to pay when those nonprofits achieve predetermined outcomes. Unlike the UK operation, which attracted only philanthropic investment for its Peterborough bond, Social Finance here might slice the expected revenue stream into tranches, offer the lower-risk tranches to foundations, and pitch the premium tranche to investors with the highest appetite for return. (This idea might also work for UK’s second social impact bond, which plans to target troubled families.)

The New South Wales (NSW) Government in Australia, which plans to enter into a social impact bond in late 2012 to address either recidivism or foster care, is exploring attracting for-profit investors by offering to share some of the bond’s downside risk—essentially buying the lowest tranche of its own bond.

The second lesson is that the very process of implementing social impact bonds yields valuable returns for the government that engages in it. Governments that start thinking about how much return taxpayer dollars generate in one area may take that thinking to its other investments. The process of paying a service provider based on outcomes pushes the government to introduce data monitoring and evaluation systems above and beyond the ones it may be using today. Monitoring systems that it needs to set up to track leading indicators, as well as final outcomes, may then be used to track outcomes for populations not engaged through the pay-for-performance contract. And evaluation systems that rigorously compare outcomes to counterfactual scenarios help push the conversation around performance measurement.

The social impact bond is ultimately a learning tool for a society that is still discovering best practices. If governments already knew the most efficient uses of taxpayer money, they would not need to ask the service provider to find the best solution, as pay-for-success contracts do. And if service providers delivered known or similar outcomes, then delaying payment until we observe performance would be an unnecessary burden.

Therefore, perhaps the largest lesson, and greatest success, of this young innovation has been its ability to anchor the conversation of governments, social entrepreneurs, and impact investors around measurement, metrics, and outcomes. Nick Hurd, Britain’s Minister for Civil Society, recently lamented the “massive culture of risk aversion in the public sector,” that his use of social impact bonds has revealed. Impact investors across the board are starting to hold their investments to more rigorous standards of social returns. And as governments innovate, they are rewriting the social contact with their citizens and businesses, as Westminster has done this month.

The next half-dozen pay-for-success contracts that come online in 2012-13 will expand the number of social services, types of investor, and bond structures that will, in turn, increase the size and complexity of the nascent social impact bond market. And, as that market evolves, we will come closer to that transformational promise of a new social contract in which taxpayers, entrepreneurs, and governments hold each other accountable for performance and impact.

On January 18, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts issued a series of requests for proposals to use pay-for-success contracting to address youth recidivism and chronic homeless in the state.

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

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

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.

By any measure, poverty in the United States is increasing. In 2011, the country saw the poverty rate rise to 15.1%, the highest level in nearly two decades. However, the official poverty rate released annually by the Census Bureau highlights just one aspect of household finances, namely the percentage of people with insufficient income to cover their day-to-day expenses. It does not account for the resources a family has to meet emergencies or longer-term needs. The Scorecard will offer critical new data on the growing number of Americans who are “asset poor,” meaning they lack the savings or other assets to cover basic expenses for just three months if a layoff or other emergency leads to loss of income. The latest findings will show significant increases in “asset poverty” since the release of the previous Assets & Opportunity Scorecard in 2009.

The webinar will feature three speakers:

• Andrea Levere, President, CFED
• Jennifer Brooks, Director of State & Local Policy, CFED
• Kasey Wiedrich, Senior Program Manager, Applied Research, CFED

About the Scorecard
The Assets & Opportunity Scorecard offers the most comprehensive look available at Americans’ financial security today and their opportunities to create a more prosperous future. The Scorecard explores how well residents are faring in the 50 states and the District of Columbia and assesses policies that are helping residents build and protect assets along five issue areas: Financial Assets & Income, Businesses & Jobs, Housing & Homeownership, Health Care and Education. The 2012 Scorecard assesses states across 100 outcome and policy measures in these five areas to determine the ability of residents to achieve financial security.

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.

Key facts from the SKILLS@WORK website that you may have heard but need to keep top-of-mind.

• Seventy percent of Minnesota jobs will require some education beyond high school by 2018, yet only 40 percent of working-age adults in Minnesota hold a postsecondary degree. (We at Growth & Justice have been prodding state leaders to first simply set a goal of 75 percent post-secondary attainment by 2020. See our op-ed urging an attainment crusade earlier this month.)
• Nearly two million working-age Minnesotans lack a credential beyond a high school diploma.
• Furthermore, educational attainment levels are expected to decline in coming years – an unprecedented trend.

The alarming facts surrounding an educational equity gap for kids of color, which is grossly unfair to our fastest growing demographic groups, is a major factor for that last bullet. One of the better comprehensive formulas for improving that picture is contained in the document “All Hands on Deck,” which actually was produced by the Governor’s Workforce Development Council, under the previous administration and has strong input from the corporate and business world. The GWDC, in my opinion, is one of the most farsighted state agencies you’ve maybe never heard of.
Plug in to it.

Dane Smith, Contributor
President, Growth & Justice

The Pathways Back to Work Fund, modeled on part of President Obama’s American Jobs Act, would create work and learning opportunities for unemployed individuals, those who have exhausted unemployment insurance benefits and those who do not have sufficient work experience or earnings to qualify for unemployment insurance in the first place.

The bill establishes:

• $2 billion for subsidized employment programs patterned on the successful Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Fund that created 260,000 jobs in 2009 and 2010. Governors would have the option of administering the program through TANF agencies or local workforce boards under the Workforce Investment Act or a combination of the two.

• $1.5 billion for summer and year-round employment opportunities for disadvantaged youth. A similar round of funding provided in 2009 led to paid work experience and training for up to 360,000 young people. The bill would encourage local workforce boards to create employment opportunities in emerging or in-demand occupations and to provide year-round youth participants with education and training leading to industry-recognized credentials.

• A $1.5 billion competitive grant program for promising and research-based work and learning opportunities that help low-skilled adults and youth obtain jobs and credentials. This funding could be used for on-the-job training and apprenticeships; sector-based training programs; direct work experience, along with supportive services; or adult basic education or integrated education and training models that help students learn basic skills and earn post-secondary credentials.
  
  Learn more about the Pathways Back to Work Fund >> Learn about the broader American Jobs Act, which includes the Pathways Back to Work Fund >>