About the New York City Workforce Funders

Pat Jenny, environmental program director at The Trust; Bret Halverson, consultant to NYC Workforce Funders; Sheila Maguire, senior vice president, Public/Private Ventures; and Stacy Woodruff-Bolte, research associate, Public/Private Ventures. (Below) Jenny Tsang-Quinn, executive director of NYACH; Len McNally, program director for health at The Trust; and Dennis Rivera, senior advisor to the president of 1199SEIU.

In 2001, a group of 40 foundations with an interest in workforce issues joined forces to establish the New York City Workforce Funders. The New York City Workforce Development Fund in The New York Community Trust was created to distribute funds to demonstration projects and capacity-building efforts. The Fund’s goal is to enhance the effectiveness of the City’s public and nonprofit workforce development programs.

The Workforce Funders meets quarterly, along with colleagues from City and State agencies, to share information about workforce development. A subset of the Workforce Funders makes grants to the collaborative fund to develop joint projects that test innovations in the field or provide management assistance to many of the more than 140 nonprofit organizations that prepare New Yorkers for employment.

The Fund’s first two grants went to youth employment organizations to help them manage dramatic increases in federal funding in 2001, and to build the financial systems of workforce organizations. In 2004, the Workforce Funders and the City’s Department of Small Business Services created the New York City Workforce Innovation Fund, comprising eight private foundations from the original Funders group.

The goals of the Workforce Innovation Fund are to identify gaps in workforce development; provide services to help job seekers build skills that will prepare them for sustainable employment; and increase public and private investment in workforce development policies and programs. Its first initiative, the New York City Sectors Initiative, created an innovative sector-based training program that, on proving effective, influenced the City’s overall strategy for its workforce development system.
The Funders continue to work closely with the City. The Funders also participates in the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, which establishes partnerships of trainers and employers to work with disadvantaged job seekers. Ten national foundations lead the National Fund.

NYC Workforce Funders’ Projects

• New York Alliance for Careers in Health Care, a 2011 project that creates multiple partnerships for careers in health care with trade associations and their hospital, community health center, and nursing home members, as well as the largest health care labor union in the region.
• Benchmarking Project, also managed by Public/Private Ventures, helps New York City employment organizations identify meaningful standards for assessing their programs and measuring their performance against the field.
• Career Pathways Bridge Programs for low-skilled individuals at two Bronx organizations participating in the Career Pathways program offers training credentials for jobs in health care in partnership with the New York State Department of Labor and Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.
• Board Governance Project, a partnership with Volunteer Consulting Group that brings corporate executives onto the boards of workforce development agencies.

Meet the Funders

Since 2001, the Workforce Funders have raised more than $7.5 million. The following private funders have supported various Workforce Funders initiatives in New York City:

• Altman Foundation
• Brooklyn Community Foundation
• The Clark Foundation
• Ira W. De Camp Foundation
• Deutsche Bank
• Bernard F. and Alva B. Gimbel Foundation
• William T. Grant Foundation
• JP Morgan Chase Foundation
• Liz Claiborne Foundation
• Morgan Stanley
• Mizuho USA Foundation
• National Fund for Workforce Solutions
• The New York Community Trust
• Pinkerton Foundation
• Rockefeller Foundation
• Helena Rubinstein Foundation
• Taconic Foundation
• Tiger Foundation
• United Way of New York City

For more information, contact Pat Jenny at (212) 686-0010 x201