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Working Partnerships: Advancing Careers, Addressing Employer Needs, Changing Policies

Working Partnerships is a general information brochure of the National Fund of Workforce Solutions.

The National Fund is an unprecedented initiative of national and local funders whose goal is the career advancement of low-wage workers using a model of substantial employer engagement to increase the potential for successful outcomes. Since 2007, this dual-customer effort has invested in organizing employers, creating workforce partnerships, and advocating for public policies and private practices that make businesses more competitive and workers more likely to earn family-sustaining wages.

The unique value of the National Fund rests on its support for local communities to organize and sustain regional funding collaboratives that invest in worker skills and their key regional industries. The collaboratives are catalysts for generating additional investments in creating sectoral workforce partnerships, training workers, and improving workforce practices.

These intermediaries understand the needs of employers and workers: defining the necessary sectorial skills and implementing strategies to address the impediments to hiring and career advancement. Operating in communities across America, NFWS-supported collaboratives have created scores of workforce partnerships to transform workers’ futures while addressing employers’ desire for greater skills.