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Report/Research

Powerhouse Partnerships: Community Colleges and Workforce Boards Working Together

Working together can lead to tangible rewards. But it can be challenging to create partnerships across organizations with different missions, cultures, practices, funding sources, and approaches. Many community colleges and public workforce organizations have overcome these challenges to have a larger impact together than they could have alone in helping people prepare for jobs and employers find a skilled labor force.

March 21, 2018

At a Glance

Working together can lead to tangible rewards. But it can be challenging to create partnerships across organizations with different missions, cultures, practices, funding sources, and approaches. Many community colleges and public workforce organizations have overcome these challenges to have a larger impact together than they could have alone in helping people prepare for jobs and employers find a skilled labor force.

This report describes the activities and strategies of a wide variety of partnerships between community colleges and workforce boards, with key takeaways that can assist other community colleges and workforce organizations to solidify their collaborations and further their mutual goals.

Many of the examples in this report illustrate partnerships that emerged out of U.S. Department of Labor grant program called Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training, while others are longstanding relationships that pre-dated the program. The first set of stories focuses on statewide and regional efforts to identify needs in the local labor market and to develop programs to meet them. The second set delves into the activities and lessons learned from serving “common customers”—individual students, employers, and jobseekers.

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