Between May and August 2026, Workforce Matters convened funders from private philanthropy, regional foundations, and corporate philanthropy for the Worker-Centered Strategies Affinity Group – a four-session learning journey designed to explore the meaning of worker-centered strategies and what it could mean to support them more intentionally through our grantmaking, communications, convening, and other capacities.
In the first meeting, the group landed on a shared definition of worker centered strategies–policies and practices, designed with workers and not for them, that prioritize good jobs, worker agency, fair treatment, and equitable opportunities.
Going forward, this definition guide how the affinity group, and Workforce Matters more broadly, frames and supports worker-centered efforts.
The rest of the meetings moved to diagnose where current systems fall short, translate that diagnosis into funding strategy, and identify where funders could act together.
- Session 1 (May): Clarifying Worker-Centered Strategies. The group grounded itself in the definition’s four elements — good jobs, worker agency, fair treatment and equitable opportunity, and co-design. Funders named living wages as the baseline good jobs must meet, not just a placement metric. They also surfaced real constraints: funding cuts hitting grassroots, worker-led organizing, and fragmented infrastructure across states that complicate scaling worker-centered work statewide.
- Session 2 (June): Diagnosing Workforce System Gaps. The group reaffirmed worker agency as core to the definition while framing agency as a spectrum — voice, organizing, power. The group also explored alternatives to the phrase “wraparound supports.” We discussed “basic security conditions” or “structural affordability conditions” as terms that better reflect the foundational nature of childcare, food and nutrition, stable housing, affordable healthcare, reliable transportation, and safe and discrimination-free workplaces.
- Session 3 (July): Funding Implications. The group heard from practitioners Luis Sandoval of Building Skills Partnership (BSP), and Michael Brotchner of UNITE HERE’s Education and Support Fund. Both surfaced that employer buy-in and HR resistance remain the biggest hurdles to worker-centered programming. They emphasized that building trust between labor and management is key and takes sustained, often neutral, facilitation. Funders heard a clear ask: fund boldly, fund long, and be willing to underwrite the risk that comes with innovation.
- Session 4 (August): Pathways for Collaboration. The series closed by asking what funders could do next and proposed three pathways for consideration:
- Collective investment through a multi-year pooled fund,
- Aligned funding where individual investments stay independent but coordinate around shared principles, and
- Continued learning for funders not yet ready to commit dollars.
The intent was to meet funders where their capacity and institutional readiness are and to continue supporting funders interested in this work.
What’s Next
Aligned funding and a shared learning agenda emerged as the strongest near-term fit for the network’s current capacity, alongside a small amount of pooled funding in the near term. Workforce Matters is now working out what coordinated investment can look like, with a focus on identifying and funding systems change and programmatic work that advances the worker-centered definition; collaborating with funders, intermediaries, and grantees to identify a shared pool of potential grantees; using our communications channels to share aligned-funding wins as they happen; and establishing quarterly meetings to highlight organizations doing strong worker-centered work in the field.
The conversation with the Worker-Centered Strategies affinity group will continue. In the coming weeks, Workforce Matters will reach out to group participants and members to gauge interest in continued engagement and understand what funders need to move toward an aligned funding approach.
If you’re a funder working at the intersection of workforce development, worker power, worker wellbeing, and economic justice and want to be part of what comes next, reach out to Workforce Matters or join our mailing list to stay connected to future convenings.
