On May 29, Workforce Matters members working at the intersection of postsecondary education and workforce development gathered for a virtual peer to peer conversation.
The goals of our call were to create a space for participants to: catch up with each other; learn about each other’s work at this intersection, including how funders are responding to grantee needs and policy changes; share opportunities to collaborate and build connections to advance shared interests and aligned strategies.
Using a collaborative document, participants were able to share:
- Questions their foundations/organizations are asking or exploring when it comes to the intersection of postsecondary education and workforce development;
- Initiatives their foundations/organizations are funding at the intersection of postsecondary education and workforce development;
- Concerns during this time of disruption in funding and policy, and what, if anything, has changed;
- Resources they would like their colleagues to know about.
We lifted up a few themes from our conversation for further exploration and discussion.
- The opportunity for philanthropy to strategically lift up critical work, foster deeper partner relationships, and catalyze collective action, even as participants recognized the limited ability of philanthropy to fill gaps left by reduced federal funding;
- The opportunity to lean into state or regional initiatives and the concurrent need to increase transparency and alignment between funders’ strategies; and
- Challenges and needs that funders are seeing, particularly related to:
- Data collection, disaggregation, and analysis, and the need to support grantee capacity to track outcomes
- Continuing to fund and provide robust student supports that are critical to advance equity in access and outcomes, especially for part-time and working students who may be navigating financial aid shifts and broader economic uncertainty
- The importance of intentional, proactive grant structuring to support grantee capacity and foster sustainability
In terms of next steps, participants were interested in doing some mapping of investments at the state/regional level to share approaches, partners, and strategies. Workforce Matters also has a role to play in helping to link funders with shared interests; identify gaps and opportunities; provide visibility into other relevant/connected initiatives; share relevant resources; and convene funders to gather and share information and updates.
Workforce Matters will reconvene this group on the afternoon of July 8 to continue the conversation and sharing. If you are a funder that makes grants at this intersection, we welcome you to join us. Please email us at info@workforce-matters.org for more information!
