Foundation grantmaking focuses on four major program areas. These programs touch upon a number of major issues. Each grantmaking program also works within clearly stated geographic parameters or regions.
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Flint STRIVE provides employment training, placement, and support for hard-to-serve Flint-area residents seeking private-sector jobs. As a replication of the East Harlem Employment Service's workforce training program, Flint STRIVE prepares participants for the workforce through a 19-day intensive workshop that emphasizes the attitudinal prerequisites for successful entry-level employment. This renewal grant will allow Flint STRIVE to train 200 new clients in 2013, and provide follow-up support services to all existing clients. Replication of the STRIVE program in Flint is one of three grants in the Flint Workforce Development cluster.
Founded in 1991, the Association for Enterprise Opportunity is the national trade association of organizations committed to microenterprise development. It provides over 450 members with a forum, information, and a voice to promote enterprise opportunity for people and communities with limited access to economic resources. Since its inception, the grantee has made an impact on federal microenterprise policy, as well as on training the microenterprise industry. This renewal will allow the association to continue to provide critical services to develop strong and effective microenterprise programs in the United States that assist underserved entrepreneurs in starting, stabilizing, and expanding businesses.
Focus: HOPE's manufacturing and information technology training programs have enabled over 9,200 graduates to climb the ladder of economic success. These individuals represent a vast, untapped labor pool, especially those who have been historically denied access to training opportunities. Focus: HOPE breaks down barriers to success for these individuals with tools of empowerment including education, training, and supportive services. Focus: HOPE has recently faced the challenge of a declining manufacturing economy in southeast Michigan, as well as continuing declines in enrollment. This renewal grant will help to leverage the investments by other foundations, businesses, and public-sector supporters to sustain the organization.
Across the U.S., college students are launching programs to help low-income entrepreneurs access the training and financing needed to start their own businesses. Studies by FIELD, a longtime Mott grantee, explore this unique movement in the field of microenterprise.
The Mott Foundation has long believed that employment is an important pathway out of poverty. To that end, the Foundation supports programs, initiatives and partnerships around the United States that seek to help low-income, low-skilled workers overcome their barriers to employment, enter the labor market and increase their earnings over time. Grantmaking includes funding for educational initiatives, particularly at the community college level, that help people gain the knowledge, skills and experience that employers are looking for.
Grantmaking is done primarily through Mott’s Expanding Economic Opportunity program area. Related funding through the Flint Area program targets the Foundation’s home community of Flint, Michigan.
By YAZEED MOORE, Pathways Out of Poverty program officer
Most of us have heard the old saying…college isn’t for everyone. But a series of reports by the Center on Education and Workforce at Georgetown University might suggest otherwise. According to this research, the portion of U.S. jobs that required some post-secondary training nearly doubled from 1973 to 2008 — going from 28 percent to 59 percent — and is projected to increase to 63 percent in the next decade.
Though the terms “post-secondary” and “higher education” can describe professional certification or a traditional four-year college experience, the Mott Foundation embraces the notion that education can make a difference in the lives of individuals and families. To that end, the Foundation has supported a wide variety of efforts aimed at increasing the levels of skill and educational attainment for individuals in a myriad of settings from high schools, community colleges, to nonprofits. Wherever you find yourself in this debate, it’s worth taking a look at the reports, especially if you believe that more education will be needed over time for students of all ages to enter (and stay) in the workforce.
A trio of reports suggests that an alternative model of temporary staffing programs—one that provides low-income workers and employers with careful job matching and support services— not only helps workers obtain jobs, but also offers them important pathways to gaining the skills that employers are looking for.
The reports, produced by the Center for Social Policy at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, explore findings from the Mott-funded Alternative Staffing Demonstration.