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Expanding Economic Opportunity
This program area targets programs and policies that improve the economic security of working families by promoting savings and asset development, helping the hard-to-serve find entry-level employment and promoting career development among low-wage workers by helping them stay in the labor market and advance into better jobs.
As the economic environment continues to worsen, it becomes an even greater challenge for people at the low end of the income and asset scale to find and keep jobs and escape poverty.
Funding is made under three objectives.
Funding priorities for Income Security
Grantmaking under this objective is based on the assumption that work is the primary pathway out of poverty. Yet, grantmaking activities also recognize that the nature of the modern U.S. economy is such that many low-skilled individuals cannot find sustained employment with sufficient wages to maintain a decent standard of living. For these people, work — sometimes even full-time work — is only part of the answer to the challenge of poverty.
For a growing number of families, public policies — such as the Earned Income Tax Credit — help close the gap between work and self-sufficiency. To this end, grantmaking is focused on strengthening government work-support programs, protecting and expanding the federal and state revenue streams that finance such programs and ensuring that the nation's safety net includes asset-building opportunities and incentives for all workers.
We are making grants:
- To organizations conducting research, evaluation and dissemination in order to create and expand policies that supplement income or reduce household expenses.
- To build the capacity of organizations that monitor and analyze state budget and tax polices.
- For demonstrations, research and advocacy efforts to promote policies that expand savings incentives and programs for low- and moderate-income families.
Click here to view the 10 most recent grants for this program area.
Funding priorities for Reducing Barriers to Employment
Grantmaking under this objective focuses on alternative staffing organizations, which seek a market-based solution to brokering jobs for the disadvantaged. This work can target a wide variety of populations. The strategy appears to be a creative, cost-effective and efficient mechanism to connect people with barriers to jobs.
We seek innovative strategies that enable low-skill, low-income job seekers to enter the labor market. We are making grants:
- To organizations providing job training or job brokering programs for hard-to-serve populations.
- To organizations and institutions providing research, evaluation and dissemination on effective employment strategies for hard-to-serve populations.
Click here to view the 10 most recent grants for this program area.
Funding priorities for Retention and Wage Progression
Grantmaking under this objective focuses on job advancement and career development. In recent years, we funded three major demonstrations to test whether a sectoral employment approach could improve the earnings of low-income job seekers. Evaluations of three demonstration projects reported increased employment, earnings and job retention.
Based on these achievements, the grantmaking focus has shifted to demonstrating that community colleges can be used to help adults with low literacy obtain advanced occupational certificates and degrees that prepare them for family supporting jobs.
We seek workforce development policies and practices that help low-income workers stay in the labor market and increase their earnings over time. We are making grants:
- To organizations conducting demonstrations, research, evaluation and dissemination on the efficacy of workforce initiatives designed to retain low-income workers in the labor market and advance their earnings so as to increase their household incomes above the poverty level.
- To organizations and community colleges providing effective programs that grant certifications for low-skilled, low-income workers and that enable them to launch careers and increase their earnings so their household incomes exceed the poverty level.
Click here to view the 10 most recent grants for this program area.
We strongly suggest that organizations seeking funding from this program carefully review all program guidelines in this section and our application procedures.