NFG Jobs Toolbox: A Funder's Guide to Jobs

Current Strategies

In the 1990s, several trends have emerged in neighborhood-focused employment and training. One is experimentation with new program models. A notable example here is experimentation with temporary work to integrate neighborhood residents into the workforce. These experiments recognize that, like it or not, the contingent workforce is growing and becoming the avenue for workforce entry. Temporary work may be appropriate for young people without work histories or older people with negative histories who need a second chance. Temporary work can help inexperienced persons strengthen their work ethic, develop skills, and gain exposure to different work environments, occupations, and careers. A key issue is whether these experiences will lead to something better. 

Generally speaking, nonprofit organizations have demonstrated greater concern for low-income clients and their professional advancement. Two examples of nonprofit initiatives are:13

  • Labor Connections

    • A temporary employment agency operated by Chrysalis, a nonprofit community-based organization in Los Angeles County. In 1996, Labor Connections employed 345 people at an average hourly wage of $6.75. About 30 percent of Labor Connections employees moved from temporary to permanent jobs. Chrysalis also runs StreetWorks, a street- cleaning business that contracts with business associations and local governments and employs the homeless, and a Permanent Employment Program for job-ready clients seeking assistance in their job search. 
  • Milwaukee Career Cooperative (MCC) 

    • A nonprofit employment agency serving low-income, less-advantaged job seekers in central city Milwaukee. In 1995-96, MCC placed over 1000 people into jobs with salaries averaging between $5.86 and $6.90 per hour. An interesting aspect of MCC is that it concentrates on "temp-to-perm" employment. Employer contracts are structured with 30, 60, or 90-day probation periods after which time workers transition onto the company's payroll.

Community Organizing and Workforce Development

Another recent trend has been the renewed interest of community organizing groups in jobs issues.14 During the 1980s, a number of community organizing groups were actively involved in jobs issues, particularly the use of first source hiring agreements as a tool for neighborhood residents to gain access to jobs. A hiring agreement requires an employer to consider applicants from a specified pool of job-seekers before searching elsewhere for employees. The pool usually consists of low-income, minority or otherwise disadvantaged persons from particular neighborhoods. 

Despite the success of many groups in winning these agreements, a 1995 report by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) found that "the potential of these programs has been limited by the effectiveness of their implementation."15 ACORN found that agreements were often not enforced; recruitment and outreach to the neighborhoods was poor; and in several instances, city first source programs withered away. 

A Victory in Baltimore: Build

In the last few years, community organizing groups have returned to jobs issues. Some have fought for traditional hiring agreements. Others, such as Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development (BUILD), a community organization affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation, have initiated "living wage" campaigns or have been creative in attaching various requirements to publicly-subsidized development projects. 

BUILD argued that Baltimore City had spent $2 billion in direct subsidies for its Inner Harbor development and should therefore agree to a "social compact" consisting of three elements: 

  • No subsidy without a living wage; 
  • No subsidy without a track record or willingness to hire African Americans for salaried jobs; and 
  • No subsidy without creation of a pool for health and training benefits as part of the downtown development district.
BUILD won a living wage ordinance initially covering city school contracts, eventually extending to cover 4,000 Baltimore jobs with public subsidy connections. This wage requirement began in December 1994 and increased thereafter from $4.25 to $7.70 an hour for covered positions. 

Other Neighborhood Successes: QUEST & HART

A few community organizing groups have used advocacy as a springboard for creating their own neighborhood training programs. San Antonio's Project QUEST, initiated by Communities Organized for Public Services (COPS) and the Metro Alliance, is perhaps the best known example. This initiative remains perhaps the largest and most successful training program to have evolved from a community organizing network.16 Another organizing group, Hartford Areas Rally Together (HART), has taken action against major employers, as well as public agencies, to create employment opportunities for neighborhood residents. 

Through its campaign, HART has leveraged funding to create its own jobs center in a poor, Puerto Rican neighborhood. After the Hartford PICs closed the existing job center and opened up a new one-stop center at the opposite end of town HART, opened its own. HART is now attempting to access jobs at several major institutions (Hartford Hospital, Trinity College, the Connecticut Children's Medical Center, a residential mental health care facility, and a public television system), with special emphasis on jobs in the health sector. 

More recently, neighborhood-focused workforce development programs such as YouthBuild have been incorporated into larger, comprehensive community-building initiatives. Some of these initiatives attempt to exploit the interconnections of economic, social and physical revitalization and overcome the "fragmentation" of various anti-poverty and social welfare programs. They recognize that employment issues do not exist in isolation from other economic and social issues in a neighborhood. 

Replicating Success: CET

Another trend in the 1990s has been replication of promising programs. One of the best known examples is the San Jose, California-based Center for Employment Training (CET), a community-based organization. 17 Launched in 1967, CET serves a mainly Mexican and Mexican-American population, largely former farmworkers with limited education. Other clients include mothers on public assistance, out-of-school youth, past criminal offenders, and persons with limited English language skills. 

CET prides itself on not creaming; its program model is based on competency-based training and contextual learning (integrating basic skills education with occupational training.) With strong links to employers, CET has built a reputation as an organization that can help employers meet hiring needs. Formal evaluations of CET have consistently demonstrated significant increases in annual income for its graduates. 

From the early 1970s on, a number of attempts to replicate the CET model have been made. CET initiated most of the early attempts, but in recent years localities have requested that the U.S. Department of Labor set up CET-style programs for them. (Other popular programs, including STRIVE and Project QUEST, field similar requests for program duplication.) Not all of these recent attempts to replicate CET have gone smoothly. A good program model is insufficient by itself; if it doesn't fit the new political, social and economic context and acquire critical competencies within the new host organization, it will not work. Strong community organizations are prerequisite to successful programs like CET, STRIVE, and Project QUEST, described in the following pages. 

13 Dorie Seavey. New Avenues into Jobs: Early Lessons from Nonprofit Temp Agencies and Employment Brokers. Washington, DC: Center for Community Change. March 1996. 

14 For review of jobs and community organizing, Leigh Dingerson. Jobs: Some Organizing Strategies. Washington, DC: Center for Community Change. 1997. 

15 Association of Communities Organized for Reform Now. The Fight for Jobs and Living Wages. Washington DC 1995. 

16 Paul Osterman and Brenda Lautsch. Project Quest: A Report to the Ford Foundation. April 1996. 

17 Bennett Harrison and Marcus Weiss. Workforce Development Networks: Community-Based Organizations and Regional Alliances. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. 1998, pp 50-70. 
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