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Expanding Economic Opportunity
Escaping persistent poverty is a daunting challenge for low-income families. However, through supportive public policies and effective programs, many such families can succeed in the labor market, build earnings and assets, and participate more fully in the larger economy.
Funding priorities for Income Security
Given the nature of the current U.S. economy, many low-skilled individuals cannot find reliable and sustainable living-wage employment. For their households, work -- even on a full-time basis -- is only a partial answer to achieving self-sufficiency.
Grantmaking focuses on advancing and strengthening policies that make income security possible for low- and moderate-income families. Specifically, we fund projects to identify and promote promising safety net reforms; protect and strengthen the federal and state revenues that finance such programs; and ensure that low- and moderate-income families have opportunities and incentives to build assets.
Making work pay and the new safety net
Grantmaking supports the identification, assessment and promotion of promising safety net reforms. These include initiatives that expand and strengthen work supports -- and access to those supports -- for low- and moderate-income families. We fund efforts that identify and/or promote ongoing reform of the nation's safety net.
Fiscal policy affecting low-income individuals
At the national level, we support research and analysis of federal budget and tax-policy issues. At the state level, we fund the State Fiscal Analysis Initiative (SFAI), intended to build and/or strengthen the capacity of state nonprofit organizations to provide reliable budget and tax analysis. (We do not anticipate expanding the number of nonprofit organizations receiving grants under this area.)
Asset-building strategies
We are interested in interventions that help low- and moderate-income families save money and build assets. We provide support for demonstration, evaluation and advocacy projects related to promising asset development strategies, such as Individual Development Accounts and Children's Savings Accounts. We are particularly interested in:
- identifying and/or promoting strategies to create or expand opportunities and incentives that enable low- and moderate-income families to build assets; and
- promoting wider delivery and more financing of asset-building strategies.
Click here to view the 10 most recent grants for this program area.
Funding priorities for Reducing Barriers to Employment
There is growing evidence that low-income, chronically unemployed people frequently face numerous and simultaneous obstacles to the labor market. Limited education, skills and job preparedness -- along with mental illness, and lack of child care and affordable transportation -- prevent many from securing and maintaining a living-wage job. Flexible and innovative strategies are needed to help these individuals transition off welfare and succeed in the workplace.
Grantmaking focuses on targeted support for alternative staffing programs, and related research and field development. These market-based business models function as nonprofit temporary employment agencies, connecting disadvantaged job seekers with living-wage employment that can lead to career opportunities, and providing both workers and employers with important supports. (Grant requests by invitation only.)
Also of interest are promising models in transitional employment, new approaches to removing persistent barriers to employment, and academic or social policy research projects that focus on critical issues affecting populations most affected by the low-wage labor market.
Click here to view the 10 most recent grants for this program area.
Funding priorities for Retention and Wage Progression
While many former welfare recipients have found employment, most continue to earn very low wages. Similarly, the earnings of low-income workers who lack formal education and job skills training frequently have stagnated or declined. Our concern is for those workers who are left behind, unable to navigate the labor market on their own, and unable to locate or afford the kinds of training and experience needed to launch a career or advance in it.
Specifically, we are interested in addressing two problems often faced by low-income Americans: lack of access to certain occupations and lack of career ladders. This strategy of "retention and wage progression," which we previously called "sectoral employment development," seeks to create systemic change in regional labor markets by helping the persistently poor obtain and retain living-wage employment within a targeted industry.
Our focus includes support for building and expanding effective workforce practices that enhance job retention and wage advancement for low-income, low-skilled adults. Grantmaking also explores how community colleges can help these workers gain the education and experience necessary to advance in the labor market and increase their income. Finally, we continue to support initiatives that strengthen the infrastructure for the workforce development field and inform public policy. (Grant requests for all retention and wage progression projects by invitation only.)
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.