Putting Adult Learners on the Road to Success, a short film from WSI illustrating the importance of community college-nonprofit partnerships, is now available. The 19-minute film features participants from two Courses to Employment partnerships (Training Futures/Northern Virginia Community College and Capital Idea/Austin Community College), who are working to help low-income adults achieve greater success in higher education and the workforce. Students comment on the assistance they received in charting a career path as well as the supports offered in navigating the college system and juggling school, work and family. Discussion is included on the importance of engaging local leaders in building these partnerships that can result in higher skills and better jobs for their residents.
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Courses to Employment Webinar Recordings and Slides Available Now
Over the summer, AspenWSI conducted three webinars highlighting research from Courses to Employment, a three-year project investigating nonprofit-community college partnerships that serve low-income adults. The recordings and Powerpoint slides for these webinars can be found on our events page.

Report on connecting workforce development with economic development
In this new issue of Update, WSI discusses the capacities workforce development programs need to better align their strategies with economic development in their local labor market. The publication uses examples from three cities where workforce leaders worked with industry representatives, government, and others to support their local industry and connect their worker constituencies to opportunities created by economic development activities.

Publication highlighting use of the Business Value approach to design and evaluate workforce services now available
In this new issue of Update, WSI discusses why and how workforce programs should identify and try to measure the business value of the workforce services they provide to their employer customers. The report also offers suggestions to funders, researchers and program evaluators.

EOP Executive Director tapped to join panel of judges for economic opportunity competition:
The eBay Foundation and Ashoka’s Changemakers have launched a collaborative on-line competition called “Powering Economic Opportunity: Create a World that Works.” The competition seeks innovative, market-based solutions from around the world that create economic opportunity and generate employment for disadvantaged populations. Five winners will receive $50,000 each, and the competition deadline is June 15, 2011.To learn more about the competition and the range of innovative ideas shared to date, go to: http://www.theopportunityproject.org/

Report reveals how nonprofit - community college partnerships fund supportive services for low-income, adult learners
In this latest edition of Update, WSI’s periodical, we describe how nonprofit - community college partnerships participating in Courses to Employment leverage multiple funding streams to address the barriers of low-income, adult learners to help them persist and complete training in community college, and to ultimately succeed in the labor market. The Courses to Employment demonstration is funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

Initial findings from the Courses to Employment project on community college-nonprofit partnerships now available
WSI recently released several reports detailing the education and employment outcomes for students served by five of the community college – nonprofit partnerships in the Courses to Employment (CTE) demonstration project. The reports include analysis of participants’ educational pathways, their educational attainment and advancement during the study period, and their employment and earnings experiences before and after training. The analysis draws on data from education and workforce data systems. CTE is a multi-year investigation of six community-college nonprofit partnerships from across the country and is funded by the Charles S. Mott Foundation.

All sector initiatives are not alike. Approaches vary – in terms of where they are housed, what industries they work in and what services they offer. To read program profiles that illustrate that diversity. Click here >>>