🔒Nonprofits play key role in workforce development

The path from high school to a job was once direct — many companies were willing to take on unskilled workers and train them for entry-level posts.

Now more than 70 percent of open positions in the state require some kind of post-high school education or certification, leaving those without a college degree or advanced credentials in lower-paying jobs or no job at all.

That’s helped exacerbate income inequality in Connecticut and nationwide, but it’s also a main driver of the state’s shortage in so-called middle-skill jobs in key industries like advanced manufacturing, construction and health care. The issue is so acute — it’s estimated Connecticut employers will need to fill 56,000 jobs annually through 2024, while the state’s population shrinks and high schools graduate fewer pupils — that Gov. Ned Lamont recently named two dozen business and nonprofit executives, and several state and union officials, to a newly revamped council aimed at reviewing the state’s workforce-development initiatives and strategy. Senate Democrats have also called for tens of millions of dollars in additional job-training funds for veterans and low-income and disabled veterans.

But government alone, experts say, can’t solve the problem, and increasingly nonprofit organizations have stepped in to help close the gap.

“Because of technology, employers are looking for a more skilled employee,” said Karen Kakley, senior director of development and community engagement at Our Piece of the Pie, a Hartford nonprofit focused on workforce development. “I see the work that nonprofits do to kind of be the bridge between the schools and the employers. We help to further develop and refine some of the skills that aren’t able to be covered within the classroom.”

An estimated $130 million in public money was spent in Connecticut on workforce development in the last year, along with more than $30 million over the past three years in private funding, according to a study by the Connecticut Council for Philanthropy.

Our Piece of the Pie (OPP) spends 53 percent of its $8.5-million budget on community workforce-development programs, putting $1.5 million directly back into the community by employing young Hartford residents like 19-year-old Nyah Rivera.

Rivera became a youth ambassador at OPP after overcoming years of struggle in Hartford Public Schools. She had gotten into trouble and been assigned to an alternative program a few years ago when OPP offered jobs to students who kept their grades up.

“It was very helpful; a lot of us didn’t know where we were going in life, we doubted ourselves,” Rivera said. With help from an OPP mentor and experience working at Hartford City Hall and the Asylum Hill Boys & Girls Club, she learned skills like public speaking and found her life transformed.

“OPP pushed me to do better and move forward,” Rivera said. Now she plans to attend community college for two years starting in the fall and eventually transfer to UConn for business studies.

Almost 1,400 young people were enrolled in OPP programs in the most recent fiscal year, of whom 169 gained employment and nearly 200 earned vocational certifications, post-secondary degrees or high school diplomas. Funding for the nonprofit comes from state grants and donors like the Dalio Family Foundation, Newman’s Own Foundation and The Hartford.

A typical OPP client might be a fast-food worker with a high-school education who is seeking higher earnings and more consistent hours. The nonprofit matches the worker with a program that offers new skills, like forklift certification, along with customer-service training. After obtaining those credentials, the worker is encouraged to continue their education at a community college to embark on a more specialized career path.

The agency also works with young people reentering the workforce from prison.

All through the process, Our Piece of the Pie staffers serve as mentors providing advice and guidance.

Workforce preparation has also evolved into a main focus for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Hartford, according to President and CEO Samuel S. Gray Jr.

“When you look at it from a nonprofit lens, it’s really how are we contributing to building a young person in regards to those soft skills that are necessary for them to be marketable in the future,” Gray said. The nonprofit’s programs include the Bank of America Student Leaders Program, which offers paid summer internships for high school students along with financial literacy and job-skills training.

Future plans for the Boys & Girls Club, which has a $4.2-million annual budget, include a partnership with Hartford Public Schools to allow for more job training and internship opportunities to help incentivize school attendance and graduation.

“I feel very optimistic,” Gray said. “These are our kids, this is our town, this is the future.”

Career pipelines

Employment status directly impacts the health and education of families, and nonprofits across the board are recognizing workforce development’s central importance to improving communities, said Paula S. Gilberto, president and CEO of the United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut.

The United Way has taken on a pivotal coordinating role in connecting nonprofits to the private sector and channeling funding to workforce-development efforts, Gilberto added. In 2020, United Way is investing $575,000 in three initiatives and four programs that focus specifically on workforce development.

“There’s great emphasis on how do we make effective use of the resources we have; how do we do this while keeping the employer front and center and also keeping involved the population of individuals who aren’t earning enough,” Gilberto said.

One effort United Way funds at Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford helps adults with lower literacy levels improve their basic skills while learning about the food business. The program’s eventual goal is employment at catering giant Sodexo.

“We’re creating more career pipelines, whether it’s manufacturing, health care, building trades or, in this case, working for a major food-service organization,” Gilberto said.

Middle-skill jobs

Hartford’s Capital Workforce Partners also helps coordinate workforce-development efforts in the region with an eye on connecting nonprofits with data and government resources in order to maximize their outcomes. The skills gap has evolved as a primary concern and programs that allow workers to earn certifications are a priority, said President and CEO Alex B. Johnson.

“We are really laser-focused on helping individuals prepare themselves for middle-skill jobs,” Johnson said. “Individuals need those industry-recognized credentials to be competitive in this economy.”

Capital Workforce Partners’ $20.4-million budget — drawn mainly from state grants and funders like the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving — goes mainly into employment programs for youth and adult workers and running training programs at American Job Centers around the region.

Nonprofits need help from the private sector to both match workers with jobs and fund training efforts, Johnson added. When a company pays its interns, Capital Workforce Partners can use the money it saves to help more people, he explained.

Workforce-development funding remains a major challenge for nonprofits.

Since 2001, for example, federal funding for adult education and training programs has been cut by more than $1 billion, according to the National Skills Coalition.

State funding has also been a challenge in recent years as lawmakers have cut spending to balance chronic budget deficits.

“The challenge with nonprofits is their missions to do this work are very clear, but the ability to have the resources to do the work is always a challenge,” Johnson said.

This story was done with support from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.