FutureWorks is managing the America Works Initiative, a Walmart Foundation-funded effort to help low to moderate-income individuals who have lost their jobs regain meaningful employment that provides long-term family- sustaining wages and benefits.  The projects funded by the Walmart Foundation build on successful efforts already under way, link to broader efforts to make workforce-related programs function more as a system, and link to overall efforts in the region to grow the economy.  The projects are designed to leverage larger-scale, longer-term, strategic and systemic changes in the way regions help people get and keep good-paying jobs.

In several of the sites, the projects continue work that was started as part of the US Department of Labor’s WIRED initiative, supporting ongoing efforts to build collaborative capacity at the regional level and to institutionalize improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of workforce development systems.

Although they are experimenting with different approaches, the grantees are all addressing a number of common challenges, such as:

• How can regions make workforce-related programs function more as a system?
• What are the most effective ways to identify where the jobs are?
• How can workforce issues be most effectively addressed at the regional level?
• What kind of workforce-related investments make the biggest difference in the current economic/fiscal/political environment?

For a summary of the work going on in each region, please click on a link below:

• Cali-Baja (including San Diego, Imperial Valley, and Baja California)
• Eastern Mississippi
• Kansas City
• Lancaster, PA
• OH-Penn (including New Castle, PA and Youngstown, OH)
• Southwest Connecticut
• West Michigan

For more information about America Works grantees, please click on the links below:

• San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation
• The Montgomery Institute
• Mid-America Regional Council
• Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board
• West Central Job Partnership
• The Workplace, Inc.
• West Michigan Strategic Alliance

For more information about the Walmart Foundation, click here.