The Collaborative provides a forum for grantmakers and philanthropists to provide community leadership around workforce issues.  To this end, the Collaborative convenes key stakeholders, brokers relationships, and provides guidance related to technical assistance and developing and disseminating new knowledge.

Convening Activities

• The Collaborative is increasingly viewed as a neutral convener that can bring together coalitions of organizations that share an interest in common workforce issues.  For example, the Collaborative began convening a First Tuesdays Lunch Group in fall 2009, which has led to a group of workforce policy advocates to commit to working together on a shared policy agenda.
  
• The Collaborative convened a workgroup comprised of state workforce officials from the District, Maryland, and Virginia to develop a strategy to improve the availability of information about job opportunities in our region.  This effort resulted in a $4 million Labor Market Information Improvement Grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.
  
• More recently, the Collaboratibve-incubated Regional Alliance for Careers in Health helped to convene a coalition of healthcare employers and training providers that successfully secured nearly $5 million in stimulus funds for a health careers training initiative.
  
• In July 2010, the Collaborative hosted a Roundtable on Workforce Literacy: Aligning Literacy and Skills Training for Better Family Economic Outcomes for more than one dozen policy experts and practitioners from across the Washington metropolitan region.
  
• The Collaborative assisted with two applications for Affordable Care Act ("heath reform") Primary Care Workforce Development Planning grant funds.  Both MD and DC were awarded $150,000 planning grants, allowing both states to compete for an addtional $3 million each in implementation funds in late 2011.  The Collaborative will serve on the State Partnership committees for both grants.

Advisory Activities

Collaborative members both provide individual guidance to local workforce providers and also participate in a variety of community leadership bodies, including the DC Community College Feasibility Study Team, Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments Workforce Taskforce, Youth investment Council, and DC Department of Employment Services Adult Workforce Kitchen Cabinet.

Growing and Disseminating Knowledge

• The Collaborative has sponsored two Funders Forum on Workforce Development events (summer 2008, summer 2010).  Each of these events provided local grantmakers and philanthropists with an opportunity to hear from issue experts, discuss workforce development priorities, and learn more about the collaborative's work.
  
• The Collaborative has engaged independent evaluation firm Abt Associates, Inc. to evaluate the impact of its grantmaking from 2007-2010, with initial findings to be published in 2011.