Building Our Region’s Future: Greater Washington Together and Talent Capital Launch
The Greater Washington region stands at a pivotal moment. As our President and CEO Tonia Wellons recently shared in a Washington Business Journal viewpoint, the DMV is experiencing significant economic shifts as the result of recent federal actions that are having a destabilizing impact on our region.
These changes create both immense challenges as well as potential opportunities, and our community is responding with innovation, collaboration, and strategic action.
Today, we're proud to be part of the launch of Greater Washington Together — a first-of-its kind, regional effort uniting a growing group of government, employer, education, and nonprofit leaders across Greater Washington to strengthen economic resilience for our region.
A Collaborative Response to Regional Challenges
The confluence of unprecedented events like these would normally cripple any region. Philanthropy can help navigate these challenges by supporting innovative solutions and fostering collaboration.
The Greater Washington Community Foundation has been proud to help co-convene this civic alliance, recognizing that our region's resilience depends on working together across jurisdictional and sectoral boundaries.
Greater Washington Together is built on five interconnected pillars: workforce development, data, philanthropy, advocacy, and economic growth. This comprehensive framework ensures we're not just addressing immediate needs but building long-term regional capacity and resilience.
"The federal policy environment will continue to evolve. What must remain constant is our commitment to each other and to the shared values that have always been our greatest strength. Our job is not just to weather this storm but to emerge from it more connected, more vibrant and more resilient than before," said Tonia Wellons, President and CEO of the Greater Washington Community Foundation.
The Community Foundation has also made catalytic investments in the launch of several key tools alongside this initiative, ensuring the region has both real-time data and practical resources to navigate this transition.
Introducing Talent Capital: AI-Powered Workforce Solutions
At the heart of this effort is Talent Capital (talentcapital.ai) — a first-of-its-kind, innovative AI-driven job matching tool specifically designed for displaced federal workers. This resource represents the kind of human-centered, collaborative approach to workforce development that we champion.
Housed at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, Talent Capital connects displaced workers with tailored jobs and career services from across the DMV while helping employers find good talent. By combining AI-enabled job matching and career navigation with live, personalized services from across the region, the platform provides meaningful, accessible support to residents in their next career step.
Talent Capital demonstrates what is possible when we blend best-in-class technology tools with human-centered service delivery partners to drive workforce and economic development. This tool aims to build the next generation of workforce infrastructure for our region, helping transform potential economic disruption into opportunity for regional growth.
The platform launches with significant commitments from across the region, including substantial employer participation through the Greater Washington Partnership Jobs Board and dedicated training and coaching resources from regional educational institutions and workforce development partners. These coordinated investments demonstrate the breadth of support for displaced workers navigating career transitions.
Real-Time Regional Intelligence Complementing Talent Capital is the DMV Monitor — a comprehensive data dashboard created by the Brookings Institution and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. This tool tracks the economic impact of federal workforce changes across the 23-county metro area, monitoring seven key indicators: overall economy, labor market and workforce, innovation, real estate, destination and travel, municipal services, and household well-being.
The DMV Monitor provides data-driven insights that compare our region's trends with national patterns and other major metropolitan areas, offering both monthly and quarterly updates. By tracking everything from unemployment rates and venture capital flows to housing market changes and household financial health, this tool gives regional leaders the comprehensive intelligence needed to understand both the challenges and emerging opportunities created by federal transformation.
For more information visit https://talentcapital.ai/.
Looking Forward Together
This initiative reflects The Community Foundation's commitment to supporting collaborative solutions that strengthen our entire region. As we've seen in past challenges — from 9/11 to the 2008 financial crisis to COVID-19 — our region's ability to mobilize resources, coordinate responses, and support one another has been key to our resilience.
Greater Washington Together and the Talent Capital tool represent more than just crisis response — they're investments in our region's long-term economic health and workforce development. By bringing together the best of our civic, business, and philanthropic sectors, we're not just weathering change — we're shaping our collective future.