The Foundation works with nonprofit organizations, employers and public agencies to improve how public workforce development funding is being spent in Baltimore and to link effective programs with public funding. The Foundation also works with nonprofit organizations to increase job seekers' access to needed services, including literacy services, transportation, substance abuse treatment, and services for ex-offenders. Finally, The Abell Foundation seeks to strengthen policy initiatives that support low-income families and enhance wages. These initiatives include increasing the minimum wage, increasing access to income supports such as the earned income tax credit, and reforming child support enforcement for low-income, non-custodial parents.

Areas of interest include:

• job training and placement
• job retention and career advancement
• job readiness training
• non-custodial parents
• child support enforcement reform
• income supports

Learn more about the workforce development initiatives funded by The Abell Foundation by visiting Publications/Research. More information is also available in our Highlights below.

Workforce Development Highlights

Baltimore Alliance Careers in Healthcare
The Baltimore Alliance for Careers in Healthcare was founded to address unemployment, underemployment, and health care workforce shortage issues in Baltimore City. The Alliance has accomplished the following:

• Pre-Allied Health Bridge Program. In response to reports from participating hospitals that many entry-level workers lack the requisite basic skills for post-secondary training leading to higher paying jobs, the Alliance created the Pre-Allied Health Bridge Program. With the help of a curriculum consultant, the Alliance has worked with hospitals to design bridge programs for employees who are not testing high enough to enter in-house training programs that require a ninth-grade reading level. Results from the programs are promising: students have advanced at least two grade levels and remain employed at the hospitals.

• Career Mapping. The Alliance has developed a hospital and long-term care career map that identify healthcare career pathways in administrative, technical, and patient-care positions, illustrating how, with additional education and training, entry-level workers can advance into high-growth/high shortage positions that offer higher wages. Over 3,000 generic career maps have been distributed to Baltimore City hospitals, public schools, community-based organizations and one-stop centers.

• Career Coaching. The Alliance pays $10,000 of the salaries of career coaches in participating hospitals in an effort to improve retention and advancement of frontline workers in entry level skilled healthcare jobs. Coaches are in place in seven hospitals and one nursing home, and since 2005, 86 percent of those coached have remained employed for two years. Hospitals also report improved job performance evaluations among employees who participate in coaching. Hospitals report reductions in turnover and increases in job performance among employees who participate in coaching.

• First Span. With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson and Hitachi Foundations, U.S. Department of Labor and The Mayor’s Office of Employment Development, the First Span program was designed to develop an internal pathway were incumbent entry-level workers from housekeeping, dietary and clerical positions could be trained as nursing assistants and then as patient-care technicians (who can carry out several additional tasks normally performed by nurses, such as starting an IV or administering an EKG).A total of 103 employees enrolled in First Span. Of the 53 who enrolled in Certified Nursing Assistant training, 49 (92 percent) completed the program and of the 45 people who enrolled in patient care technician training, 33 (73 percent) completed the program and advanced to new jobs.

Baltimore CASH Campaign
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a powerful work incentive and poverty alleviation tool, helping low-income working families to increase their earnings by as much as 40%. In 2010, the Baltimore CASH Campaign prepared 8,174 tax returns, refunding more than $17 million in federal and state dollars and saving more than $1.3 million in tax preparation,

CASA of Maryland
CASA of Maryland opened the Baltimore Workers’ Employment Center at 2224 East Fayette Street on December 19, 2007. The center provides employment placement services for day laborers and low-income workers who begin to assemble as early in the morning in the hopes of being picked up for low-wage paying jobs in construction, landscaping, home improvement, sanitation, and other day-to-day, low- skilled, physical labor intensive jobs. The center was established to reduce the risk of unfair, illegal treatment and exploitative practices faced by many day laborers. CASA provides employment placement services at the Center from 6 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday. Although many of the day laborers served are Latino immigrants, the center also serves other immigrants as well as African-American and white day laborers. In the past year, CASA served more than 700 low-income members through its Center, placing 80 workers into temporary jobs and 9 workers into permanent employment; providing information and referral services to 266 community members per month; providing citizen education to 98 students, 28 of whom submitted citizenship applications and 14 of whom became new citizens; providing individual financial counseling to 394 members, and assisting 3314 low-income families in filing tax returns.

Rose Street Community Center
The Rose Street Community Center is a "street-corner ministry" that operates out of two row homes in East Baltimore. Since February 2000, with help from The Abell Foundation, the Rose Street Community Center has provided services to hundreds of people, providing small weekly stipends to help them pursue education and training.

Biotechnical Institute of Maryland

The Biotechnical Institute of Maryland, Inc. (BTI) was founded in 1998 to enable high-school graduates and low-skilled workers to pursue entry-level positions in bioscience. BTI offers two programs: 1) the BTI Lab Associates Program consists of nine weeks of lectures and laboratory exercises, and a three-week internship with a biotech laboratory;and 2) the BioSTART program is a 12-week "bridge" program that introduces students to bioscience terminology, occupations and lab procedures, and that provides math remediation. Once students complete BioSTART, they enroll in the Lab Associates program. Since 1998, BTI has trained 232 laboratory technicians, with 75 percent being placed in laboratory and manufacturing technician positions at an average wage of $12.00/hour. Over 30 organizations in the Greater Baltimore area employ BTI graduates; the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions employ 25 percent of BTI's graduates. Research indicates that graduates remain employed, earning an average of $25,000. The average cost per placement is relatively high, approaching $10,000.

STRIVE Baltimore
STRIVE teaches the unemployed "soft skills," such as the ability to communicate with customers and coworkers and work effectively as a member of a team. The programs also offers, job placement and post-placement support.

Vehicles for Change
Vehicles for Change is a program that puts a car within reach of any low-income family that needs one to get to work. Vehicles for Change demonstrates how ownership of a car can, and often does, make a critical difference.

Year Up
Year Up provides low-income high school graduates and GED recipients, ages 18 to 24, with a year of information technology (IT) and Investment Operations training, leading to technical careers, with starting salaries of over $35,000. In 2006, Year Up opened an office in the Washington, DC area (the office is located in Arlington, VA). The site is posting impressive outcomes:

• 90 percent of graduates are placed in jobs within four months of graduation, averaging $38,000 a year;
• More than 85 percent of Year Up’s corporate partners continue to renew their commitment to future classes; and
• 91 percent of corporate partners express satisfaction with apprentices.

With funding from the Abell Foundation, Year Up is now serving Baltimore area high school graduates. For the first six months of the program, students commute five days a week to classes in Arlington, Virginia. For the second six months of the program, students are placed in internships with employers in Baltimore. Year Up is currently determining the feasibility of opening an office in Baltimore.

Visit the Grantmaking section to learn about the steps involved in making a grant application and to see other recently funded grants.