If You Want to Go Further – Invest in Advocacy

If You Want to Go Further – Invest in Advocacy
By Melinda Mack, Executive Director, New York Association of Training & Employment Professionals
Melinda was a speaker at the New York City Workforce Funders Quarterly Meeting and Adult Education and Workforce Development: WIOA Opportunities to Work Together

I love a good challenge: a big, hairy, hard-to-tackle challenge. Specifically ones that require bureaucracy to be untangled, programs reoriented by using data and minds to be changed.  I know I am not alone; in my experience, this it is what drives much of the philanthropic community.  My life’s work, and the statewide workforce association I lead, is focused on creating a skilled workforce in New York State. Across the nation, and here in New York State, millions of people lack the skills necessary for the jobs of today and tomorrow; as evidenced by the fact that forty percent of New Yorkers have a high school diploma or less[1].  This isn’t a small problem that one foundation can tackle. It’s a big, interdisciplinary problem. 

Foundations, specifically concentrated around big cities like New York and San Francisco, and national grant-making organizations, have ramped up their spending to close the “skills gap” in the past decade. This has spurred a treasure trove of innovation – from sector-focused job training initiatives, career pathways, early colleges, contextualized education and employment programs, among others – and evaluations to prove their effectiveness.  Most, if not all, of these programs are inspired or funded by private philanthropy; not by the primary government-based funding streams.  The government partners became involved as philanthropy has nudged them along.

An excellent promising example is the WorkAdvance model, which launched in 2011, and took job training to the next level by introducing evidence-based, demand-driven skills training and a focus on jobs that have career pathways. The formal training offered industry-recognized certifications needed for advancement in the sector.  Additionally, the WorkAdvance model engaged a network of employers to adapt training to their changing skill requirements and variety of specific human resources needs.  This paid off:  the low-income program participants earned 14% more on average, than their peers in a control group by year 2.  This effort was funded by the federal 2010 Social Innovation Fund (SIF), as a grant to the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City and the New York City Center for Economic Opportunity in collaboration with MDRC.  A range of New York City-based funders were also engaged to support the collaboration[2].

This leads us to the age-old question: If we know what works, why hasn’t government caught on?  Why aren’t these promising models revamping how government funded programs are run at the federal, state and local levels? 

In my experience, well-intentioned government and policymaking bodies are overly risk-averse to anything new, even if it is evidence-based (which is why the philanthropic nudge is so critical). This often leads to prolonging the status quo:

• Bias toward the path of least resistance “the way we have always done things;”
• Increased bureaucracy to hold a “riskier” practice accountable;
• The constant battle between scale (more citizens being served!) and quality (less citizens being served, but being served better!), and
• A proclivity to suspend a program if the outcomes are not met, instead of learning from what worked and what could be improved. 

It does not have to be this way. Advocates and philanthropy share a common vision: to maximize and leverage often scarce resources to challenge the status quo, and create a better outcome for disadvantaged populations. Coupling investments in demonstration or pilot projects, and/or research should also include resources for advocacy; specifically political will building and education for critical stakeholders, like government. 

As an example, the Gates Foundation has an initiative attempting to combine programmatic and policy changes called Frontier Set.  As they describe it, “The Frontier Set is a select group of colleges and universities, state systems, and supporting organizations committed to significantly increasing student access and success, and eliminating racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in college attainment.”[3]  Having been directly involved in college readiness and success work funded by the Gates Foundation, I know the Foundation did not start here.  Instead it built its body of successful practice over nearly a decade, learning and documenting what works and why, and used it as a catalyst to drive policy change at the federal, state, and local levels.   In my opinion, these strategic investments in advocacy, such as coalition building, data development, government and public awareness campaigns, advocacy training for grantees, etc., meant the difference between a good practice remaining a pilot or becoming the new status quo.   I am hopeful that the next generation of philanthropy will consider advocacy a complement to their work; especially as we move into an era when the government needs a nudge to support innovative solutions for serving the most disadvantaged Americans.