Investing in workforce program innovation: a formative evaluation of five workforce organizations' experiences during the Human Capital Innovation Fund Initiative

Through its Human Capital Innovation Fund (HCIF), the Capital One Foundation invested in five workforce organizations testing new strategies that would enhance their ability to position low-income individuals for employment. Three HCIF grantees are workforce organizations that provide services directly to jobseekers; and two are intermediary organizations that provide a range of capacity-building supports for workforce training partnerships comprising different types of institutions, including workforce organizations, community-based organizations, employers, and community colleges. The Capital One Foundation engaged Aspen Institute Workforce Strategies Initiative (AspenWSI) in a three-year (2013-2016) formative evaluation of the HCIF initiative. The goals of the evaluation included: exploring the development, implementation, and outcomes of the HCIF focus projects; understanding the role of environmental factors, local community influence, and organizational capacity on the implementation of projects; and supporting peer learning for grantees as they interpreted and learned from their project implementation and outcomes data.

This evaluation report is organized around three areas of practice that workforce programs often see as critical to advancing their goals, but at the same time find challenging to implement consistently for a variety of reasons: (1) developing and maintaining strategic partnerships with other organizations; (2) engaging with employers; and (3) delivering support service strategies tailored to the needs of training participants.

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