Massachusetts Workforce Partners Learning Community: Incremental Steps Towards Outcomes-Oriented Approaches

In a series of workshops held in partnership with MassHire Workforce Boards and Career Centers, Third Sector worked with MassHire partners to share initial steps participants could take to make their services more outcomes-oriented, thus improving outcomes for jobseekers and employers in their communities.  MassHire partners were interested in learning these initial steps they could [...]

Third Sector partnered with Austin Workforce Solutions (WFS), the Ray Marshall Center at the University of Texas (RMC) and the Travis County Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to facilitate a series of three workshops for 40 Austin area workforce leaders, including community-based organizations and community colleges. The workshops, funded by the Prudential Foundation, [...]

We want to share the story of Santa Cruz’s Human Services Department (HSD) outcomes contracting transformation, in which they moved through the steps we outlined in the first and second blog series. By the end of their two-year engagement with Third Sector that focused on improving their TANF Welfare to Work (WTW) subsidized employment programming, Santa Cruz HSD had built a more collaborative relationship with their two providers and had developed new outcomes and metrics to regularly review and work towards.

This is the second post in our data-driven continuous improvement blog series. To read the first blog on best practices for creating a data dashboard, click here. In this post, we’ll share three tips for continuous improvement conversations. The data is ready. The graphs are finalized. The trends are highlighted. Your shiny new report detailing [...]

What makes your community listening sessions worthwhile and authentic? Do you learn something new? How do you create trusting, two-way relationships?

The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the growing movement for stronger partnerships between philanthropy and government, with increasing calls for philanthropy to invest in training government employees and leaders who are in critical positions, help governments identify and attract top talent, and support the creation or expansion of positions that fill specific skill gaps. The critical question for government agencies and foundations seeking to implement this strategy is how to put it into practice.