Y.O.U. receives $65,000 grant to center workers and learners of color
Published on November 29, 2022Youth Opportunities Unlimited (Y.O.U.) is one of 15 workforce development organizations from across the country, and the only one in Ohio, to receive an inaugural grant from the Fund for Workforce Equity. FWE is a new pooled investment fund led by Workforce Matters that was created to implement initiatives that center workers and learners of color in designing or implementing workforce policies and programs.
Y.O.U. is a nonprofit workforce development organization based in Cleveland, Ohio. For more than 40 years Y.O.U. has served teens and young adults ages 14-24 living in under-resourced areas in Northeast Ohio.
This grant will build upon Generation Work Cleveland|Cuyahoga County (GWCC), a collaboration supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation that focuses on improving employment and earnings for young adults—particularly young adults of color. Y.O.U. has partnered with GWCC since the initiative launched in 2014. With this grant, Y.O.U. will work with GWCC partners to gather and review data that centers the voice of young adults of color in job quality conversations. The project will highlight what characteristics of a job or employer are of particular importance to young workers. This information will then be used to inform and advise employers looking to hire and retain young adult talent – specifically black and brown young adult workers – and programs supporting young talent.
“Since Y.O.U. released the $44,000 Question report, we have been asking ‘what will it take to engage young workers and get them into, or back into, work,’” says Y.O.U. President & CEO Craig Dorn. “Support from the Fund for Workforce Equity allows us to take what we have learned from GWCC and dig into the data involving young workers. Peer interviews, sector specific questions, and data disaggregated by race will inform hiring managers and other decision makers.”
The Fund for Workforce Equity is an initiative of Workforce Matters that has pooled funding from 22 grantmaking organizations. The Fund’s advisory committee is comprised of philanthropic and workforce field leaders committed to interrupting the systemic racism embedded within the field's practices, policies, programs, and the labor markets of communities they serve. Local supporters of the Fund for Workforce Equity are Cuyahoga County Workforce Funders Group, Deaconess Foundation, and Fund for Our Economic Future.
Other Generation Work Cleveland|Cuyahoga County partners include The Centers for Families and Children, which will lead the data analysis of this project, Towards Employment, OhioGuidestone, Tri-C’s Advanced Technology Academy and Hospitality programs, Greater Cleveland Partnership, Manufacturing Works, and the Fund for Our Economic Future.