Getting In Staying On Moving Up - GiveWell

Public/Private Ventures is a
national nonprofit organization
whose mission is to
improve the effectiveness of
social policies, programs and
community initiatives, especially
as they affect youth and
young adults. In carrying out
this mission, P/PV works with
philanthropies, the public
and business sectors, and
nonprofit organizations.
We do our work in four basic
ways:
• We develop or identify social
policies, strategies and practices
that promote individual
economic success and
citizenship, and stronger
families and communities.
• We assess the effectiveness of
these promising approaches
and distill their critical elements
and benchmarks,
using rigorous field study
and research methods.
• We mine evaluation results
and implementation experiences
for their policy and
practice implications, and
communicate the findings to
public and private decisionmakers,
and to
community leaders.
• We create and field test the
building blocks—model policies,
financing approaches,
curricula and training
materials, communication
strategies and learning
processes—that are necessary
to implement effective
approaches more broadly. We
then work with leaders of the
various sectors to implement
these expansion tools, and to
improve their usefulness.
P/PV’s staff is composed of
policy leaders in various
fields; evaluators and
researchers in disciplines
ranging from economics to
ethnography; and experienced
practitioners from the
nonprofit, public, business
and philanthropic sectors.
Working
Ventures
Working Ventures seeks to
improve the performance of
the workforce development
field by providing practitioners
and policymakers with
the knowledge and tools
needed to operate effective
employment programs. We
support the field by documenting
effective employment
strategies and practices,
convening practitioner
workshops and providing
resources to encourage
program innovation.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank a number of people
who helped make this report possible. Rebecca Taylor,
Allen Thompson, Mary Bedeau and several other VFI
staff members were very generous with their time and
patiently explained the key elements of the Moving
Up program. In addition, Rebecca and Mary reviewed
and made many helpful comments on our early drafts.
Mary also spent many hours checking VFI’s data to
ensure its accuracy. Several VFI participants and graduates
were also willing to meet with us to discuss their
experiences in the program and on the job. We
gained considerable insight about Moving Up from
their participation.
Ted Houghton conducted many of the staff interviews
and made valuable contributions to our assessment of
the key program elements. Elisabeth King devoted
many hours to analyzing VFI’s performance and
ensuring the report’s accuracy. Elisabeth also worked
with Joe Tierney organizing and conducting focus
groups with participants. Joe Stillman and Carol
Clymer read drafts of the report and offered a number
of helpful suggestions.
We would also like to thank The Ford, Charles Stewart
Mott and Pinkerton Foundations for their support of
Working Ventures and the Moving Up report.