Inside the Black Box - Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago

models in order to best serve their participants’ needs including—but not limited to—sector-based
training, occupation-specific workshops or career training, transitional jobs, GED preparation, literacy
programs, and bridge programs. Complementing, or at times incorporated into, the workforce
development training are social enterprise efforts, CWF services, and flexible programs offered via
federal grants such as the Social Innovation Fund. 4,5 Interviewees acknowledged that these centers and
programs provide innovative ways to serve their participants, and are a way to access more jobs and learn
best practices from other models while establishing more of a presence in the community. A
representative of an organization looking to create a transitional jobs program said:
Participants that take a long time, or that have a pretty significant barrier to employment, so they have
a violent felony conviction, or something like that in their background, they really need to have some
recent work experience and have somebody that’s showing that they’re trustworthy in order for them
to get a future opportunity…this is gonna be a big key of having the transitional job.
The use of multiple or blended models can help organizations accomplish their missions, which revolve
around transforming the individual as well as the community. Fulfilling these missions may require
models that are as comprehensive and versatile as the missions themselves. In order to change the
behavior of the individuals, many models of service delivery are needed. One organization uses a
combination of a sector-strategy model and the CWF model of bundled services for all of their programs,
in which all participants spend a portion of their training time going through the financial workshops of
the CWF. The organization credits this blend of models with their success and their ability to adhere to
their mission to transition individuals and families out of poverty.
There is a two-way causal connection between how your personal and financial life is going and how
you perform at work. So again, for us, I guess the takeaway is where the two models come together is
really where we have the greatest impact.
Another organization acknowledged that being part of CWF allows them to provide a bundle of services
they could not otherwise provide. In their strategic planning, they now aim to measure the number of
services accessed, in addition to the number of people served. In essence, the presence of the CWF allows
them to deepen their engagement with the clients they serve.
4 The Social Enterprise Alliance says “A social enterprise is an organization or venture that achieves its primary social or
environmental mission using business methods… Social enterprises directly address social needs through their products and
services or through the numbers of disadvantaged people they employ…..” https://www.se-alliance.org/what-is-social-enterprise
5 The Corporation for National and Community Service explains that The Social Innovation Fund, established in 2009 under the
Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, “is an initiative of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS)
intended to improve the lives of people in low-income communities.”
http://www.nationalservice.gov/about/programs/innovation.asp
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