America’s Job Center of California Grant Development, Planning, and Evaluation

America’s Job Center of California Grant Development, Planning, and Evaluation

Client

Rubicon Programs with Contra Costa Workforce Collaborative

Context

In 2018, Rubicon Programs hired RDA to facilitate an accelerated program planning and grant proposal development process with a newly formed collaborative made up of workforce and employment organizations and adult education centers in Contra Costa County. Rubicon is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to equip people to break the cycle of poverty through job training and placement, housing, behavioral health, and other supportive services for low-income residents of Contra Costa and Alameda Counties. The Contra Costa Workforce Collaborative (CCWC) sought funding through an America’s Job Center of California (AJCC) grant proposal to establish a system-level model of partnership and collaboration across ten organizations to operate a comprehensive AJCC and to provide WIOA services to the County’s job seekers.

Approach

To support this effort, RDA conducted a substantial analysis of secondary data on demographic, labor market, education, and industry trends, as well as research into various collaborative service delivery models. As this planning process involved executive and program leadership from all ten CCWC organizations, RDA designed our facilitation approach to productively address conflicting perspectives and stakeholder priorities to keep the group moving toward a unified plan. As a part of proposal development, RDA also developed memoranda of understanding (MOUs) to clarify and formalize the many partnerships planned in the proposal.

Results

The Contra Costa County Workforce Development Board awarded the CCWC full funding totaling $1,450,000 to provide AJCC and WIOA services. As a result, the CCWC is now better positioned to prepare adults and dislocated workers to be competitive in the job market, specifically in the County’s most relevant industry sectors. Since this project, CCWC has engaged RDA to provide additional implementation planning services and technical assistance, to evaluate the Collaborative and its activities, and to write another proposal for funding to continue operating the AJCC in Alameda County (submitted Nov 20, 2020).

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