Publications

As businesses and workers adjust to rapidly changing work environments, employers are focusing on improving diversity to strengthen their workforce. In addition, new economic and workplace challenges may exacerbate barriers to employment — particularly for those who experience barriers to education, employment, and advancement — otherwise known as opportunity populations. Organizations that serve opportunity populations are looking for new ways to connect those who experience barriers to employment to meaningful career pathways and advancement. Strengthening relationships between businesses and opportunity population-serving organizations (OPSOs) is important, but major systemic challenges to sustained partnership often exist.

Leaders across sectors are investing time and resources in forward-looking models to address our workforce challenges for the talent we need now and into the future. One key component of this is building stronger partnerships between employers and the CTE community—bridging the communication divide by providing each with an orientation of the other. This resource guide serves not only as an introduction to the TPM framework, but that more CTE systems and programs can begin leveraging and benefiting from this authentically employer-led movement.

The CARES Act allocated $350 billion to help small businesses and nonprofits keep workers employed amid the pandemic and economic downturn. The administration soon will release more details including the list of lenders offering loans under the program. In the meantime, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has issued this guide to help organizations understand what to expect and prepare to file for a loan.

A growing number of organizations and initiatives are focusing on closing a communication gap that exists because our education and employment systems don’t speak the same language or communicate effectively. But as they’ve grown in number, the challenge of differentiating between and among players, their overlapping solutions, and the complex relationships among them likewise grows. This paper aims to demystify that landscape and how the major initiatives, including three led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, fit together.