Families Forward Partnerships

When the McKnight Foundation considered their grantee selections, characteristics of leadership and organizational capacity for collaboration, along with solid program operations, seemed especially important. The organizations selected to participate in this initiative had the capacity to carry out programs with staying power and system changing power. Serving low income incumbent workers was not new to any of the grantee, but developing relationships between grantees and the GWDC's role as the intermediary between the grantees was a new concept. To build these relationships, the GWDC and the Wilder Foundation attempted to group the grantees into three categories:
employer-based approach, individualized approach, and sectoral approach. However, the partnerships themselves illustrates several hybrids among "parent fields" spanning a wide range of disciplines to bring the best of each field into helping low-income working families gain skills and advance in their careers. Consequently, attempts to group them into particular categories are difficult.