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Workforce Fellows

Meet our Results for America State and Local Workforce Fellows

In 2019 RFA launched a State and Local Workforce Fellowship to help data- and evidence-driven state and local government leaders make tangible progress in improving employment outcomes. The Fellowship provides a peer network of top government innovators from around the country, offering new ideas and approaches and providing direction and courage when challenges inevitably arise. This network is complemented by individualized coaching and technical assistance to implement evidence-based strategies.

Learn more about the 2022 State and Local Workforce Fellowship

Join Our Cohort of Workforce Innovators

RFA is excited to launch two new, 12-month cohorts of the State and Local Workforce Fellowship beginning in September 2022. Fellowship teams will work on projects in one of two tracks:

  • Advancing Job Quality: Developing a job quality framework to employ evidence-based interventions, ensuring workforce programming invests in programs, partners, and businesses that have or lead to high quality jobs.
  • Evidence-Based Workforce Spending: Using evidence- and outcomes-based grantmaking, contracting, and budgeting to set goals, define performance metrics, develop an evidence framework, link funding to outcomes, support equity and innovation in funding models, and actively manage grants and contracts.

RFA is accepting Fellowship team applications through August 31, 2022. Please reach out to Jack Monahan, Workforce Program Associate, at [email protected] with any questions.

2021 State and Local Workforce Fellowship Wins

  • California’s San Diego Workforce Partnership released two evidence-based RFPs for youth jobs services in October of 2020 which also leverage job quality and equity metrics.
  • Colorado developed evidence of effectiveness definitions (p 25) and required local areas to provide an evidence inventory in their local workforce plans.
  • D.C. developed performance-based contracting and evaluation guidance.
  • Ohio Jobs and Family Services supported Central Ohio in piloting two outcomes-based contracts with the intent of spreading the contracting strategy across the state.
  • Pennsylvania defined evidence of effectiveness for the workforce system and conducted a field survey to learn how to support local areas in building evidence. The Governor’s Office developed a grant template leveraging these definitions.
    • Partner4Work, our Pittsburg Fellow, issued a performance-based RFP for training programs leading to industry-recognized credentials and employment.
  • Texas Workforce Commission defined and prioritized evidence for the first time, and the first grant announcement under this system was issued in March 2021.
  • Virginia developed and launched a workforce data trust, connecting data across six agencies, a referral portal offering a single point of entry to all workforce customers, and performance dashboards to inform both the public and workforce officials. We also gained DOL approval for N. VA’s use of WIOA Pay-for-Performance, the first in the nation.
To continue this important work, RFA launched Phase II of the Workforce Fellowship in May 2021. RFA’s State and Local Workforce Fellows will have access to a peer network of leading workforce officials, expert technical assistance to solve problems and implement evidence-based solutions, and support and resources to elevate and spotlight successes and continue to build momentum. By bringing together leaders from the most data- and evidence-driven state and local workforce offices and boards to collaboratively develop and implement strategies for building and using evidence to direct funding, the Fellowship will continue to create national proof points that set the stage for broader adoption across the country.
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Learn More About the Evidence in Workforce Lab