As of April 2010 almost 5,700 CHA residents have prepared for and found work. Thousands more have benefited from cutting-edge job-training and placement programs as well as system-wide alignment.

In order to meet its goals, Opportunity Chicago sought to:

Utilize flexible public-private funding streams
Focus on infrastructure and management
Partner with expert strategic advisors
Target high-demand industry sectors
Develop workforce development education and training programs
Offer participants wrap-around support services
Advance policy and systems change
Use data to inform decisions

Flexible Funding

Opportunity Chicago’s public-private funding structure has encouraged cross-sector collaboration and leveraged multiple funding streams. The Partnership for New Communities’ private funding has been crucial, because regulations concerning how public workforce dollars are spent often prevent low-skilled job seekers from participating in publicly funded programs. Flexible funding has enabled Opportunity Chicago to develop and offer programs to the least-skilled job seekers, learn from best practices, and change program models to better serve residents.

Infrastructure and Management

Opportunity Chicago is coordinated and facilitated by the Chicago Jobs Council (CJC), a coalition of community-based training organizations, advocacy groups, businesses and individuals working toward ensuring access to employment and career advancement opportunities for people living in poverty. CJC participates in the big-picture visioning of Opportunity Chicago as well as managing day-to-day operations. Without a full-time, neutral facilitator serving as the central information “hub,” it would have been much more challenging for Opportunity Chicago to have achieved its ambitious goals. The continued progress of Opportunity Chicago’s advisory groups, roundtables and working groups has hinged on CJC's coordination of its dedicated partners.

Strategic Advisers

A group of workforce development experts and stakeholders, referred to collectively as the Strategic Advisers Group, has been meeting regularly since January 2006 to review and advise the initiative’s strategy; consider new proposals for services, tools, and resources that have a positive impact on the initiative; and advocate for public policy and systems change. Participants are leaders from key city and state agencies, private foundations, and nonprofit organizations.

High-demand Sectors

To help target training and education to career-path jobs in high-demand sectors, Opportunity Chicago’s strategy has focused on five industries: energy efficiency, healthcare, hospitality (retail, restaurant and hotel), manufacturing and information technology. These industries were chosen because they offer employment opportunities at a range of skill levels; the public workforce development system could support new and improved programming to train residents for these occupations; and they match residents’ self-reported employment interests. Additionally, these industry sectors were chosen because in Chicago, at the time of Opportunity Chicago’s launch, they faced significant labor shortages that could be met, in part, with a pool of well-trained applicants from Opportunity Chicago’s target population. Each sector has an Opportunity Chicago-supported partner organization that is responsible for involving employers in the design and implementation of workforce partnerships and training tailored to specific job opportunities. These workforce partnerships are supported by the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, a fund of nearly 200 foundations and 500 employers dedicated to preparing jobseekers and employees for careers. The National Fund works with its sites to create regional funding collaboratives, organize workforce partnerships, develop strategies for specific industry sectors, build career pathways and coordinate local workforce programs.

Education and Training Programs

Opportunity Chicago programs meet resident jobseekers where they are with the goal of moving them toward permanent employment. Employment skills are paired with comprehensive wrap-around services and case management that support participants on multiple levels to help ensure they can successfully complete the program.

Programs include job readiness training, transitional jobs, contextualized literacy, customized skills training, and bridge programs that “bridge” participants into technical training through City Colleges of Chicago. For descriptions of the various workforce programs that have participated in Opportunity Chicago, refer to the Our Partners page.

Support Services

In early 2008, CHA redesigned the way it provided services to its residents. The new program, FamilyWorks, emphasizes permanent housing choice and employment. It is an ambitious career-focused workforce development model that allows CHA to meet residents’ employment and training needs and, more importantly, to move them toward permanent employment, stable housing and eventual economic self-sufficiency. Six nonprofit service providers operate within this system, each responsible for a specific geographical region of the City of Chicago. These providers are the first point of contact for CHA residents and are the key referral source for all Opportunity Chicago programs. The assessments they conduct result in critical data about the resident population, which is used to inform Opportunity Chicago’s programmatic strategy.

Policy and Systems Advocacy

In order to achieve long-term, sustainable improvements in the workforce development system’s ability to help low-skilled and low-income individuals earn family-supporting incomes, Opportunity Chicago established a Policy and Sustainability Working Group in 2009. The group focuses on integrating programs and services established through Opportunity Chicago into the city’s workforce development system, beyond the life of the initiative. It also seeks opportunities to leverage resources to expand the employment of CHA residents.

The group, which includes private funders, public agency partners, and other stakeholders, provides a venue for ongoing collaboration and inter-agency coordination and will continue its work through at least through 2011.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Quality data enables the evaluation team, comprised of the Center for Urban and Economic Development (CUED) at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Abt Associates/EJP Consulting, to answer critical questions that inform decisions as the initiative moves forward. The Data Advisory Working Group is tasked with the continual improvement of outcome measures and data-collection processes and ensuring that all of Opportunity Chicago’s partners are using robust reporting practices. The working group includes representatives from CHA, The Partnership For New Communities, CJC, and Opportunity Chicago’s evaluation team.

Over the course of the initiative, Opportunity Chicago has developed assessment tools, expanded opportunities for providers to report in “real time” using a single system, incorporated referral tracking incorporating workforce development outcomes in all vendor contracts, and instituted pay-for-performance standards.

Opportunity Chicago’s evaluation seeks to answer questions not only about resident outcomes − such as how many residents were placed, how long they remain employed and how much they are earning − but also about program outcomes, including what interventions worked with this population and which resident segments performed best in which programs.

The process or “implementation” part of the evaluation provided information allowing advisors to make evidence-based course corrections throughout the initiative. It also has allowed stakeholders to refine and assess performance benchmarks; document the strategies and processes being used to prepare public housing residents for employment success; and identify emerging lessons and key issues.

The summative aspect of the evaluation will be published in Fall 2011. It will report on:

Whether or not Opportunity Chicago achieved its stated goal of placing 5,000 residents into jobs over five years;
The interventions and services that produced the best results for public housing residents and employers;
The effects of improved inter-agency coordination on efficiency, process, and outcomes;
The impact of having a dedicated civic fund act as a leader/convener/funder for a specific issue; and
The extent to which the initiative’s strategies, systems changes and processes prepared public housing residents for employment success and whether those strategies are replicable.