Two grants aim to create stronger pathways to economic mobility

For some Kansas City workers, the barrier may be a hiring process that makes it difficult to get a first opportunity. For others, childcare, transportation, or digital access can make it difficult to pursue training, accept a job, or stay employed.

Two new Project grants from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation will support different approaches to addressing those challenges and creating stronger pathways to economic mobility.

The Foundation is awarding $4 million over three years to KC Tech Council to establish a Technology Employer Hiring Center of Excellence and $3 million over three years to Phoenix Family to expand an employment support model that helps families navigate barriers to work and economic mobility.

Both projects build on ideas developed through the Foundation’s Collective Impact planning process and are moving forward as focused investments through the Project grant pathway.

These projects approach workforce challenges from different directions, but they start from the same idea: talent and hard work are not always enough when systems create barriers to opportunity. By working with employers to improve how they recognize and hire talent, and helping families navigate realities that can stand between them and employment, we can create more ways for people to put their potential to work.

— Dr. DeAngela Burns-Wallace
President and CEO, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

Opening doors to technology careers

Kansas City’s technology sector offers careers with strong wages and opportunities for advancement, yet qualified local talent can still struggle to secure a first technology job.

KC Tech Council will establish an employer-led Technology Employer Hiring Center of Excellence to help address that disconnect. Working directly with employers, the initiative will develop and test more effective hiring practices, including skills-based approaches, clearer job requirements, standardized interview and assessment tools, and employer-informed work-based learning.

The work builds on engagement with more than 1,400 stakeholders and will focus on changing employer practices rather than simply increasing participation. KC Tech Council will measure whether participating employers adopt new approaches and whether those changes improve hiring outcomes, with the goal of identifying practices that can be used more broadly across the region.

Through months of listening to employers, educators, and talent across Kansas City, one thing became abundantly clear: we don’t have a tech pipeline problem, we have a connectivity problem. This investment gives Kansas City the opportunity to turn the talent we’re already developing into careers, and the hiring needs employers already have into opportunity.

— Kara Lowe
President and CEO, KC Tech Council

 

Helping families move forward

For families living in affordable housing communities, getting or keeping a job can be complicated by challenges that extend well beyond the workplace.

Phoenix Family will use its $3 million grant to expand its employment support model by pairing Life Coaches with specialized Navigators who help families address barriers such as childcare, transportation, digital access and navigating complex service systems.

The project will serve families in nine affordable housing communities across Kansas City and include targeted financial assistance for immediate employment barriers, such as childcare costs or vehicle repairs. Over three years, Phoenix Family will examine whether this more integrated approach improves workforce training participation, employment, job retention and wage growth.

“This investment allows us to walk alongside families, help remove barriers they face, and advance economic mobility so they can move out of poverty,” said Kimber Myers Givner, president and CEO of Phoenix Family.

This investment allows [Phoenix Family] to walk alongside families, help remove barriers they face, and advance economic mobility so they can move out of poverty.

— Kimber Myers Givner
President and CEO, Phoenix Family

Together, the two investments reflect the Foundation’s focus on strengthening the conditions that allow more people to access opportunity, advance in their careers and build greater economic security.

These investments reinforce something we’re seeing more clearly across our work: the systems that shape economic mobility are deeply connected. Education, workforce, and entrepreneurship do not operate in separate lanes, and neither do the challenges people encounter as they build their futures.

— Allison Greenwood
Chief Impact and Strategy Officer, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

“What we learn through one strategic priority or grant cycle can strengthen our understanding of another. That gives us more opportunities to connect ideas, invest in promising approaches at the right scale and help build a stronger regional ecosystem for economic mobility,” said Greenwood.

The Foundation will continue applying those lessons across its grantmaking with the next Project grant application cycle opening later this fall.