Today, the Families and Workers Fund announced Powering Climate and Infrastructure Careers for All, a collaborative philanthropic effort to help tackle the severe workforce implementation challenges facing the United States on its path toward a net-zero economy and 21st-century infrastructure. This groundbreaking $50 million initiative propels the Fund’s total commitments to more than $110 million, up from an initial $7 million invested at launch in April 2020.
Combining grants and technical assistance to nonprofits, state and local governments, training and education providers, and private sector employer groups, the new initiative aims to help advance at least one million uplifting careers in the booming clean energy and infrastructure industries. Recognizing a once-in-a-generation chance to offer economic opportunity and good job creation, the initiative is designed to complement $2 trillion in federal investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, and other recent legislation, as well as private sector investment. These laws are projected to create 15 million jobs in the next decade, yet companies struggle to hire and retain enough talent to meet today’s demands. The Fund’s efforts will help connect people in underinvested communities—especially women, rural and low-income communities, and people facing racial inequities—to uplifting careers in clean energy, construction, and other specialized industries.
The initiative will advance a two-part strategy:
Deadlines and Details:
About the Families and Workers Fund
The Families and Workers Fund is a platform for collective action and a pooled $110+ million collaborative fund co-chaired by the Ford Foundation and Schmidt Futures and supported by 40 diverse funders working together to build a more equitable economy that uplifts all. The Fund deploys catalytic partnerships and collaboration across philanthropy, government, and the private sector to advance jobs that sustain and inspire people and to develop a more inclusive, effective public benefits system. The Fund has committed nearly $43 million in grants and strategic partnerships, impacted more than 1.4 million people, and leveraged more than $15 billion in additional public and private investments. Key funders of this work include the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Ascendium Education Group, the Autodesk Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Invest in Our Future, the James Irvine Foundation, JP Morgan Chase & Co., the Joyce Foundation, the JPB Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Trust Foundation.
