A Job and a Chance
The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce (the L.A. Chamber) is one of the nation's oldest and most prominent regional business advocacy organizations. In June 2011, the L.A. Chamber received a grant from the Walmart Foundation to provide summer employment opportunities for underserved 16- to 21-year olds in Los Angeles.
Through this grant, the L.A. Chamber partnered with civic and nonprofit organizations to offer summer work opportunities for 500 youth. In addition to providing participants with financial support, the program offered training to enhance their personal and professional development, including job search training, financial literacy education, life skills, and college and career exploration.
BTW's evaluation, A Job and a Chance, describes the impact of the L.A. Chamber's 2011 Summer Youth Employment Program on the youth participants, and the value of the program for the participating nonprofit organizations and the L.A. Chamber itself. The report concludes with a summary of results from an online survey of the youth participants' experience with the program.
Strengthening Partnerships to Improve Community Health
Over the past four years, the Center for Care Innovations (CCI, formerly the Community Clinics Initiative) has supported creative ways of promoting health in underserved communities through their Networking for Community Health program. CCI, through generous support from The California Endowment, granted nearly $10 million to community clinics across California to strengthen their connections with local partners and improve community health. Read BTW's new report, Strengthening Partnerships to Improve Community Health, to learn more about the Networking for Community Health program or watch a series of short videos to see grantee projects in action as they work to:
The Jewish Resource Specialist Professional Development Initiative
The Jewish Resource Specialist Program (JRS) is a flagship professional development initiative of the Early Childhood Education Initiative of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties. JRS was designed to deepen the overall Jewish experience in early childhood Jewish educational institutions and support parents in making Jewish choices for their families.
A new report presents evaluation findings from the initial implementation of JRS in the 2011-2012 school year, including key achievements and challenges. This evaluation assesses the JRS program overall as a model, focusing on the role JRS played in increasing family engagement in Jewish life at the preschool and in the community, and deepening Jewish learning within the JRS school environment. Finally, this evaluation offers recommendations for early-course adjustments as the program moves forward and poses questions regarding the essence of the JRS model, structurally and programmatically.
Preparing the Clinic Leaders of Tomorrow
California's community clinics require strong, committed leaders who can navigate their organizations through an increasingly complex healthcare system and meet the needs of diverse patient populations. Many current executives are approaching retirement or contemplating other steps in their professional lives, and the majority of these leaders have not yet identified someone to take their place. To address this imminent leadership gap, Blue Shield of California Foundation partnered with the Center for the Health Professions at the University of California, San Francisco to design and implement the Clinic Leadership Institute Emerging Leaders program.
The intensive, 18-month program prepares emerging leaders to move into executive positions within five to eight years in order to sustain a strong and vibrant community clinics field in California. Since the launch of the program in 2008, BTW has conducted a mixed-method, longitudinal study of program impacts. The most recent report, Preparing the Clinic Leaders of Tomorrow, summarizes evaluation findings to date. A companion report, Bridging the Divide Between Leadership Development & Organizational Outcomes, examines how the Emerging Leaders program benefits spread from participants to their organizations through customized leadership projects.