Jun 26 2015 Working toward growth and opportunity with the Fund for Our Economic Future

New video from the Fund highlights workforce development in Northeast Ohio

Northeast Ohio is home to 4.4 million urban, suburban, and rural residents, generating $200 billion in gross regional product per year. In the years since the Great Recession, the region has seen positive signs of recovery including the creation of new industries, high-wage job growth, and entrepreneurship. Yet the divide between top income earners and low income earners continues to widen, while the opportunity for low income earners to obtain a good paying job close to home has diminished.

“Our region needs both growth and opportunity to prosper,” argues a compelling new video from the Fund for Our Economic Future (Fund NEO), a philanthropic collaboration dedicated to advancing economic growth and equitable access to opportunity for the people of Northeast Ohio through research, civic engagement, and grantmaking.

“We at the Fund find that our commitment to advancing economic growth in ways that increase opportunity for all people—what we call Growth & Opportunity—becomes more relevant each day,” said Fund NEO President Brad Whitehead. In other words, creating jobs is not enough. It’s also about the kinds of jobs, where they are, and who gets them.

In commissioning this video, which highlights a workforce development pilot the Fund supports in Northeast Ohio, “our goal was to shine a light on these issues and pique interest in learning more about why we need both growth and opportunity for a strong economy and how we can achieve that through efforts that simultaneously address job creation, job preparation, and job access,” Whitehead said.

We enthusiastically recommend this watch for anyone interested in workforce development, income inequality, and cooperation and collaboration across sectors to achieve social good.