Working Together and Making a Difference: Virginia Western Community College and Goodwill Industries of the Valleys Partnership Case Study Report is a report aimed at informing community college and workforce leaders of best practices for launching and expanding partnerships to serve students more effectively. Co-published by the Aspen Institute Workforce Strategies Initiative and Achieving the Dream in November 2015, the report reveals the stages of forming a new partnership, using a case study of the partnership between Virginia Western Community College and Goodwill Industries of the Valleys.
The report demonstrates ways that community colleges and nonprofit workforce organizations can launch or expand upon existing partnerships, focusing on the case study to demonstrate:
- How they built foundations of trust and community-focused results that set the stage for success.
- How the partners resolved challenges together, and continually adapted their programs and services based on data and observations.
- How they blended their resources and created a student-centered culture unlike most community college programs.
- How they knitted together a broader network of stakeholders, including engaged employer-partners.
Working Together and Making a Difference provides a compelling case for acquiring critical new capabilities through partnerships, rather than trying to develop them separately. It illustrates how leaders within two organizations weaved their assets together, pursuing a shared vision and making a bigger difference for students together than they could have apart.
Furthermore, Working Together and Making a Difference expands upon WSI’s previous work on its Courses to Employment project. Courses to Employment makes available tools and resources for community colleges and nonprofit workforce organizations interested in developing partnerships to improve the services offered to their clients.
We invite all community college and workforce development leaders, as well as all those interested in improving workforce development for low- and moderate-income workers, to download the Working Together and Making a Difference.Share your thoughts! Tweet at us @AspenWorkforce using #partners4work.
