Learning & Evaluation
The National Fund tracks results, measures value for its stakeholders, and leverages information and evaluations to learn and share insights throughout its network. Its Learning and Evaluation Framework summarizes the approach.
Tracking Our Progress
With support from the Social Innovation Fund and multiple national foundations, the National Fund has supported tens of thousands of individuals in developing new skills and organized thousands of businesses into industry partnerships. It has tracked its progress annually to ensure that it’s making progress against its goals and benefiting its partner communities and stakeholders. Program and Policy Insight produces details every year on the number of individuals and employers served, the services provided, and the National Fund’s progress against its stated goals.
Measuring Our Value and the Effectiveness of Our Approach
The National Fund seeks to serve multiple stakeholders including individuals, employers, and communities, while also working to improve workforce and labor systems through its “systems change” efforts. These evaluations explore the National Fund’s value to individuals, businesses, and communities including changes to education and workforce systems.
It has measured the effectiveness of its programs against traditional workforce programs with its Social Innovation Fund-supported evaluation of partnership programs in Wisconsin and Ohio. It measures its value to employers through business impact studies and business surveys.
The National Fund also recognizes private and non-profit employers with its Young Adult and Frontline Healthcare Worker Champion programs and documents their successful training and development practices. Finally, the National Fund has developed rubric for measuring “systems change” and it tracks its “system change” accomplishments by reporting on hundreds of improvements made to the policies, practices, and systems of businesses, education, and training providers; philanthropic organizations; and public institutions that shape the economic and workforce landscape.
Deepening Our Learning
The National Fund network is focused on using evidence to drive innovation and uses multiple strategies to continuously evaluate, learn from, and improve its work. It operates learning groups of its collaborative directors on key issues like generating good jobs, serving young adults, and utilizing apprenticeships. It organizes meetings of business, community-based organizations and workforce practitioners to foster sharing and collaboration. It maintains a robust archive of local and national evaluations recording the success, challenges, methodology, and impact of its initiatives and investments. In each region partners and staff engage with providers and local evaluators to strive to continuously learn and improve programs.
Presenting Our Findings
Selected evaluation reports from the National Fund and its network are available on this page, below.
All reports, learning documents, materials, evaluations and resources from our partners are available in the Publications section. The National Fund is committed to contributing to the field and positively influencing economic and workforce development across the country and seeks to inform business and community leaders with novel research on issues like creating good jobs, investing in frontline workers, organizing industry partnerships and improving workforce and economic systems.
Evaluation Tools
The Evaluation Series: Using Qualitative and Quantitive Information provides tangible advice and recommendations on how local organizations can collect and use qualitative and quantitative information to improve their work. Items in the series include:

Focuses on successful evaluation practices that local organizations can use to strengthen evaluation efforts and use learning to improve program design.
How to Use Qualitative Research in a Workforce Collaborative
This document focuses on the importance of qualitative or ethnographic evaluation in understanding the impact of a program from a worker or employer perspective. These findings clarify the effective and challenging elements of a workforce intervention.
Evaluations
View AllEvaluation Guide: How Collaboratives Can Design, Manage and Use Evaluations
2009 • by National Fund Evaluation Team • Evaluation, Guide • Community Resources
MoreTuning in to Local Labor Markets: Findings from the Sectoral Employment Impact Study
2010 • by Sheila Maguire, Joshua Freely, Carol Clymer, Maureen Conway, and Deena Schwartz • Evaluation • Community Resources
MoreHealth Careers Collaborative of Greater Cincinnati Return On Investment Report: 2011
2011 • by The New Growth Group, LLC • Evaluation • Community Resources, Healthcare
DownloadMeasuring Business Impact: A Workforce Development Practitioner's Guide
2011 • by Lisa Soricone, Navjeet Singh, and Rebekah Lashman, Commonwealth Corporation • Evaluation, Guide • Employer Resources
DownloadMeasuring Business Impact: Lessons Learned from Workforce Development
2012 • by Lisa Soricone and Navjeet Singh, Commonwealth Corporation • Evaluation, Paper • Employer Resources
DownloadWorkforce Central 2008-2011 Evaluation
2012 • by Incourage Community Foundation • Evaluation • Community Resources
DownloadSocial Benefit Analysis of Hotel Training Center's Room Attendant Training Program
2013 • by Anthony Harrison for BEST Corp. • Evaluation, Report • Community Resources, Employer Resources, Retail
MoreFramework for National Fund Evaluation and Learning
2014 • by National Fund for Workforce Solutions • Evaluation • Community Resources
DownloadSystems Change in the National Fund
2015 • by Lisa Soricone • Evaluation, Report • Community Resources
MorePartners for a Competitive Workforce Annual Report
2015 • by Partners for a Competitive Workforce • Evaluation • Community Resources
DownloadCareerEdge Power of Partnerships
2015 • by CareerEdge Funders Collaborative • Evaluation • Community Resources
DownloadTraining ROI for Cincinnati Manufacturer
2016 • by Partners for a Competitive Workforce • Evaluation • Employer Resources, Manufacturing
MoreEvidence on the Effectiveness of Workforce Partnerships in Ohio and Wisconsin
2016 • by Marios Michaelides, Peter Mueser, Scott Davis, and Kassim Mbwana • Evaluation • Community Resources, Healthcare, Manufacturing
DownloadReturn on Investment Study for Three National Fund Partnerships Ohio
2016 • by Social Innovation Fund and ICF International • Evaluation • Community Resources, Employer Resources, Healthcare, Manufacturing
DownloadStrengthening Baltimore’s Workforce: Reflections and Lessons Learned
2017 • by Baltimore Workforce Funders Collaborative • Evaluation • Community Resources
DownloadMaking Data More Useful
2017 • by Program and Policy Insight • Evaluation, Guide • Community Resources
MoreHow to Use Qualitative Research
2017 • by Business Government Community Connections • Evaluation, Guide • Community Resources
MoreEconomic Impact of Job Training Programs in Metro Atlanta
2018 • by Atlanta CareerRise • Evaluation • Community Resources, Employer Resources
DownloadImproving Supervision for Frontline Jobs
2018 • by Karen Kahn • Evaluation, Report • Employer Resources, Healthcare
More