BONUS! Introducing State of Our Workforce: Unpacked

In this special mini-episode, we’re excited to introduce a brand-new addition to our podcast channel: State of Our Workforce: Unpacked. Michelle Wilson sits down with Henry Danner for a quick conversation about what listeners can expect from this new LinkedIn Live series.

Unpacked takes the national conversations from State of Our Workforce and brings them to the ground level—spotlighting how workforce equity shows up in communities across our network. It’s where our “Nationally Powered, Locally Driven” ethos comes to life.

Tune in for a behind-the-scenes look at why we created this new series, what stories we’ll be telling, and how you can be part of the conversation.

January 2025

The year 2025 marks a momentous anniversary at the National Fund. It has been five years since the Advancing Workforce Equity project got off the ground, in which we dug into the root causes of inequities using deeply disaggregated data. This project was extremely impactful for the National Fund and our network partners and has been essential in our direction since then.

We are joined by three key collaborators who worked on this project at that time. Vice President of Research at PolicyLink; Sarah Treuhaft, Director of Policy and Partnerships at The Institute on Race and the Political Economy at the New School; and Jonathan Osei, Workforce Development Fellow at the Project for Pride in Living.

The four of us will take a journey back five years and consider what it was like to begin the difficult, messy work of equity at a time when equity was still a “dirty word.” We consider the lasting impact of our work and how we can continue to move it forward now to create a truly equitable economy where all workers, businesses, and communities are thriving.