Too many workers spend their lives in low-wage jobs with no path to stability or growth — stuck earning just a paycheck, with little say in the workplace. But what if workers didn’t just show up to do a job — what if they owned the business itself? Employee ownership can transform workplaces, giving workers a real stake in profits, decisions, and their own futures. In this episode, we talk with Rachel Merfalen, Founder and Senior Adviser at Good Future, Krisi Schell, Executive VP of Human Resources at SRC Holdings, and Tom Strong, Director of Employer Activation at the National Fund to explore how this bold idea is becoming a practical strategy for improving workplaces and how workforce development practitioners can support it.

Historically, the restaurant industry is one of the trickiest for workforce development partnerships. It’s a low-margin, low-wage sector, where the work can be physically demanding, unpredictable, and often undervalued. But change is possible. In this episode of Unpacked, we hear from two of our Network Partners, Bonny Yeager, Senior Manager of Industry Solutions, Partner4Work in Pittsburgh and Bishara Addison, Director of Workforce Innovation, Fund for Our Economic Future in Northeast Ohio, who are helping restaurants reimagine what’s possible through our Centering Workers in Job Design initiative.

Together, we explore how they’re engaging restaurant employers to co-design jobs with their employees and how this human-centered approach is improving retention, boosting worker satisfaction, and strengthening business performance. We’ll also dig into what it really takes to build trust with employers, sustain partnerships, and equip workers with the skills and information they need to take a more active role in shaping their work and their futures.

Too many people, especially young people, people of color, and those in lower-income communities, struggle to find and keep good jobs due to barriers like lack of childcare, poor transportation, and limited access to training or support. The system isn't broken. It was built this way.

In this episode, we talk with Marjorie Parker, President and CEO of JobsFirstNYC, about how unfair systems, not personal choices, create and reinforce barriers that make it harder for people to succeed in the workforce. We discuss how to address those barriers by changing policies, building local partnerships, and designing workforce programs that actually meet people’s real needs. Because when we rebuild the system the right way, we don’t just help individuals, we strengthen communities, businesses, and the entire economy.

Online But Disconnected

The Dark Truth Behind Personality Test - HBO/Max

What happens when you center Black men—not as problems to be solved, but as experts in their own experience? In this episode of Unpacked, we speak with leaders behind the new report Breaking the Chains, which challenges the systemic roots of economic exclusion and highlights the ingenuity and resilience of Black men in Chicago.

Guests Matthew Bruce, Dr. Clinton Boyd, Jr., and Richard Wallace join us to discuss how the lived experience of Black men in Chicago—particularly those impacted by incarceration and generational disinvestment—shapes our understanding of equity, entrepreneurship, and systemic change. We unpack their findings, spotlight resilience strategies from the community, and discuss a bold call to action for transforming not just employment systems—but wealth-building, fatherhood, and policy itself.

Read the Breaking the Chains report.

What does the future of work really look like—and who is it for? In this episode, we talk with Chike Aguh, senior advisor at Harvard’s Project on Workforce, about what it takes to build a future of work that delivers not just innovation, but inclusion, equity, and economic mobility. Chike brings a rare blend of policy insight and on-the-ground experience to big questions shaping our economy: How do we ensure that every person can connect to meaningful work? What does real job quality look like in an age of AI? And how can we turn systemic into a springboard for opportunity? As we navigate an uncertain landscape, one truth remains clear—people are the only path.

The childcare industry is in crisis. In Central Iowa, like much of the country, families struggle to find affordable, reliable care, and the educators who provide that care are often overworked, underpaid, and under-supported. It’s a system that leaves everyone losing—parents without options, children without consistent caregivers, and workers without a path to stability.

But what if improving job quality for childcare providers was the key to fixing it? In this episode, we sit down with Michelle Seibert, formerly of the United Way of Central Iowa to unpack how her community is approaching this challenge. By focusing on job quality—better pay, support for self-employed providers, and stronger policies—they’re working to fix childcare from the inside out. Tune in to learn what they’re trying, what’s working, and why it could be a game changer.

The childcare crisis isn’t just about affordability—it’s about job quality. With nearly half of working parents forced out of jobs due to unstable and unaffordable childcare, the ripple effects touch every part of our economy. At the same time, childcare workers—disproportionately women and people of color—struggle with low wages, high credentialing barriers, and limited support. In this episode, we’re joined by Amy O’Leary executive director of Strategies for Children, Gloria Valentin, a family childcare educator, and Stephanie LaPierre a childcare educator at Boston University Children’s Center to explore what’s really at stake and why improving job quality is key to helping both families and providers thrive.

Learn more about the National Fund's childcare initiative, Shifting the Childcare Industry: Better Jobs for Better Access.

Explore the National Fund's Early Childcare Worker Career Navigation Journey Map.

Learn more about Strategies for Children.

Dallas is growing fast, but a shortage of skilled workers in construction is slowing down progress. What does it take to build a skilled, diverse workforce to meet the needs of this booming industry?

In this episode of State of Our Workforce: Unpacked, we are joined by Catlin Hale, Director of Career Pathways at the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, to discuss how Pathways to Work’s Construction Partnership aligns training programs with industry needs. We’ll explore how that work is creating access to high-quality training and living-wage jobs, and the impact of industry partnerships on local workforce resilience.

Pathways to Work

Career Navigation Journey Maps: Black Construction Workers

Advancing Workforce Equity in Energy and Infrastructure Jobs

In this episode, we’re digging into a powerful shift that’s gaining momentum across industries: skills-based hiring. For too long, traditional hiring practices have relied on degrees as a proxy for talent—reinforcing occupational segregation and shutting out millions of capable workers.

But what if we reimagined hiring to focus on what people can do, not just where or if they went to school?

Joining us on this episode is Audrey Mickahail, Senior Vice President of Private Sector and Membership Experience at Opportunity@Work. Together, we’ll explore how skills-based hiring can create more inclusive career pathways, break down systemic barriers, and help employers access a deeper, more diverse talent pool.

We’ll talk about who STARs are—and why they matter. We’ll discuss some of the changes employers need to make and the systemic barriers we can begin to dismantle when we center skills in hiring and advancement.

Welcome to State of Our Workforce: Unpacked, where where we will dig deeper into the incredibly impactful work our Network Partners are doing across the country. In this inaugural episode, National Fund Network Manager, Henry Danner, will be joined by LorMona Meredith and Matt Stevens of the Hawaiʻi Workforce Funders Collaborative to explore their recent report, "From Crisis to Opportunity: Building Hawaiʻi’s Workforce Resilience."

Together, we'll unpack the challenges facing Hawaiʻi's workforce and the bold, collaborative solutions needed to create a more equitable and resilient future. From policy shifts to community-driven strategies, this conversation will highlight the critical actions that can turn today’s challenges into lasting opportunities for workers and businesses across the state.

• From Crisis to Opportunity: Building Hawaiʻi’s Workforce Resilience
• A Good Job in Hawaiʻi” Framework