Renee’s Reflection: A New Workforce Delegation for the HIRE Initiative

At our recent Tocqueville Conversation, we discussed the rapidly increasing population and cost of living in Dane County and how that’s impacting hard-working families – especially those with children. One of the ways United Way is working to empower more people to find pathways out of poverty is through our HIRE Initiative – fostering opportunities for our neighbors to gain financial security through better-paying jobs.

I’m thrilled to share with you that our HIRE initiative’s new workforce delegation is launching at the end of this month! 

Thanks to the work of the delegation as well as a generous new grant from Ascendium Education Group to create demand-driven, short-term training programs to get people into higher-paying, specialized positions, we’re working together to help our neighbors secure reliable work making family-sustaining wages. 

At our recent Tocqueville Conversation, we discussed the rapidly increasing population and cost of living in Dane County and how that’s impacting hard-working families – especially those with children. Today, a single adult living in Dane County needs to earn $28/hour (almost four times Wisconsin’s minimum wage) to lead a stable, successful life. But we can help. 

One of the ways United Way is working to empower more people to find pathways out of poverty is through our HIRE Initiative – fostering opportunities for our neighbors to gain financial security through better jobs. Thanks to Tocqueville leaders and investors like Jack Salzwedel, Diane Ballweg, Dave Beck-Engel and many more, we launched HIRE in 2013. 

Alongside community partners, we’ve helped more than 3,000 people secure reliable work making family-sustaining wages. But there’s still so much to be done. That’s why I’m thrilled to share with you that our HIRE initiative’s new workforce delegation is launching at the end of this month! 

The delegation, chaired by fellow Tocqueville member Lisa Barton, CEO of Alliant Energy, and Seth Lentz, CEO of the Workforce Development Board of South-Central Wisconsin, is made up of 21 individuals across sectors including educators from MMSD and Madison College. Together, these community leaders will take an in-depth look at existing strategies, how they respond to current needs and gaps in our workforce and make recommendations for the future.  

Additionally, HIRE has been awarded a generous grant from Ascendium Education Group to create demand-driven, short-term training programs to get people into higher-paying, specialized positions. Through this grant, we’ll design programs that will not only provide stable employment but fill critical gaps in the workforce.  

Many of you have a critical role to play in this process as employers. If you’d like to get involved, please reach out to Bill Clingan, Program Manager, Community Impact at bill.clingan@uwdc.org. 

Your continued investments have allowed us to break down barriers and prepare people for employment. Thank you for continuing to champion this work through Tocqueville! I’m so proud of what we’re accomplishing together.

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