Across the United States, workforce development efforts play a critical role in sustaining local economies while equipping our youth with the skills, resources, and support to build meaningful careers and connections. However, funding gaps often leave community-based organizations leading youth workforce development programs unable to pay competitive wages to attract and retain experienced talent who are critical to supporting our youth. A national conversation is underway regarding the urgent need for sustainable youth workforce development programs.

The video below demonstrates the powerful reality as youth workforce development nonprofit providers share the on-the-ground challenges they face within LA’s current funding landscape. Similarly, former program participants share their firsthand experiences of how these programs transformed their lives. Through candid conversations, they highlight the transformative impact of these programs and the nonprofit workers, while acknowledging the pressing challenges organizations face in youth workforce development programs. These personal stories illuminate why sustainable funding matters and its direct impact on the success and future of LA's youth.

The Los Angeles Opportunity Youth Collaborative (OYC) – convened by the Alliance for Children’s Rights and UNITE-LA – partnered with NFF to research the full costs of workforce development programs and identify key recommendations for the future of youth workforce development programs.

Five youth workforce development programs participated in an in-depth analysis of their full cost needs to identify how much additional funding would be required to offer existing programming with sustainable staffing, fair compensation, and working conditions that meet best practice standards. In addition, providers also shared their insights and recommendations for how existing funding and compliance practices could be improved in the future.

NFF’s analysis found that, on average, organizations have approximately $1.1 million of unfunded expenses, or 26% of their current program budget, that would support them to do their current level of services under more sustainable conditions. Download the full report to learn about the context of the youth workforce development landscape and actionable recommendations, including:

Short term:

• Collaboratively advocate for dedicated permanent state funding that would enable funding increases. 
• Simplify reporting requirements and provide up-front payments 
• Give providers more lead time and room to adjust before implementing program changes.

Long-term:

• Center outcomes over outputs, and embrace flexibility when organizations propose changes that would have positive impact. 
• Co-design new programs with service providers who have direct experience in service delivery. 
• Streamline and reduce compliance and reporting redundancies between systems.

The providers, LA OYC, and NFF look forward to collaborative opportunities in partnership with local system leaders to address these recommendations. Adopting these changes could make a significant impact on the success of programs to connect youth to sustainable and high-quality jobs. LA can be a model for other communities across the country as it addresses these issues collaboratively and uses an approach that centers young people.

Erik Aguirre: 

I'm an out of school career advisor here. I work with youth who have not finished their high school diploma or are still working towards, you know, their secondary education. 

Angela Hwang: 

We help kids with any college applications, life problems. We are a mentor, but we also give youth employment experiences. 

Blanca Meza: 

Our main focus as a program is to help the youth obtain their high school diploma as well as measurable skills certification. 

Heidi Lemus: 

If they come to us as high school grads, then we can go ahead and help them either get back into a short vocational training or college.  

Carlos Peña: 

There's one household, I've hired five siblings. I've seen them all graduate high school and go on to college. And, I know for a fact that they were helping their family, like, help paying the bills. 

Isabella Cano: 

When I first graduated high school, I was looking for a job to start off. I came to my case manager and I told her, hey, I need help. My case manager helped me build my resume and also get the attire and transportation to get to my interview. And I got the job. So I’m grateful for that. You know? 

Jonathan Gutierrez: 

After I graduated, I didn't really know what to do. Like if I should go to college, if I should go working. They helped me narrow down which choice I personally wanted to do, and would enjoy doing it too. 

Isabella Cano: 

They helped me growing up basically, not having anybody there. But they're there, my specialists. You know, pushing me to meet my goals. 

Jonathan Gutierrez: 

They offered a lot of workshops, like how to build a resume, mock interviews, how to budget, how to pay taxes. All of those workshops helped me to grow more. 

Sam Joo: 

The community that Para Los Niños serves through our youth workforce centers is a very vibrant and hard-working community. 

Latea Davis: 

I am from this community. I came from an area that was poverty stricken. That's what I see in my community. But I also see people who are looking for an opportunity. 

Brenda Sillas: 

We have a variety of different clients, ages from 14 to 24, facing a multitude of barriers from parenting, disabilities. 

Mark Wilson: 

Maybe coming out of incarceration, in the foster care system, young people that are unhoused. 

Carrie Lemmon: 

Who need mental health services, substance abuse services, access to transportation. 

Latea Davis: 

You have to address those barriers in order for them to be successful. 

Bre Onna Mathis-Perez: 

And the capacity that we have with current funding to serve these populations is just very limited. 

Blanca Meza: 

A lot of these participants don't have a family member who to go to or who to talk to. Here I'm like a mama bear. The youth come back to me and say, “You know what? I graduated.” And I feel special because I'm the first one they can call. 

Mary Keipp: 

The staff that we hire, they want to work for us because they want to give back to the community. They want to work with the young people. They don't see themselves as data entry clerks, writing reports, all of those compliance issues that have nothing to do with serving the young people. 

Angela Hwang: 

Sometimes the youth needs help, like tomorrow. Right? But I have to tell the youth, like, “Hey, it actually takes us a week and a half or two weeks to process your paperwork.” 

Heidi Lemus: 

We have 3 to 4 audits a year. Because we have different grants coming in and they all want to see that we are meeting the numbers that they are asking. There's sometimes that I have to say, “Hey, you know what? I'm going to need this time for myself.” But they really need me, distressed, and I'm not there to help them. That could lead them to go somewhere else. 

Mary Keipp: 

Each little section of the city or the county has requirements. So we're providing the same data, literally the same information. These platforms, these data collection mechanisms, are not linked. 

Bre Onna Mathis-Perez: 

This is a national issue, and it's solvable. For example: streamline reporting and data systems. 

Mary Keipp: 

If it takes 45 minutes to enter a case into CalJOBS, that's 45 minutes you're not working with kids. 

Sam Joo: 

The way that our funding model is set up is not set up to really sustain our work. When we're talking about supporting young people or families on challenges they may be experiencing, those challenges don't stay within the confines of a one-year or two-year or even sometimes a three-year grant. If we want to truly move the needle around things that really are impacted by poverty, the funding structure has to allow for some flexibility. 

Carlos Peña: 

You know, our program never has any discretionary funds. All of our funds are always tied to, you know, exact performance measures. And there's like no wiggle room. And we're all underpaid. 

Selerin Ntahitagabira: 

If we were to get at least multi-year contracts, that would give us enough time to focus on program delivery, making sure the participants we have are fully serviced. 

Bre Onna Mathis-Perez: 

A lot of these contracts have very low administrative rates. There's this expectation that nonprofits can do more with less, and they need to be investing all of their funding solely into direct services for clients. That they don't need the backend staff to ensure the success of the organization, to make sure that programs continue to run smoothly, that they're able to adapt to challenges. And it's just not true. 

Sam Joo: 

This includes financing because we have to bill the city or the county. This includes communications. 

Selerin Ntahitagabira: 

The fundraising, the accounting, the human resources, all those activities. 

Sam Joo: 

Oftentimes those things are not considered part of the work, but without those things, we, you know, we can't function. No business can function without that. 

When you work with young people, food is a huge part of the work, but many of our contracts does not allow for food. 

Brenda Sillas: 

Because of those restrictions, our organization does have to look for other opportunities, other grants that have less restrictions that it will allow for us to be able to provide that holistic, services that a client might need. 

Sam Joo: 

We appreciate additional funding. But you only have sometimes just weeks or a few months to really, fully maximize that additional funding. 

Mary Keipp: 

And all of a sudden we're supposed to spent it, or all of a sudden we're supposed to start a new program. 

Sam Joo: 

We can't hire oftentimes within that time frame. And so what ends up happening is that existing staff will just have to take on a higher caseload. 

Carlos Peña: 

And someone like myself will have to have a caseload of 150 rather than, you know, a caseload of like 70. I'm asked to do too much with far too little. 

Brenda Sillas: 

And it becomes exhausting for our staff to do that because they're constantly hearing someone is in a crisis. We are the first responders. And so what happens when staff leaves? The staff that remains will then have to inherit additional youth as well. 

Carrie Lemmon: 

You know, we invest in a public education system because we believe that there's a return on investment for our society as a whole. The public workforce system plays a critical role in preparing young people for the workforce. And there's a tremendous cost if we don't invest in young people during this time.  

A lot of times these programs have developed over time, and they're operating with the same budget for many years and then expect to achieve, you know, greater results and serve more people. And we want to look at the evidence. How many case managers does it take, what kinds of supportive services are needed to effectively serve the population that we're trying to serve? 

Bre Onna Mathis-Perez: 

How can we expect someone to learn if they're too hungry to concentrate, or get there if they have unreliable transportation, or they're stressed and exhausted because they have unstable housing? The government has the power to make a difference. So let's work together and make positive changes for our sector. And most importantly, for our youth. 

Jonathan Gutierrez: 

This program really did help me improve as a person a lot. It showed me everything I needed to know and things that I didn't know I needed to know. 

Isabella Cano: 

If CRCD and the programs that they have didn't exist, I wouldn't have the guidance that I have now. So very thankful for that. 

Mark Wilson: 

Many of our young people are also young families. They need these types of resources to begin to move forward in life and be successful. And their success is the community’s success. 

Jonathan Gutierrez: 

I'm planning to go to college to get my bachelor's degree to teach high school math. 

Isabella Cano: 

My goals are to go back to school and to get either a certificate or a degree to be an X-ray tech. 

Sam Joo: 

I think we have to shift our mentality. There is over 72,000 nonprofits in L.A. County. And so we're really a powerful sector. And I don't think we’ve really flexed our muscles to make sure that we're equal partners with government and private foundations, as well as, at the state and federal level. 

Learn more about NFF's full cost framework.