By Michelle Harati, LISC Senior Policy Officer

The Economic Mobility Corps program is investing in the capacity of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) while expanding inclusive access to workforce development opportunities within the field.

Citi Foundation Announces $4 Million Community Finance Innovation Fund Grant to LISC

The Citi Foundation announced that LISC is among 12 nonprofit organizations selected to receive grants from from its $50 million Community Finance Innovation Fund. LISC's $4 million grant will support its work connecting diverse candidates to the field of community development finance through the Economic Mobility Corps, in partnership with AmeriCorps and the CDFI Fund, and through an innovative internship program with HBCUs.

By Jennifer McClain, Senior Director, LISC Chicago

Last year, LISC’s national network of 130 Financial Opportunity Center® sites served more than 25,000 people looking to launch careers, build savings and credit, or buy a home. LISC’s Jennifer McClain takes a closer look at the ingredients – one-on-one coaching, new data management tools, storytelling – and determination needed to build a program that truly empowers community members to build careers and boost financial health.

In recognition of Citi Foundation’s $10 million commitment to LISC’s Bridges to Career Opportunities (Bridges) program, we are sharing the extraordinary journeys of nine people who now have promising careers and brighter financial futures. Bridges helps chronically unemployed and underemployed adults train for, land, and advance in jobs in local growth industries—sectors such as healthcare, construction, and technology—by helping them overcome the roadblocks to success. The majority of Bridges clients are people of color and women, representing the groups facing the highest systemic obstacles to opportunity in our economy.

The Providence Journal reports on two local community organizations receiving $360,000 from Citi Foundation and LISC to grow their support for job seekers. The grants will expand their work to support “individuals who have faced obstacles in their desire to build new lives.” As Jeanne Cola, who heads LISC Rhode Island noted in the article, “When we help someone find a good — or better — job, we help both families and communities thrive.”

An exciting new commitment from Citi Foundation will ramp up LISC’s Bridges to Career Opportunities program and help some 10,000 American workers get the training and support they need to take on quality jobs in growth industries like health care and solar energy. The funding will enable 40 community organizations across the country to intensify their Bridges work, connecting residents to skills development and jobs, along with financial, health and housing services that improve quality of life.

An article in The Atlantic delves into the ways LISC’s Bridges to Career Opportunities program, with support from Citi Foundation, is helping people in underserved communities across America skill up for satisfying jobs in growth industries. The program’s wrap-around services and links to local employers, explains LISC CEO Maurice A. Jones in the article, are the key to “not just a job” but a “transformation of life.”

One of the most powerful ways to spur economic opportunity is to bridge the skills gap facing millions of people across the country. That’s why Citi Foundation is making the single largest private investment in LISC’s “Bridges to Career Opportunities” program to equip unemployed and underemployed individuals with industry-specific skills for living wage jobs and careers. Two U.S. senators praise the effort to support workers, which dovetails with the Opportunity Zone legislation.

Last week, when Citi Foundation named LISC NYC one of its inaugural “Community Progress Makers,” which comes with a $500,000 grant, we were thrilled, but not completely surprised. That’s because Citi has long been at the funding vanguard for programs that help low-income people access the marketplace, as with our Financial Opportunity Centers. LISC NYC will use the grant to deepen its work with nonprofits cultivating economic progress for impoverished New Yorkers.