John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

LGI worked with the MacArthur Foundation on strategic communications to inform its workforce development initiative. The Foundation engaged LGI to research the communications issues of employers in key industry clusters. The findings were surprising: employers’ perceptions of workforce intermediaries are strongly skewed by intermediary type and the strengths and weaknesses "transferred" to the program graduates. Recognizing the national, field-building implications of this work, the MacArthur Foundation supported LGI in the broadening of the research to the national level. The result of that work, "Perception vs. Reality: Employer Perceptions and the Rebranding of Workforce Development Intermediaries" is now the subject of a chapter in the American Assembly/Columbia University book entitled Workforce Intermediaries for the 21st Century.

Informed by the results of this research, the MacArthur Foundation adjusted its grant strategy for workforce intermediaries in the Chicago region.