Strategic Partnering to Advance LMI: Insights from the State LMI Improvement Grants

“This brief is intended to serve as a reference for [labor market information] LMI practitioners and others when considering future partnerships. It describes elements of strategic partnering to advance labor market information. Information presented in this brief is derived primarily from site visits conducted with 9 of the 30 grantees as a part of the evaluation of State LMI Improvement Grants. [The authors] discuss the reasons for LMI practitioners to consider partnering, the types of partnership structures developed, the kinds of activities that partners performed, and insights from the LMI grants. Throughout the brief, [the authors] feature three State LMI grant case studies…The Mid-Atlantic Regional Collaborative (MARC)—a regional consortium of state workforce leaders from Maryland, Virginia, and District of Columbia…the Oregon Employment Department…and the Driving Change consortium, consisting of Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio” (p.1-3). (Abstractor: Author)

• Partnering can be used for shared investments of federal funds to solve problems and provide technical solutions. “Partnership Structures • “Partnerships between states. Many states opt to form or join consortia to maximize available funds and further shared and complementary goals. In total, 30 states receive LMI funds as consortia members. • “Partnerships within a state. Partnerships foster collaboration across agencies that develop and use LMI, enhances access to specific expertise that exists within other departments in the state, and facilitates access to broad audiences for LMI products. • “Partnerships with other organizations. Both single-state grantees and consortia form partnerships with NGOs to gain niche expertise, expand staff capacity, and engage stakeholder groups. Activities • “Advisement/consulting. Grantees engage partners as advisors to apply their specific expertise where needed— such as in survey design, data collection, and economic analysis—and to provide advice regarding specific products or activities. • “Data collection. Nearly all grantees field surveys of employers and a majority conducted conducting interviews and focus groups with stakeholder groups. Grantees collaborate with partner organizations to apply their experience and use their infrastructures to draw representative samples, develop questionnaires, conduct surveys, and create green-jobs estimates. • “Data analysis. Partnering with outside organizations, such as research universities, enhances grantees’ abilities to complete in-depth analyses. • “Dissemination. Grantees engage partners to disseminate grant products using print and web-based resources. Through outside organizations, grantees could host web pages outside of state websites and publish grant work using existing partner publications. • “Software/technical support. External partners are used to develop software or web portals for grantees and then provide technical support for their use. • “Grant management. Grantees use partners to facilitate grant management. For instance, one consortium member formed a corporation which became a partner to the group and served as the grant’s fiscal entity (p.2-3). (Abstractor: Author)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2012
• Author(s): Herz, Diane; English, Brittany
• Organizational Author(s): Mathematica Policy Research
• Funding Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Justin Venneri
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies