Community College Journal - April/May 2011

services. Goodwill is poised to dramatically increase these services in many communities, with significant growth projected over the next five years.

Community college partnerships are the cornerstone of this growth strategy. Most community college service regions are also served by a local Goodwill organization. In some communities, both organizations already work together, relationships that a new national initiative aims to learn from and build upon.

CBO partners in four targeted occupations. This year, NOVA and its partners will jointly enroll a total of 300 participants with national pacesetting program outcomes documented by the Aspen Institute for NOVA’s partnership with Northern Virginia Family Services’ Training Futures program.

In Winston-Salem, N.C., Goodwill Industries of Northwest North Carolina and Forsyth Technical Community College (FTCC) co-enrolled 2,685 participants in 2010 in the 18 FTCC certificate programs offered in Goodwill facilities.

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The C4 Initiative

In 2010, Goodwill Industries International (GII), NOVA, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), and other key partners formed the national C4 initiative, which stands for the Community College/Career Collaboration initiative. We identified three innovative partnership models with a record of successful outcomes to be documented and offered for nationwide replication. We enlisted some of the nation’s top workforce development experts from Jobs for the Future and the Aspen Institute to provide technical assistance. Thirty-two community colleges and their Goodwill partners met at our kickoff conference at AACC’s Workforce Development Institute in January. All of our C4 partners are committed to fostering a powerful national learning community to identify the most effective ways to combine the assets of community colleges and Goodwill job training programs.

Just like a relay team practices critical handoffs between teammates, colleges and Goodwill organizations need to document and improve key effective partnership practices so our service delivery handoffs occur seamlessly and in full stride. Three innovative, results-driven partnership models are currently being documented for potential replication:

In Northern Virginia, NOVA’s partnership model leverages federal financial aid to fund college credit co-enrollment programs with Goodwill of Greater Washington and five other

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