Workforce

Leveraged Workforce Solutions

Providing visionary leaders with the flexible capital to pursue scale and sustainability.

Talent is universal across our region, but opportunity is not equally accessible. Pritzker Traubert Foundation invests in leaders, initiatives, and system change strategies that strive to improve our city’s ability to meet employer demand for diverse, job-ready talent and help BIPOC Chicagoans build wealth in high-growth industries. Our flexible funding supports leaders pursuing innovation, scale, and operational sustainability.

Key Partnership Investments

  • P33, co-chaired by Trustee Penny Pritzker, is a non-profit organization committed to strengthening Chicago's leadership as a global technology hub. The organization leads several employer-designed workforce programs to equip Chicagoans of all backgrounds with the skills needed to build tech careers.

  • Innovate Illinois is a statewide collaborative of government, business, and university leaders working together to unlock federal economic development funds available through various competitive grant programs. The programs offer investments in industries critical to the nation's economic future and that offer rich opportunities for excluded workers to build high-growth careers. Key partners include The Community Trust, Joyce Foundation, and MacArthur Foundation helping to launch this important effort.

  • Elevate Energy's Contractor Accelerator partners with local organizations to help BIPOC contractors capitalize on new federal and state policies to enter the rapidly growing energy efficiency retrofit industry. The program provides contractors with training, accreditation, project pipeline, and access to finance, and is expected to produce more than 1,000 new high-quality jobs over the next five years.

  • Founded by Trustee Penny Pritzker, Skills for Chicagoland's Future is a public-private partnership working to match businesses that have current, unmet hiring needs with qualified, unemployed and underemployed job seekers. The organization places more than 1,500 Chicagoans each year in quality employment.

  • National Louis University's (NLU) Accelerate U provides students with rapid employer-designed training and paid employment as a first step toward beginning a four-year degree. NLU is a private, not-for-profit, and Minority Serving Institution in Chicago delivering innovative curriculum that dramatically improves workforce outcomes for low-income students. Our support will go to Accelerate U’s expansion to new in-demand career pathways like IT and Behavioral Health.