Construction Careers Foundation is a initiative committed to enhancing access to construction employment opportunities across the State of Minnesota. It is a collaborative effort between government, nonprofits, unions and education organizations to foster interest in construction trades with youth, and then track their training and eventual employment in the industry. The program is required to “give priority to individuals and groups that are economically disadvantaged or historically underrepresented in the construction industry, including but not limited to women, veterans, and members of minority and immigrant groups.”
A requirement of the funding CCF received from the State of Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), CCP is required to track and report specific outcomes of the program to DEED.
To be able to manage, track and report on program activity, CCP was looking to implement a strategic information solution designed to address the unique needs and challenges of the diverse stakeholder groups and provide DEED with the required outcome analysis and reports.
CCP partnered with thedatabank to create a CRM solution to address the following goals and challenges:
CCP Identified Goals –
- Increasing construction industry exposure activities to target audiences (students, parents, counselors).
- Increasing the number of High Schools that offer construction classes during the academic year that utilize a multi-craft curriculum.
- Increasing internship opportunities
- Enhancing activities to help graduating seniors find jobs in construction.
- Increasing the number of young adults employed in construction,
- Ensuring that the young adults employed in construction reflect Minnesota’s diverse workforce (population diversity).
Challenge 1 – Multi-Stakeholder Engagement
The CCP initiative included a large number of diverse stakeholders from education, nonprofits, unions, business, and government. In order to generate the kind of reliable data needed to track and assess the initiatives success, these stakeholders needed to have access to the system to input data specific to their activities. Their active use of the system was needed to generate the longitudinal tracking and reporting critical to gauging the program’s success.
Challenge 2 – Longitudinal Tracking
In order to accurately understand the impact of CCP efforts over time, participants in the program needed to be tracked from their initial point of exposure to the program through their eventual training and employment. Additionally, identification of individual students was limited due to privacy issues.
Challenge 3 – Communications
To be successful, CCP needed to engage with a wide variety of organizations and participants. Students, parents, teachers, administrators, community leaders, union recruiters, government officials, and CCP coalition members all needed to be kept informed about the initiative from their unique perspective. This required the ability to send diverse, relevant messages across multiple communications channels.
The Databank Solution
Once thedatabank had been selected to develop and support the CCP technology platform, we engaged in a multi-month strategic planning process to map out each stakeholder’s needs and develop a solution to accomplish the stated goals.
The CCP Databank solution was developed and implemented over a period of several months with the most critical aspects of the program taking priority. The first area of concern was tracking student participation of various CCP partner organizations designed to engage students in construction career possibilities. These activities included: construction career fairs, in-class construction career curriculums, internship opportunities and participation, and other partner related initiatives.
The CCP Databank solution also includes customized ways for partner organizations to input and track data specific to their activities, while providing CCP with an easy way to roll up and report on activates across all stakeholders for internal reporting and for generating required reporting to the State of Minnesota, the primary funder of the initiative.
The CCP Databank solution also includes integrated multi-channel communications, allowing CCP to send unique, personalized messaging to various individuals and groups via email, SMS texts, social media, and websites. This function also includes the ability to track responses to messages, helping CCP to make sure their communications are being effective.
The Result
Now in its fourth year, CCP has seen significant growth in the number of students engaged by various stakeholder initiatives. This should result in an increase in the number of students electing to pursue construction careers upon graduating from high school. The program has also seen an increase in participation from the targeted population groups.
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