Microsoft Unlimited Potential Blog: Microsoft Unlimited Potential Blog

Today we are launching the Elevate America community initiative, a new grant program that will support nonprofit organizations offering employment services, including technology skills training and job placement, in local communities across the United States. To support this initiative, we are committing $4 million in cash, $6 million in software and technology skills training curriculum over the next two years.

We are inviting nonprofit organizations to respond to our request for proposal (RFP) , detailing their plans for partnering with us on proven, successful, scalable programs that respond to the 21^st century skills training and employment needs of people across the country.

The deadline for submissions is October 8, 2010 at 5pm Pacific Time with the successful projects being announced in January 2011.

Since 2003, Microsoft has been partnering with nonprofit organizations through our Unlimited Potential initiative to support technology skills training in underserved communities across the United States, with programs that have reached more than 27 million people to date. Through the Elevate America community initiative, we will continue to seek partnerships with organizations that support underserved communities, with a special interest in those that focus on the needs of women and young workers (ages 18-25) who have greater barriers to employment and re-employment than the broader population.

This is the latest extension of Elevate America, which was launched in February 2009 to provide people across the United States with no cost and low cost access to the technology skills they need to find employment. Since the program’s launch we have worked with 32 states and the District of Columbia to distribute nearly 900,000 no cost Microsoft training and certification vouchers. In March 2010 we announced the Elevate America Veterans initiative, focused on helping U.S. veterans and their spouses to transition from military to civilian employment.

How can you respond to this RFP?

Interested organizations are encouraged to review the full RFP and related information on our website to ensure their organization meets the full criteria for consideration.

To be eligible, all proposals must include at least one organization that is eligible to receive cash funding from Microsoft as defined by the following criteria:

• Qualify as an IRS registered tax exempt 501(c)(3) organization. State tax exemptions alone are not considered eligible.
• Meet Microsoft general funding guidelines as outlined in “Eligible Organizations” .
• Successfully pass the Elevate America community initiative eligibility survey located here. Following successful completion of the survey, access to the grant application tool will be provided.

Online training resources

For more information about Elevate America and the no cost and low cost training and education resources we offer to help people develop better technology skills for the jobs of the 21^st century workforce please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/elevateamerica

Last week the White House announced the inaugural grants of the Social Innovation Fund (SIF) that included the National Fund for Workforce Solutions (NFWS), as one of 11 award recipients. The two-year, $7.7 million award will fund an expansion of existing training programs in several of 23 NFWS sites and the establishment of 6-8 new sites.

Displaced workers in America’s cities are the beneficiaries of the good news here.  The National Fund is already providing sector-based training for adults in cities such as Baltimore, Hartford, New York and Seattle and is developing best practices that can be replicated in other communities.  As an SIF recipient, the National Fund is uniquely positioned to help transform the way we cultivate talent in the U.S., especially for more than 80 million adults who struggle without 21st century skills that  align with today’s new knowledge economy.

The other factor to be celebrated here is the power of collaboration around an idea that became the National Fund.  Through this unique partnership that began in 2000, corporate, private and family foundations pooled their resources and expertise with help from an established workforce intermediary, Jobs for the Future, to focus on jobs skills and training. Since its founding, the $23 million investment by nine donors has engaged over 200 local and regional partners and 500 employers to support skills training to prepare for jobs in growth sectors such as health care.

In 2009, over 18,000 job seekers and incumbent workers received training and career support, 9,736 participants received degrees or credentials, and 4,058 jobseekers secured jobs as a result of their participation and 81% of those hired are working more than 35 hours per week.

Microsoft, one of nine investors in the National Fund, made an $8 million commitment in cash and software to support this collaboration and has been-active along with other donors (including the Hitachi, Wal-Mart, Annie E. Casey,  Prudential and Ford foundations) in  addressing this national issue.   These efforts are closely aligned with our Elevate America skills training program and Microsoft continues to promote community-based training and to provide access to the technology tools that will strengthen the skills needed for displaced and disadvantaged workers to be successful.

Public/private partnerships such as the NFWS are more relevant and more important than ever to help identify the best approaches to large scale workforce training needed to address the skills gap that has surfaced during the recent economic downturn. Policymakers are also likely to focus on these issues more intently as the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act emerges on the national agenda. As these scenarios unfold, the National Fund may play a key role in building effective models and helping communities to be more competitive.

First Lady Michelle Obama described the intent of the Social Innovation Fund this way: “By focusing on high-impact, results-oriented nonprofits, we will ensure that government dollars are spent in a way that is effective, accountable and worthy of public trust.”
For now, the investors in the National Fund are celebrating the accomplishments that have resulted in this program expansion and preparing for the hard work and the opportunity to take a giant step forward and ideally engage additional partners on behalf of America’s workers.

Cross posted from Microsoft on the Issues.

In 2007 we launched the Microsoft Unlimited Potential program to focus on getting the power of technology to underserved communities around the world, and in the intervening period we have learned a lot and we’ve seen some exciting results from our partnerships and our investments.

Recently I had the privilege of attending our first Citizenship Accelerator Summit which was themed Accelerating Change through Technology and Partnerships. We brought together journalists, bloggers and academics to meet with us and our government and nongovernmental partners to share with them how Microsoft is accelerating change through technology and partnerships.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer speaking at the Microsoft Accelerator Summit

We have always believed that access to technology and technology skills can drive significant economic and social change and we’re seeing how even the smallest exposure to information technology can have an incredible impact if it’s implemented with the right partner who has deep understanding of the community needs and is a trusted partner in the community. The summit provided many examples.

Vida Durant the CIO of CARE, which works around the world empowering women and girls, told us that having medical test results sent via text messages to a person in a rural community can be a matter of life and death. In some communities it can take up to three months to send a test result whereas now with a simple phone using text messaging the result can be known in hours.

Ed Granger Happ, chairman of NetHope, shared how they and their partners have been able to get wireless connectivity in Haiti after the earthquake and the incredible collaboration, facilitate by technology, that is taking place on the ground among the various agencies working there.

The issue of jobs is front and center in the U.S. and around the world. During the Summit, Liza Estlund Olson, Director of Bureau of Workforce Transformation for the State of Michigan spoke about how with the introduction of Elevate America in Michigan they can provide unemployed and underemployed people needed IT skills to become ready for employment. She also highlighted that as much as it is about getting jobs, it is also about using technology to build confidence in a segment of society that is truly at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

From inside Microsoft, we heard from our employees who too are using technology to bring about change by connecting micro-donors to causes around the world, and are creating movements among their community to bring about social change.

There is a growing expectation for businesses to actively participate in addressing some of society’s most challenging issues and technology has a role to play in accelerating this change. Our work is grounded in the fact that it is communities first – it is all about long-term investment and partnerships, it is about scale and finally it is about sustainable impact.

Over the coming week we plan to post videos from the different sessions and hope you’ll have time to find out more about how technology is having a positive impact on communities around the world.

In the meantime here are some reports from the Summit:

• Microsoft’s CSR Accelerator Summit – David Connor
• Microsoft’s Networked Approach To Accelerating Social Change Through
  Technology – Beth Kanter
• Young generation redefines culture of Microsoft philanthropy – Seattle Times
• Microsoft seeks business edge in wave of social consciousness - TechFlash
• Microsoft summit: How to harness technology to help veterans, accelerate
  change in the world – USA Today
• Microsoft’s fight against child porn - Beneblog

Update - Accelerator Summit sessions:

• Videos: Innovating to help solve some of the world’s most pressing issues
• Video: How technology can enable nonprofits
• Video: Employee giving and social entrepreneurs at Microsoft
• Video: Preparing people for the jobs of today and tomorrow

Microsoft Unlimited Potential (UP) was launched by Bill Gates in 2007 as a company-wide effort to bring together business and philanthropic approaches to make technology more relevant, accessible, and affordable; encouraging close collaboration among businesses, local governments, educational institutions, and community organizations.

Today, this cross-company effort is represented by 18 Microsoft programs. While each program has distinct importance and reaches unique audiences, Unlimited Potential enables us to align these programs under one common mission that can create a much greater impact.

On this blog we will share with you our efforts to bring information technology to people living in communities around the world so that they can reap real social and economic benefits.  We have focused on three areas: transforming education; fostering local innovation; and enabling jobs and economic opportunity.   By combining Unlimited Potential with the company’s commitment to citizenship and community investment we believe we are changing the way in which corporations and their employees can bring about positive change around the world.

Through this blog we want to enable you to follow the varied areas of our work and share with you what we are learning, which in turn helps us to progress towards our commitments.  We believe that close collaboration with thousands of partners in the nonprofit community is as essential element in addressing today’s social and economic issues.

We hope to share with you our experiences as we travel around the world to different communities, meeting with our partners and learning how our investments are making a difference.  We also hope to bring you voices from those communities so that together we can all learn about how we can better support and serve our society. 

In that spirit we look forward to your comments, suggestions and contributions.

Akhtar Badshah

Senior Director, Community Affairs, Microsoft Corporation