Immaculate Workforce Readiness

With a mission to empower individuals with the skills, resources, and connections needed to achieve meaningful and sustainable employment, leading to greater economic mobility and a stronger workforce across the United States, the Immaculate Foundation partners with community based organizations in and around Cleveland, Ohio to provide workforce development programming that foster economic mobility for people of color. Skill development and training prepares participants for job placement in mentored employment within the Immaculate family of businesses. Immaculate Landscapers, in partnership with “Quiet Clean” offers low-impact, eco-friendly lawn care and Immaculate Cleaning offers eco-friendly office and residential cleaning. The Foundation proposes to build infrastructure to offer more on-the-job training opportunities within their partner companies that includes entrepreneurship training, career planning, financial literacy and fiscal planning, and fundamental workplace skills. With support from the community, the Immaculate Foundation will leverage momentum to expand promising efforts that create economic mobility opportunities rooted in environmental responsibility.

The Immaculate Foundation’s workforce readiness approach centers on skill development necessary for workplace success, on-the-job training, entrepreneurship development, and mentored employment so participants move rapidly from training into paid employment with opportunities to grow into team leaders, business owners, and future partners. This approach targets chronically unemployed, impoverished adults who experience difficulty in securing and retaining employment, particularly the previously incarcerated, veterans, and disenfranchised youth, among others. Because poverty is generational, the Immaculate Foundation’s approach is intergenerational allowing participants to bring children or parents to training components, and if appropriate, they can also be placed in employment within the Immaculate Family of businesses as a participant. Participants receive orientation, job skills training, and employment planning support prior to job placement either with Immaculate Law Care or Immaculate Cleaning Solutions. Concurrent training opportunities impart life skills to support participants’ economic mobility that includes fiscal responsibility and financial literacy, encourages personal, emergency, and retirement savings, and prioritizes home buying, college savings for dependents, and asset generation, all of which yield participant, family, and community-level benefits. 

Services are delivered and coordinated by the Immaculate Foundation in partnership with the Center for Employment Opportunity, Center for Creative Healing, Youth Opportunities Unlimited, Phe’be Foundation, and City of Cleveland Community Development Office. Over the project, the Immaculate Foundation envisions participants developing strong work habits, advancing from training participants to team leaders, launching their own businesses or moving into progressively more responsible jobs, and learning to be productive and engaged citizens within their communities. The Immaculate Family is sustainable, green, philanthropic, and center around serving the community as agents of change that support the full economic participation of all to elevate individuals, families, and communities from intergenerational poverty. 

• Equip the Immaculate Family of businesses with state-of the art, green, equipment to facilitate employment for training participants - January 2025
  • Purchase one full set of lawn care equipment including low impact, environmentally friendly mowers, trimmers, hand tools, personal protective equipment, and a trailer. Equipment is in alignment with the Immaculate Lawn Care ethos to minimize the environmental impact of urban lawns
  • Purchase one electric floor buffer
  • Purchase one oven/range hood cleaning unit
• Finalize training curriculum and delivery schedule - mid-January 2025 to February 2025
  • Job readiness
  • Financial literacy 
  • Mentoring and career planning
• Recruit participants for inaugural cohort targeting formerly incarcerated individuals - March - October 2025
  • Leverage community partnerships to identify and enroll participants - February - March 2025
  • Provide job readiness training March - April 2025
  • Mentored employment placement - late-April to October 2025
  • Concurrent training program - May to October 2025
• Plan for replication and expansion - November to December 2025

Northeast Ohio and communities surrounding Cleveland are beset with high and inequitable rates of poverty that are exacerbated by a lack of culturally responsive training and employment opportunities. Median household income is 80% lower in the county than the nation at $60,736; in Cleveland it is $37,351. More than 16% live in poverty countywide; the rate in Cleveland is 32%. Childhood poverty is 24% and 48%, respectively. Educational attainment in Cleveland is comparatively low with nearly 17% of residents lacking high school credentials and only 23.7% holding a baccalaureate degree or higher.

 While current unemployment is low in Ohio (3.6%), unemployment for Black residents exceeds 20%. State Labor Market Information data reports low labor force participation, which indicate high numbers who are chronically unemployed, no longer seeking employment, and no longer eligible for or collecting unemployment. 

Current workforce development programs focus on academic skill development, GED completion, and preparation for college. This may help individuals build skills for new careers. However, it fails to meet the most pressing need for those in poverty, which is income. The immediate need to pay rent and utilities, and to feed families, especially after recent inflation, influences decisions to remain in low pay, low skill roles rather than pursue training. These programs benefit those who can forgo earning wages in favor of training; however, they are not responsive to the needs of individuals with intersecting employment barriers like prior incarceration, low educational attainment, unmet basic needs, and the immediate need for income. The Immaculate Workforce Readiness approach comes from within the community it serves to nurture full economic participation of individuals with an immediate connection to paid employment opportunities.