What are the priorities of the Employment Program?
The program is interested in improving public policies to help low-wage workers and people facing barriers to employment enter the job market, stabilize, and advance in work.

What aspects of welfare reform do you focus on?
The Employment Program no longer emphasizes welfare reform as a separate priority. Instead, the Employment program is focusing on policies that affect all low-income workers.

What about support for benefits that help people make the transition to work?
We are interested in public policies that provide support that allows all low-wage workers to remain employed, specifically the Earned Income Tax Credit, Food Stamps, child care and medical assistance, and unemployment insurance.

Can you support our job-training program?
We do not provide operating support for direct services, including job-training and placement services. Our funding concentrates on initiatives designed to develop and shape public policies.

Do you fund community economic development?
Only where there is clear overlap with our focus on public policies that support workforce development, education, and job training.

Given your focus on the Great Lakes region, do you make grants to national organizations?
Grants to national organizations must be for projects that promise to have a significant impact on public policies affecting the Great Lakes region.

Do you fund research?
We will consider funding research that focuses on employment entry, stabilization, and advancement for low-wage workers if it is likely to have a strong impact on public policy.

Do you fund government agencies and programs?
We generally make grants only to nonprofit organizations. However, we occasionally fund government initiatives that promise to lead to statewide policy change.

Please tell me more about your focus on public policy.
We focus our grantmaking on initiatives that promise to have an influence on public policies. That includes advancing the public debate about important policy issues, development and testing of new policy ideas, and evaluations that help policymakers understand how policies are working and where improvements are needed. We believe such policy initiatives can lead to broad, systemic changes that affect the most people over the long run.

Do you provide general operating support, or must we apply for specific project funds?
We generally fund projects, but in rare cases we provide general operating support.

Can you help pay for me to get education or training?
The Foundation does not provide direct support for individual training, scholarships, or fellowship programs.

Can you help finance our small business startup?
The Foundation does not fund small business startups.

Can you fund our school-to-work program?
The Joyce Foundation ended its support of school-to-work programs in 1997.

Do you make grants to individuals? I saw you listed in a “free money” guide. Can I get help paying my bills?
The Foundation does not make grants to help individuals start a small business, pay school or college tuition, cover medical bills, pay off debts, help buy or build a home, or any similar purpose.

Tell me about Individual Development Accounts. How do they work? Do you still fund them?
Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) are matched savings programs for low-income people to provide capital for home purchase, small business startup, or educational expenses. The Joyce Foundation was the first foundation to support development and testing of the IDA strategy. The Foundation no longer makes grants for IDA programs. Visit the Corporation for Enterprise Development’s web site for more information about Individual Development Accounts.

How do I apply for funding? For information on applying for a grant and the proposal review process, see the How to Apply section.

Do you accept proposals by email? No, not at this time.

What is the transitional jobs re-entry demonstration?
The Joyce Foundation is awarding grants totaling nearly $5.4 million to test a promising strategy for enabling people leaving prisons to connect to jobs. The Joyce grants provide the lynchpin for a $14.5 million initiative that will provide the first large-scale evaluation of whether “transitional jobs” can improve employment outcomes and reduce recidivism for the growing number of people, currently estimated at 600,000, who return home from the nation’s prisons each year.

What is the Shifting Gears initiative?
A three-year, $10 million effort to improve the education and skills training of the Midwest workforce and promote regional economic growth. For more information, see here.