Public Works Partners wishes our colleagues and clients a healthy and impactful 2016. We wanted to take a few moments to share with you some of the success we helped deliver for our clients in the latter half of 2015. It’s helped us to succeed, too, as we have continued to grow to help organizations like yours be more effective. We look forward to continuing to help those organizations that help our communities!
Projects
Youth workforce partnerships in Philadelphia, Cleveland, Hartford, Indianapolis and Seattle will benefit from $6 million in grants over four years, thanks to a thoughtful RFP that Public Works Partners helped the Annie E. Casey Foundation develop to launch its Generation Work Initiative.
Through research that included a series of youth-centered focus groups that PWP led in eight cities across the country, we helped Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund highlight the ability to advance positive youth development by integrating financial empowerment into summer youth employment programs (SYEP). Now we are working with the CFE Fund to understand youth perceptions and experiences of mainstream financial services to better inform banking access initiatives that target youth and young adults. Through both efforts we are enabling CFE to inform the design of SYEPs around the country.
We have helped shape NYC’s evolving manufacturing land use discussions. In addition to weighing in on Mayor de Blasio’s much-anticipated manufacturing policy, we helped community and business leaders in Sunset Park to develop a shared view of how the NYC Economic Development Corporation could best leverage the economic potential of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. We’re also helping the NYC Department of City Planning consider more dynamic ways to think about how to develop industrial land to accommodate 21st Century manufacturing in North Brooklyn. And we worked with a real estate developer in Brooklyn to explore groundbreaking strategies for pairing a proposed residential project with manufacturing job opportunities on-site.
We helped the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to have greater impact in helping youth grow in jobs in the hospitality sector by identifying clear career pathways that allow for growth and promotion—and higher wages.
Public Works congratulates Hostos Community College for winning a five-year, $10.7 million Health Profession Opportunity Grant. This U.S. Department of Health and Human Services grant is the largest in the college’s history. In 2013 we worked with Hostos to refine their original Health Opportunity Program creating a dynamic initiative that successfully trains low-income adults for health care careers. We are excited to see Hostos building on their achievements and extending their success!
In celebration of its 50th (!!) anniversary, we supported the Pratt Center’s Community Development 360° policy discussion series, which included thoughtful conversations on sustainable community development with the Hon. Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito and Councilmember Brad Lander; NYC EDC President Maria Torres-Springer, and Cypress Hills LDC executive director Michelle Neugebauer.
Our Firm
In 2015, our firm nearly doubled to about 20 employees, plus our usual cadre of creative and dynamic subcontractors. We’re pleased to share with you news of the latest addition to our leadership team, Senior Manager Denise Gomez DelSignore.
Denise brings expertise in the implementation and replication of programs, social innovation, strategic planning, and philanthropy. Previously, she spent seven years at the anti-poverty organization Single Stop where, as Senior Director of National Programs and a member of the founding team, she led complex multi-stakeholder initiatives, oversaw national expansion, and worked to ensure the long-term financial sustainability and success of its programs. Before that, Denise focused on issues of workers’ rights and low-income housing, as a part of MFY Legal Service’s Neighborhood Preservation Project and Make the Road NY’s workplace justice initiative. Denise also worked at Abraham House, an organization co-founded by her mother, which provides services to children and families of the incarcerated. There, Denise was deeply involved in fundraising and in the development and management of programmatic priorities. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from New York University and a J.D. from the City University of New York’s School of Law.
We are thrilled to welcome Denise and know our clients will appreciate her participation in developing strategy, designing programs and helping them to deliver and measure positive outcomes for the people they serve.
Finally, Public Works is expanding our leadership team and we are looking for a senior manager to help transform public and nonprofit organizations through data-driven performance management, information systems, and business process improvement projects. Please send excellent candidates our way!