In today’s rapidly evolving job market, the synergy between education and employment has never been more crucial. Literacy Link Niagara (LLN) and the Workforce Collective are grounded in this synergy. Both are working to bridge the gap between educational attainment and workforce development, offering valuable resources and support to individuals and organizations in the Niagara region.
Together, we’re piloting a new resource sharing model and “reimagining governance”— how we lead our organizations— to advance our mission and expand capacity.
Literacy Link Niagara: Your link to adult learning.
Literacy Link Niagara was founded in 1992, around the same time as Niagara’s “Training and Adjustment Board” (which became the Niagara Workforce Planning Board, then Workforce Collective). As a non-profit organization and learning network, LLN supports literacy and basic skills programs to improve education and employment opportunities for adults in our community.
Literacy is more than just reading and writing. There is a literacy component to most aspects of daily life— health, financial, and relational to name a few. Beyond reading, writing and math (numeracy), literacy programming also helps develop essential skills such as communication and time management.
The programs LLN supports are free and accessible to any adult in Niagara. They offer many ways for learners to further their education, upgrade their employment and/or gain independence to achieve greater wellbeing.
Local Literacy and Basic Skills programs:
LLN acts as an intermediary to connect programs to other actors in the system, like employment services and allied professionals, for the benefit of learners and jobseekers. LLN also facilitates professional development for program staff, coordinates service planning and advocates for public support.
Workforce Collective: Thinking and doing for a better workforce.
Workforce Collective is a non-profit organization that serves our community’s efforts to address workforce challenges and opportunities. As hosts of Niagara Workforce Planning Board for more than 25 years, we’re building on decades of observation and learning about the local labour market. We’re more committed than ever to community-based approaches that address the complex issues we’re all navigating, such as labour shortages and catalyzing decent work.
As the administrative backbone to Niagara’s Workforce Coalition, Immigrant Employment Council, and several projects, everything we do happens in partnership. Workforce Collective collaborates with service delivery organizations and employers who want to do better for our community.
We enable solutions through engaging leaders in dialogue and research to understand problems, glean insights and design innovative projects. We support other organizations, like LLN, with:
From projects to strategic partnership
LLN and Workforce Collective have partnered on various projects over the last several years. It’s now time to take our alliance a step beyond one-off projects, through sharing staff, volunteers, physical space and backend systems. This allows us to work more efficiently and cut costs in some areas in order to invest and grow in others.
Given the vulnerable state of the non-profit sector right now, our organizations are exploring new ways to optimize resources and create a more sustainable business model. Through partnership, we’re leveraging each other’s strengths and combining efforts to work more effectively to serve the many other partners and interested parties in our networks, who often overlap.
LLN and Workforce Collective are not just seeking to enhance our two organizations but to strengthen our community as a whole.
We are collecting data to better understand who is looking for work and what kind of opportunities jobseekers are searching for. This data is completely anonymous and non-personally identifiable.
Your Age: