New Million Dollar Impact Prize for Workforce Innovation Announces 2024 Winners and Finalists

NEW YORK, July 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Impact Prize, a one million dollar award supported by entrepreneur and philanthropist Tom Iovino and the Iovino Family Foundation, today announced four winning nonprofit organizations, each exhibiting excellence in advancing economic mobility through innovative workforce development and technical training initiatives. In this inaugural year, the Impact Prize focused on recognizing nonprofit programs with proven outcomes leading to high-value employment for people from diverse backgrounds.

"We received an overwhelming response to the 2024 Impact Prize, with hundreds of strong applicants from 39 states. Each winning organization, while unique in their approach, shares a collective and inspiring commitment to provide the communities they serve with the tools necessary for high quality and sustainable employment," Tom Iovino said. "The leaders of these programs are visionaries who understand how lasting change is built from the ground up. I am encouraged by the measurable impact they have had in their communities and feel incredibly fortunate to support their continuing work."

The 2024 Impact Prize winners sharing in the million dollar award are:

• Evanston Rebuilding Warehouse (dba Rebuilding Exchange)
  
  One of the only deconstruction workforce development programs in the Chicagoland area, Rebuilding Exchange collaborates with a robust set of non-profit partners and building trades employers to recruit trainees and provide career development job placement services. These workforce training programs provide transitional employment and pre-apprenticeship opportunities to support people with low incomes on a path to a successful building trades career. In the last year 89 percent of attendees were placed into building trades jobs earning an average starting wage of $18/ hour upon graduation.
  
  
• Lost Angels Children's Project
  
  Lost Angels Children's Project empowers young people ages 18-24 years old with low incomes and facing high barriers in the Antelope Valley and greater Los Angeles through vocational training, social enterprise, and outreach programs. The flagship Work Program offers a 12-week, hands-on intensive training in industrial arts like welding and composites design, tailored to the aerospace industry. Of 201 total students, 197 are employed, mostly in high wage earning jobs in manufacturing and aerospace industries.
  
  
• Rise Up Industries
  
  Launched in 2016, Rise Up Industry's reentry program addresses the needs of formerly incarcerated individuals and those previously involved in gangs, preparing members for careers in CNC (Computer Numeric Control) machining, a well-paying trade whose workers are in high demand. The program boasts a 100 percent employment rate for graduates, allowing members to successfully reenter society, thereby reducing gang population and recidivism rate while also filling a regional labor market gap for CNC operators in San Diego.
  
  
• West Virginia Women Work
  
  For over 24 years, West Virginia Women Work has supported women seeking to overcome barriers to economic independence with comprehensive training and support services, focusing on skilled trades and manufacturing fields, providing a path to achieve economic self-sufficiency and an opportunity to provide better lives for their families. The majority of graduates are employed, earn above minimum wage, and are on growth tracks at work.

The Iovino Family Foundation also recognizes the following six organizations as Impact Prize finalists: Boston Education, Skills, and Training Corp, Grace Institute of New York, Manufacturing Works, Marcy Lab School, Next Chapter Project, and Revolution Workshop.

The Impact Prize is managed in partnership with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA), an organization providing advisory, management, and implementation services for families, foundations and other philanthropic initiatives.

"I want to extend my sincere congratulations to the four organizations selected as winners of the Impact Prize. It was a great honor to work with Tom Iovino and his team, along with our esteemed Selection Committee, to recognize those building pathways to economic prosperity for people in their communities," says Greg Ratliff, Senior Vice President of Advisory Services at RPA. "The urgent need for career and skills training in the United States is undervalued and under-discussed, and supporting innovative, effective programs is instrumental to changing the status quo."

To learn more about the Impact Prize and the 2024 winners and finalists, please visit www.theimpactprize.org.

About the Impact Prize & Iovino Family Foundation's Workforce Initiative
The Impact Prize features those taking action to drive positive change in today's rapidly evolving economic landscape: the problem-solvers and innovators bridging gaps by increasing access to family-sustaining wages, career progression, and social mobility for people from all backgrounds. This $1 million open call award is a cornerstone of the Iovino Family Foundation's dedication to philanthropy and advancing economic prosperity through quality employment for more people in the United States. We see a future where employers, educators, policymakers, philanthropists and individuals come together to elevate workforce innovation and ensure there are multiple on-ramps to financial prosperity.

About Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) accelerates philanthropy in pursuit of a just world. RPA is a global nonprofit at the forefront of philanthropic growth and innovation, with a diverse team of experienced grantmakers with significant depth of knowledge across the spectrum of issue areas. Founded in 2002, RPA has grown into one of the world's largest philanthropic service organizations and has facilitated more than $4 billion in grantmaking to more than 70 countries.

Contact:
Christen Graham
Giving Strong
207-838-0082

Media Contacts
Christen Graham, 207-838-0082
Andrea LePain, 617-894-1153
Jessica Laufer, 310-909-3611

SOURCE Impact Prize; Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors