IN THIS POST
Binghampton Development Corporation/BDC Business Hub
Los Angeles Conservation Corps
People Advancing Reintegration
CONTACT:
Kelsey Ryan
Senior Manager, Marketing & Communications, Redefine Alliance
kryan@redefinealliance.org | (415) 510-6021
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
San Francisco, CA (April 14, 2026) — Redefine Alliance is proud to announce a strategic partnership with Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW) to support 10 employment social enterprises (ESEs) in a pilot program in CSW’s Workforce Benchmarking Network (WBN). This collaboration will strengthen data tracking and learning capabilities across Redefine’s ESE community, to help ensure that job seekers breaking through barriers to employment make progress towards achieving economic autonomy.
This eight-month WBN pilot seeks to build learnings that will be shared with the ESE field. Through this partnership, participating ESEs will receive customized assessments, training, and tools to enhance their ability to track and analyze key employment outcomes including job placement rates, wages, and retention — critical metrics to demonstrate effectiveness and impact.
Redefine Alliance identified this need in the field based on results collected from the organization’s 2024 annual benchmarking survey, where a significant number of ESEs shared they wanted further support in data collection requirements related to public funding streams, understanding long term participant employee outcomes, and developing internal monitoring, evaluation, and learning capacity. The selection of ESEs was based on their indication of this need and demonstrated progress towards improving measuring and evaluation practices. These 10 enterprises operate in 11 states across the U.S., and serve over 1200 people across 10 industries.
- Beautiful Day (Providence, RI)
- Binghampton Development Corporation (Memphis, TN)
- EMERGE Minnesota (Minneapolis, MN)
- Farming Hope (San Francisco, CA)
- Los Angeles Conservation Corps (Los Angeles, CA)
- PAR – Recycle Works (Philadelphia, PA)
- Rise Up Industries (San Diego, CA)
- Rising Sun Center for Opportunity (Oakland, CA)
- Urban Alchemy (San Francisco, CA)
- Women’s Bean Project (Denver, CO)
A First-of-its-Kind Cohort
Since 2008, CSW’s Workforce Benchmarking Network has built data management capacity for over 250 workforce organizations nationwide. This Redefine Alliance sponsored cohort is the first of its kind for CSW, with a singular focus on the work of employment social enterprises. The comprehensive dataset CSW holds offers an opportunity for the ESE community to compare its data to a broader set of workforce organizations.
“Partnering with Redefine Alliance to bring our Workforce Benchmarking Network tools directly to social enterprises is an exciting new chapter of the WBN. We look forward to helping these high-impact organizations use data to prove what’s working and open more doors for the talented people they serve,” stated Alex Breen, Senior Policy Associate at CSW.
Redefine Alliance has been committed to impact measurement since its inception in 1997. Based on third party evaluations conducted in the past, Redefine has identified that employment social enterprises offer a $2.23 social return on investment for every dollar invested. The partnership with CSW seeks to support more ESEs in demonstrating the value of the work they do, while providing Redefine with insights on effective approaches to improve data practices within social enterprises. Redefine looks forward to the opportunity to share the learnings from this pilot.
“We’ve known for a long time that our ESE partners are highly effective at supporting individuals overcoming the highest barriers to employment. This partnership with CSW provides an opportunity for our ESEs to elevate their practices and tell an even clearer impact story,” says Redefine Alliance Senior Principal Galiana Fajardo. “We’ve already learned so much from CSW’s deep expertise and can’t wait to see how this partnership evolves.”
For more information about this partnership or Redefine’s work strengthening the ESE field, visit redefinealliance.org.
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ABOUT CSW
Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW) is a national workforce policy nonprofit that partners with government, business, education, and community leaders to cultivate good jobs and the skilled workers to fill them. Since 1991, CSW has catalyzed change in educational and labor market systems, focusing on scalable improvements in worker skills, job quality, and access to opportunity. CSW provides services across five strategy areas: Competencies & Credentials; Improving Practices & Outcomes; Federal, State, & Local Systems Change; Research & Evaluation; and Trauma & Resilience at Work. CSW advances policies and practices which increase economic mobility, particularly for people of color and others historically excluded from economic success.
ABOUT REDEFINE ALLIANCE
Redefine Alliance invests in employment social enterprises (ESEs) — businesses that provide jobs, training, and support to people breaking through barriers to employment. Redefine partners with these businesses and the entrepreneurs who lead them — providing capital, capacity, and community — to amplify their transformative impact. Since 1997, Redefine Alliance has invested in 363 ESEs in 42 states and DC. Collectively, these partnerships have helped 157,000 people enter the workforce and generated more than $3.1 billion in revenue that is reinvested in employee success — creating a ripple effect that strengthens families and communities and helps build an economy that works. For everyone. For more information, visit redefinealliance.org.
