Catalyzing collective action for a cohesive, well-coordinated workforce ecosystem for the St. Louis region
In partnership with
The Vision
The IPP’s mission is to build a strong regional economy that benefits everyone. Achieving this requires input from all stakeholders in our community.
The IPP helps the region tackle big challenges by aligning efforts across sectors. By bringing together business, civic, nonprofit, and community leaders in a professionally facilitated process, we create pathways to durable solutions.
By investing in how the St. Louis region connects and collaborates, IPP is unlocking capacity to execute bold, transformative projects.
Diverse stakeholders are collaborating to design scalable solutions. Dedicated funding for both implementation and evaluation ensures that our solutions are resourced for success. Shared data informs strategy and aligns stakeholders.
The Quality Jobs Solutions Cohort is the first step of this process.
The PROBLEM
Despite its many assets, the St. Louis region continues to face persistent disparities in access to quality jobs. While employers report ongoing demand for talent, many residents—particularly those living in low-income neighborhoods and communities that have experienced long-term disinvestment—remain disconnected from pathways to stable, quality employment.
This is not due to a lack of effort, programs, institutions, or leaders. What St. Louis currently lacks is a common vision and coordinated action across sectors to effectively leverage regional assets and address challenges.
The Solution Design Cohort (SDC) process brought representatives from employers, workforce organizations, jobseekers, and civic institutions to a common table. Through the process, they examined regional challenges and found actionable opportunities for increasing access to high quality jobs for people with low incomes.
In 2024, nearly half (45.7%) of people in the St. Louis region did not have sufficient income to cover basic living expenses
(American Community Survey, St. Louis MSA)
St. Louis’s economic growth rate from 2012 to 2022 ranked in the bottom third of U.S. metropolitan areas, limiting opportunity for St. Louis residents.
(American Community Survey, St. Louis MSA)
The Solution
The Quality Jobs Solution Design Cohort developed a coordinated regional solution to address persistent barriers that limit access to quality jobs across the St. Louis region. Rather than advancing a single program or intervention, the proposed approach focuses on strengthening the underlying infrastructure needed to better connect jobseekers, service providers, and employers through more aligned pathways, shared information, and coordinated supports.
This solution reflects a central finding from the Discovery & Design phase and the SDC process: expanding access to quality jobs requires improving how systems work together, not simply expanding individual programs.
Three stakeholder groups play a central role in shaping access to quality employment: jobseekers, service providers, and employers. Structural disconnects across these groups limit the effectiveness of existing workforce investments and make it difficult for St. Louis residents to enter high-opportunity career pathways and advance along them.
Shared Front Door
Create coordinated entry points into workforce pathways through a centralized platform supported by multiple access locations (community-based, institutional, and virtual).
High-Touch, Human Integration
Provide coaching and navigator roles that connect jobseekers to services, training, and employment opportunities using shared data and real-time labor market information.
Focus on High-Quality Pathways
Align stakeholders around a defined, limited set of industries and roles where demand is strong and advancement opportunities exist.
Incentivized Employer Participation
Engage employers through cohorts, peer leadership, shared job-quality standards, and demonstrated returns on investment.
Integrated Whole-Human Supports
Embed wraparound supports directly into workforce pathways and maintain engagement beyond placement to support stabilization and advancement, such as childcare, transportation, mental health, housing, and financial literacy.
System Infrastructure: Funding, Data, and Messaging
Strengthen regional coordination through braided funding strategies, shared outcomes dashboards, aligned pathway governance, and a common narrative about workforce opportunities
SOLUTION DESIGN COHORT
The initial Solution Design Cohort is a broad group of St. Louisans who work in collaboration to create dynamic solutions for increasing Quality Jobs in the region. This group includes nonprofit representatives, leaders from corporations, institutions, community associations, and community voices of varying backgrounds.
Tamiko Armstead, Cardinal Ritter College Prep High School
Sean Armstrong, Washington University in St. Louis
Vianey Beltran, Wells Fargo
Yoni Blumberg, WEPOWER
D’Andre Braddix, St. Louis Community College
Maggie Farrell, Missouri Works Initiative
Kyon Favell, St. Louis Community Member – Youth
Kiara Fortson, ArchKey
Hillary Frey, St. Louis Youth Jobs
Leslie Gill, Rung for Women
Keith George, BJC Health
Richard von Glahn, Missouri Jobs with Justice
Michael Holmes, Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis
Brandi Jahnke, Connections to Success
Connie Johnson, SLATE
Shanise Johnson, Boys & Girls Club of Greater St. Louis
Michael Jones, Friendly Temple Church
Jerrick King, St. Louis Community Member – Youth
Shannon Koenig, St. Louis County Housing
Evelyn Kumeh, St. Louis Community Member
Irene Li, St. Louis Community Member
Sal Martinez, Employment Connection
Jamerah McNichols, St. Louis Community Member – Youth
Bob Olwig, World Wide Technology
Suzanne Sierra, St. Louis Mosaic Project
Patricia Smith, St. Louis Community Member
Kristin Sobolik, University of Missouri, St. Louis
Susan Stith, Concordance
Michael Woods, Dream Builders 4 Equity
What's next
The Quality Jobs Solution Design Cohort completed its co-design work and is now entering the Design to Deployment phase, where the focus shifts from developing a shared solution set to determining how those solutions will function in practice. This next stage builds the operating and business models needed to translate the SDC’s recommendations into a coordinated regional system and enable the IPP Steering Committee to allocate the $25 million budgeted for testing and implementation. These models will clarify how partners will work together, how value will be created for stakeholders, and how the effort can be sustained financially over time.
A dedicated Design to Deployment team is now leading this work with support from the Facilitation team. Over 2026, this phase will include designing and testing pilot efforts to answer key questions about critical elements of the system, refining the approach based on lessons learned, and launching an initial version of a coordinated workforce system. Together, these steps will establish the partnerships, infrastructure, and pathways needed to support long-term economic mobility and inclusive growth for residents on the margins of regional prosperity in St. Louis.
Introducing the Inclusive Prosperity Partnership
Program Funders
Anonymous
Berges Family Foundation
Incarnate Word Foundation
James S. McDonnell Foundation
Marillac Mission Fund
Rio Vista Foundation
St. Louis Community Foundation
Interested in funding this or another project?
Check out our donate page or contact our development team to learn more.
