Vision

Grounded in a moral vision of labor that insists that work is essential to human dignity and that economic life must serve the human person, West/Southwest IAF Labor Market Intermediaries move working people into living-wage careers through skills training and wraparound support.  

As MIT economist Paul Osterman observed, IAF programs not only help lower-income people access better jobs -- strengthening families, education, and civic life -- they improve local labor markets themselves by raising job quality, strengthening hiring pipelines, and reshaping relationships among employers, educators, and communities.

Decades of independent evaluation confirm the impact. Long-term studies of Project QUEST in San Antonio show sustained earnings gains over fourteen years, with participants earning tens of thousands more than peers — especially older workers and adults often left behind by traditional workforce systems.

Inspired by the success of Project QUEST, leaders across the region established an additional nine projects: Capital IDEA in Austin, Texas; Project ARRIBA in El Paso, Texas; VIDA in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas; JobPath in Tucson, Arizona; NOVA in Monroe, Louisiana, Skills-Quest in Dallas, Texas; Capital IDEA-Houston in Houston, Texas; Project IOWA; and Arizona Career Pathways in Phoenix. In 2014, DuPage County United launched its own labor market intermediary, Career Connect Metro West, just outside Chicago.

By organizing locally to turn bad jobs into good ones, West/Southwest IAF leaders are learning that dignified work is something communities can build – deliberately, collectively, and at scale.

Impact

Labor Market Intermediary Institutions:

1. Project Quest

2. Capital IDEA

3. Project ARRIBA

4. VIDA

5. NOVA

6. Capital IDEA-Houston

7. Project IOWA

8. Arizona Career Pathways

INDEPENDENT STUDIES & ADDITIONAL MATERIALS

Fourteen Year Gains: Project QUEST's Remarkable Impact, Economic Mobility Corporation [pdf] (2024)

The Economic Impact of Project Arriba on El Paso County, Texas, Hunt Institute for Global Competitiveness, University of Texas at El Paso (2021)

Nine Year Gains: Project QUEST's Continuing Impact, Economic Mobility Corporation (2019)

VIDA: Implementation and Early Impact Report, Pathways for Advancing Careers in Education (2018)

Escalating Gains: The Elements of Project QUEST's Success, Economic Mobility Corporation (2018)

Escalating Gains: Project QUEST’S Sectoral Strategy Pays Off, Economic Mobility Corporation (2017) 

Economic Impact of Project ARRIBA on El Paso, Texas, UT El Paso, Institute for Policy and Economic Development (2015)

Return on Investment from Capital IDEA: Research Brief, Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources - The University of Texas at Austin Lydon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs (2015)


Project Quest: A Case Study of a Sectoral Employment Development Approach, Aspen Institute (2001) [pdf]

Video about the establishment of Project Quest in San Antonio, L&M Productions (1994)

'Invest In Us': the Fight to Establish Project QUEST