Corporate Membership Program

The Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle's (ULMS) Corporate Partnership Initiative focuses on building and enhancing the League's relationships with the business sector. Specifically, the initiative seeks to develop strategic partnerships that satisfy the financial and service goals of the League while simultaneously addressing workforce, philanthropic, marketing and other objectives of the corporate partners. The League will identify effective workforce preparation services, customize services that prepare job applicants to meet employer specific job requirements, and assure that follow-up and retention services are aligned with both employer and employee needs.

Our Welfare to Work collaboration with business stakeholders is working to establish local business partnerships with employers representing a wide range of service industries, i.e. retail, finance, hospitality, transportation, construction, and medical. The overall objective is to build business relationships for Urban League customers, both employers and the employees they hire, by identifying the resources workers will need to develop their skills, remain on the job, and receive post-employment services they and their families may require.

ULMS is also working with corporate partners and with our constituents to influence technology policy in Seattle's urban community. Affordability and access to information technologies are critical issues that ULMS' new Digital Center intends to impact. The Center serves specific community technology needs and will eventually become the flagship model for similar community service organizations. Our technology center capitalizes on the National Information Infrastructure (NII or the Internet) to serve constituents and enhance our organization's overall effectiveness. It is our belief that this project will pioneer community and business interaction, collaboration, and resource sharing across organizations and geographies.

It is the mission of ULMS to establish and maintain an effective and efficient system of delivering services to local businesses and their prospective employees in order to enhance their capacities to serve the needs of their corporations. ULMS provides an invaluable service to its corporate partners, including training and technical assistance to potential employees and employee training program development and implementation, monitoring and assessment. Other services provided by ULMS to employers include:

• Make presentations and speak at meetings about services provided to potential corporate partners
• Provide on-site training and orientation in operating service programs

ULMS will seek to ensure high retention rates by working closely with employers and employees. Identifying and addressing our clients' concerns will be a priority for ULMS. We will assure employers that each employee will have received proper job readiness training before beginning employment and we will enter into an agreement with the employer ensuring that our case management services will provide consistent follow-up.

The Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle has commitments from at least 10 major employers to place WorkFirst job seekers into meaningful positions or training. Additional employers are being contacted and screened on an ongoing basis.

If you have questions or would like further information, please call Marilynn Harris (mharris@urbanleague.org), Employment & Training Manager, at Ext. 3034.