Community College Bridges to Opportunity Initiative: Started by the Ford Foundation, the goals of this initiative are (1) “Promote policy innovation which supports the integration of the multiple community college missions through selected engagement of policymakers, institutional practitioners, and multi-stakeholder coalitions of support from business, labor, and community groups, educational leaders and others; (2) Research ways in which state and local policies can enhance community colleges’ efforts to expand educational and economic opportunities for disadvantaged students; and, (3) Develop models of effective institutional classroom and administrative practice for use by policymakers, college administrators, and advocacy coalitions.” Be sure to check out their Community College Career Pathways Toolkit.

LesLe: A repository of resources on community and economic development compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Some interesting highlights:

•  HUD’s Office of University Partnerships
• NGA’s Growth and Quality of Life Toolkit
• USDA’s Rural Development Success Stories

DoL/ETA Catalogue of Workforce Information Sources: A comprehensive list of public and private sources for labor market and related data.

WorkingVentures Publications: This arm of Public/Private Ventures publishes books and other resources to strengthen the field of workforce development.

Know Your Region: An online collection of professional development curricula and other resources to help development professionals “understand and apply core concepts of regionalism and industry cluster development.” A joint project of two universities and C2ER (formerly ACCRA).

Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW): This Michigan-based nonprofit specializes in “helping stakeholders across the country in business, government, education, economic development, human services and philanthropy find ways to adapt and thrive.”

Nonemployer Statistics (Census): A major source of data on non-covered workers, particularly proprietors.

The 2002 Economic Census is a key supplemental source for industry data, although it is somewhat outdated. The 2007 Economic Census begins data collection in December 2007.

County Business Patterns (Census) provides the number of establishments and employee ranges by industry.

CareerOneStop is a career information site sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor.