Founded in 1985 in Chicago, Project Match conducts program development and research in the fields of welfare-to-work and workforce development. Project Match’s employment model for community-based organizations and its case management model for state and local welfare agencies have both been adopted at sites around the country. The program’s research division uses data from replication sites—as well as from Project Match’s own community-based employment program—to explore the process by which poor Americans move toward economic and family stability.

The community-based employment model is derived from Project Match’s experience operating its own direct-service program, first in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green neighborhood and now in West Haven, on the city’s Near West Side. In the 1980s, through analysis of job-turnover data for the program’s first participants, Project Match provided some of the earliest evidence of the widespread phenomenon of job cycling among current and former welfare recipients. While the intervals between jobs were short for some people, they were much more extended for others, resulting in a pattern of intermittent work. Based on these data, Project Match became one of the first programs in the country to develop a continuum of employment services, including job placement, retention, reemployment, and advancement assistance.

One of the hallmarks of the employment model is a long-term commitment: Case managers stick with participants through multiple jobs, in recognition of the fact that stabilizing in the labor market, then moving up, is a step-by-step, years-long process. Another hallmark is open eligibility: Anyone in the community who attends a two-hour orientation can receive services, no matter their level of job-readiness; there is no screening-out process based on individual characteristics like education level or health status. The program model is operationalized through use of Project Match’s computerized tracking system, recently redesigned to be more user-friendly and supportive of case management functions. As before, the tracking system captures and reports monthly outcomes achieved by participants, as well as services rendered by staff. But now, protocols that support core elements of the program model—such as prompts to check in with participants each month and to update their outcomes—are embedded in the tracking system as well, providing an automatic infrastructure for day-to-day operations.

Project Match is currently guiding implementation of its employment model in several low-income neighborhoods in Chicago, as part of the New Communities Program (NCP), initiated by LISC/Chicago with primary funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. NCP is a long-term, comprehensive community revitalization effort focused on 16 Chicago neighborhoods. As an NCP partner, Project Match provides training and ongoing data management oversight to community-based organizations operating employment programs.

The Pathways Case Management System shares many principles with the community-based employment model, but it is a separate initiative. Developed by Project Match for state and local welfare agencies, the system provides a set of tools and protocols for ensuring monthly contact between caseworkers and welfare recipients; for developing and monitoring customized, month-at-a-time self-sufficiency plans; and for promoting a teamwork approach among agency staff.

The Pathways System has four components: an activity diary, a monthly group meeting for welfare recipients, monthly case review and debriefing sessions for agency staff, and a computerized tracking system. Pathways takes into account all the roles that welfare recipients must learn to balance: among them, worker, parent, partner, and community member. In Project Match’s experience, the ability to balance these competing roles is often the characteristic that distinguishes successful individuals.

Pathways is currently operating at sites in several states, including California and New York. The system has been used with recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and General Assistance (GA). Some agencies have targeted Pathways for use with the most fragile or reluctant populations, including TANF families that are concurrently involved in the child welfare system, medically exempt TANF recipients, and TANF recipients in sanction status.

In 2004, Project Match adapted Pathways for public housing. Known as Pathways to Rewards, this new initiative is being piloted with families making the transition from Chicago’s Henry Horner Homes to Westhaven Park, the mixed-income development that is being built nearby as a replacement. The goal of Pathways to Rewards is to promote family and community stabilization by providing the structure, support, and incentives for the leaseholder—and all other adults and children on the lease—to work toward individual goals around employment, lease compliance, academic and extracurricular achievement, and community involvement. Because Westhaven Park is a mixed-income community, not only public housing families but also tax-credit and market-rate families have been invited to participate.

Central to Pathways to Rewards is the new incentive component. As individuals meet their goals, they earn points toward rewards such as DVD players, assistance with utility bills, and health club memberships. As with a “frequent flyer” program, people can redeem points for a small reward or accrue points over time for a larger reward. Achievement of goals is announced at catered community events, held every three months, at which each individual's accomplishments during the quarter are celebrated.

Over the years, Project Match has been recognized for its contributions to the field. Early in its history, in 1988, Project Match was an award winner in the Innovations in State and Local Government Program of the Ford Foundation and Harvard University. In 2000, it was an honoree in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Families Count program. This national awards program was established to recognize organizations that are working in creative and effective ways on behalf of poor families and children in the United States. Toby Herr, Project Match's founder and executive director, was named a Champion of the Public Interest in 2006 by Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI), a Chicago-based social law and policy center, in recognition of her 20 years of leadership.

Project Match, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, is funded through grants from foundations, corporations, and government agencies; income earned from replication and technical assistance contracts; and individual donations.

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