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- EIN 56-0894222
- (919) 381-5802
- 307 W Main St Durham NC 27701 USA
- www.mdcinc.org
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Nonprofit Overview
Causes: Civil Rights, Community & Neighborhood Development, Economic Development, Intergroup & Race Relations, Race
Mission: Mdc (formerly manpower development corp. ) was founded in 1967 to help north carolina make the transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy and from a segregated to an integrated workforce. It has evolved into a research and hands-on partner that helps organizations and communities close the gaps that separate people from opportunity. For nearly 50 years, mdc has been clearing the pathways that lead to opportunity by working with foundations, nonprofits, and community and business leaders, primarily in the south, to connect disadvantaged people with education, employment and economic security. We center our work on building and strengthening the "infrastructure of opportunity"-the set of systems and supports often present in many communities that, once aligned, can boost young people to higher rungs on the economic ladder. By linking community engagement and systems change, mdc aspires to change the underlying conditions that create inter-generational poverty.
Programs: Education: almost all of mdc's programs have an educational component-often involving community colleges-to help teens, young adults, and displaced workers in need of retraining receive the support they need to attain a degree or certificate that connects them with a living-wage job. In virginia, mdc is helping the community college system take a holistic approach to help low-income students reach financial stability through the virginia workforce system. In our hometown of durham, n. C. , we incubated "made in durham," an initiative involving top public, business, and community leaders to create an education-to-career system designed so every young person in durham has the opportunity to achieve a postsecondary credential and begin a rewarding career by the age of 25. In our state of the south report, we focused on the frozen economic mobility of young people in the region, the ways communities are building their infrastructure of opportunity, and what more they can do to make youth economic mobility a focused perspective of their education and economic development strategies. In forsyth county, n. C. , (winston-salem) we are managing the kate. B. Reynolds charitable trust's $30-40 million, 10- to15-year effort to ensure that every child entering kindergarten is ready for learning and life success.
work: mdc has nearly 50 years of experience in workforce development at the local, state, regional, and national levels, and its consistent goal has been to remove barriers between people and good jobs. In northeast mississippi, mdc is working with the create foundation-which received a $50 million endowment from the toyota wellspring education fund-to design an industry-funded, tri-county initiative to build a career-readiness system anchored in k-12, connected to postsecondary education, and accessible to all students to spur local workforce development and living wage jobs. In north carolina, mdc is working with the john m. Belk endowment to create data-based portraits of mobility, educational persistence, and living-wage employment opportunities in regions across the state to put their conditions in context as leaders consider building their infrastructure of opportunity. In danville, va. , mdc is helping the danville regional foundation improve the economic prosperity of citizens in three counties in southern virginia and northern north carolina by training the next generation of community leaders through the middle border forward initiative.
assets: mdc is building and demonstrating integrated systems that combine technology, partnerships, training, and expertise to connect vulnerable populations with available resources. Mdc created and manages the benefit bank of north carolina (tbb-nc), a statewide initiative that combines grassroots outreach and use of the benefit bank online expert service to connect eligible north carolinians with supports. Mdc and tbb-nc are part of a consortium of organizations awarded a federal navigator grant to conduct health insurance outreach and enrollment under the affordable care act. Mdc also received an americorps grant for its n. C. Vetscorps project, which places americorps members at existing community-based organizations to provide critical services to improve the lives of veterans and their families. Since 2010, these programs have helped low-income families apply for more than $65 million in tax, nutrition, and other supports using the benefit bank; saved 20,247 households an estimated $4. 4 million in tax preparation fees; secured nearly $2 million in health insurance premium assistance for low-income families; and connected over 2,000 economically vulnerable veterans and military families with legal, food, medical, utility, education, employment, and housing resources.
strategic philanthropy: mdc works with placed-based community foundations to help them refocus their philanthropic program services to address the root causes of social inequities and performance gaps in education, employment, asset levels, and health. To date, mdc has helped foundations refocus more than $1 billion in philanthropic assets in florida, virginia, north carolina, south carolina, new york, and the midwest.