• Education

  • Early Excellence
  • Denver Preschool Program
  • K-12 Education
  • The Charter Fund

• Economic Opportunity

  • Post-Secondary Education
  • Employment Skills
  • Asset Building

• Strengthening Communities

  • Support to Community Organizing
  • Social Networks

• Earned Income Tax Credit

  • American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
  • Tax Sites
  • The Piton Foundation's Tax Credits for Working Families Campaign
  • Tax Help Colorado
  • Low Income Taxpayer Help
  • 2010 Tax Year Promotional Materials
  • Filing Options Available
  • The Earned Income Tax Credit in Colorado
  • Learn More about the Earned Income Tax Credit
  • Employers: Help Your Workers Get Their Tax Credits
  • More Tax Credits
  • Non-Profits: Help Your Clients Get Their Tax Credits
  • Still Another Tax Benefit for Families! The Child and Dependent Care Credit
  • The Child Tax Credit: Extra Credit for Many Working Families!
  • Education Tax Credits for Families: The Hope Credit
  • Education Tax Credits for Families: The Lifetime Learning Credit
  • Saver's Tax Credit: Workers Can Save for Retirement and Reduce Income Taxes

Employment Skills

The Piton Foundation and Making Connections--Denver are working to ensure that the redevelopment of the old Gates Rubber Factory is a source of good jobs for lower-income Denver residents.

The Piton Foundation supports Making Connections--Denver's work with a number of local organizations to place unemployed and underemployed residents of four lower-income Denver neighborhoods (Baker, Cole, La-Alma/Lincoln Park and Sun Valley) on a path to family-supporting jobs.

These workforce efforts use three closely-coordinated strategies:

1. Working with key workforce agencies to better connect residents of these neighborhoods to jobs in growing sectors of the economy. By analyzing the job-seekers' backgrounds, experience and need for supportive services, Making Connections' partners are trying to create more customized job search assistance and support for these individuals.
2. Improving access for low-income individuals to degree and certificate programs at community colleges and employment opportunities while they are in school and after they graduate. With Piton's support, Making Connections is improving access by providing matched savings accounts, career counseling and job placement assistance to residents of these neighborhoods who are students at the Community College of Denver and Emily Griffith Opportunity School. In addition, they have created an emergency loan fund for students and host annual student-recognition events for students from the targeted neighborhoods. The partners also are working with several large employers -- the City of Denver and Denver Health & Hospitals -- to improve the earnings of their entry-level workers by offering scholarships and Individual Development Accounts for further education and training.
3. Connecting residents of lower-income neighborhoods to employment and housing opportunities through the Cherokee Project redevelopment of the old Gates Rubber Factory. The factory was a Denver landmark for more than 85 years and the site is being redeveloped as a mixed-use community that will include residential, office, retail and entertainment destinations, and easy access to light-rail. Advocacy by the Front Range Economic Strategy Center (FRESC) and residents of the surrounding neighborhoods resulted in several major benefits for lower-income residents, including: the development of 200 units of affordable rental housing; 2) First Source hiring preferences for residents living in the neighborhoods adjacent to the site; 3) the establishment of prevailing wage construction jobs; and 4) remediation of groundwater pollution that had migrated from the site to nearby neighborhoods. To ensure that low-income residents receive these benefits, Making Connections is engaged in a number of activities, including: supporting the development of pre-apprenticeship programs at Emily Griffith Opportunity School that coincide with the hiring that will take place at the site; supporting effective implementation of the First Source hiring program with the Denver Division of Workforce Development to ensure the targeted individuals are hired; and working with the city's Division of Workforce Development to connect residents of the four targeted neighborhoods participating in the city's employment programs with jobs at the Cherokee Project.

RELATED LINKS

Cherokee Redevelopment

Community College of Denver

Denver Division of Workforce Development

Emily Griffith Opportunity School

Front Range Economic Strategy Center

Making Connections - Denver