CTOP grantee partner MATCH in New Haven was one of eight local nonprofits awarded unrestricted grant funds as a part of the 2026 NBCUniversal Local Impact Grants. These awards vary in amount and are given to organizations focused on youth education and empowerment, next generation storytellers, or community engagementmaking and are difference in their communities.
Our Piece of the Pie's CEO Hector Rivera wrote this op-ed to make the case that the solution to Connecticut's labor challenges is to support organizations that are preparing Connecticut's severely off-track and disconnected young people for employment through paid work opportunities. These work opportunities allow young people to learn new skills and explore new career opportunities to be able to enter the laborforce, all while earning paychecks along the way.
Roca Hartford Young Women's Program celebrated the graduation of another cohort of young women who are now prepared for the workforce or returning to education. Read this piece about a young woman, Taylish Molina, who credits Roca for relentlessly supporting her and helping her build the skills she needs to succeed for herself and her children.
Award winning journalist Katheryn Hauser moderated a panel with state and national community violence intervention leaders as well as young people during COMPASS Youth Collaborative's Annual Meeting. The conversation focused on the impact of COMPASS's program model in interrupting violence in the City of Hartford by supporting young people to build the skills needed to reconnect to school and the workforce.
Last year, Domus Kids and Our Piece of the Pie (OPP) created Service-to-Career Pathways toolkits designed to help communities and municipal officers create career pathways for young people ages 16 to 24 who are disconnected from the workforce to pursue careers in public service. These toolkits will be further discussed in a webinar with municipal leaders and Governor Lamont about how to effectively roll out and implement the toolkits in cities across the state.
In recent years, more and more firearms used in community violence have been converted to semi-automatic weapons with the addition of "switches." COMPASS Peacebuilder Lead Diego Lopez says that these altered firearms are limiting a victim's chance of survival. This month, lawmakers in the state passed legislation that prohibits the future sale of firearms easily modified to limit the use of switches.
In May, Northwell Health graduated the inaugural class of graduates from the Academy for Career Readiness at Norwalk Hospital. This program was created from a partnership between Dalio Education, Northwell Health, and CTOP grantee partner Domus Kids. Throughout the 12-week program, Domus Kids participants learned hard and soft skills that will prepare them for a career in Healthcare through an interactive classroom-based curriculum and hands-on learning experiences in the hospital. Read more about the program and graduation.
COMPASS Youth Collaborative held a Community Peace Walk in May to promote peace, healing, unity and community engagement in response to violence impacting Hartford neighborhoods. The walk was three miles around Connecticut's capital city to promote a start to a peaceful summer. The COMPASS team also encouraged community members to sign peace pledges, where they commit themselves to not engaging in violence.
CTOP grantee partner Forge City Works was featured on Channel 3 WFSB's "On the Menu" segment, where Program Director and Associate Executive Director Becky McGuigan spoke about their job training program and new menu items at the nonprofit's social enterprise restaurant Fire x Forge. Fire x Forge's Executive Chef Dylan Hancock cooked up some of the new menu items that anyone can try this summer at Fire x Forge in Hartford. Watch the video here.
Marcia LaFemina, board chair of CTOP grantee partner Manufacturing and Technical Community Hub (MATCH), was honored with the 2026 Connecticut Workforce Champion Award for her exceptional leadership in advancing the state’s manufacturing sector and expanding equitable workforce opportunities by Governor Lamont. LaFemina has championed inclusive hiring practices and empowering minority groups in the manufacturing industry. Read the article to learn more about Marcia, her company Penn Globe, and her leadership in the founding of MATCH.
Roca Inc's Hartford Young Women's Program hosted U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal for a roundtable discussion with COMPASS Youth Collaborative about the challenges the organizations face in mitigating gun violence in the state. Both organizations pointed to inconsistent and short-term funding structures as a barrier to reducing violence in Hartford. Blumenthal has proposed funding for an office of community violence intervention to better support the work of Roca and COMPASS.
In this op-ed, COMPASS CEO Jacquelyn Santiago discusses a particularly violent February in Hartford, where in the span of 8 days, three young people were shot and two tragically died. COMPASS's Hospital Violence Intervention Program responded to each incident at the hospital to support victims, families, and reduce the risk of retaliation. And despite this critical work, COMPASS does not receive enough funding from the state and city to run this program that helps keep Hartford safer.
Monya Saunders works at Yale's School of Medicine's Transition Clinic, where she supports people recently released from incarceration and connects them to healthcare and social services. Once home, her clients struggle to find employment and Saunders refers them to CTOP Grantee Partner MATCH, where they can be trained in manufacturing skills that are needed in the job market. As she put it, "Once you graduate, they help you find a job. They are not going to leave you.”
In this op-ed, CTOP's grantee partner executive leaders who are a part of the 119k to Zero Collective implore funders not to be swayed by the current austerity climate at the Federal level and to not restrict the resources available for them to meet their mission - to reconnect Connecticut's young people to education and workforce.
Our newest grantee partner Manufacturing and Technical Community Hub (MATCH) has acquired century-old brick building at 15 James St in the Fair Haven neighborhood of New Haven. Along with our investment, this acquisition will support MATCH to train young people for in-demand jobs in Connecticut's manufacturing industry. Read more about the purchase.
Dalio Education, through CTOP, will invest $2.5 million dollars in Manufacturing and Technical Community Hub (MATCH) to strengthen pathways to careers in manufacturing for New Haven's young people with barriers to employment. The investment will support MATCH to strengthen their organization and program to better serve New Haven's young people.
Dalio Education, through CTOP, will invest $2.5 million dollars in Manufacturing and Technical Community Hub (MATCH) to strengthen pathways to careers in manufacturing for New Haven's young people with barriers to employment. The investment will support MATCH to strengthen their organization and program to better serve New Haven's young people.
In this op-ed, Sr. Portfolio Director Samantha Miller and Sr. Portfolio Associate Emily Bonzagni explain how investing in our new grantee partner MATCH could help Connecticut's manufacturing indsutry thrive while providing career opportunities with upward mobility for young people with barriers to gainful employment.
Dalio Education, through its social investment fund the Connecticut Opportunity Project, is partnering with the Manufacturing and Technical Community Hub (MATCH) in New Haven. MATCH runs an innovative job training program that prepares participants with the technical and professional skills needed to thrive in the manufacturing industry, one of Connecticut's core industires, and attain upward mobility.
In a press conference at Our Piece of the Pie (OPP), leaders from OPP, the state, City of Hartford gathered to announce a state-supported planning grant to redesign OPP’s Opportunity Academy. The Academy serves over-age, under-credited students through personalized learning, workforce training, and wraparound supports and the grant will help OPP craft a blueprint that can be replicated statewide for more alternative education programs.
COMPASS Youth Collaborative shows how they are helping drive down violence in Hartford through their Peacebuilder Program, where staff build transformational relationships with young people, deliver cognitive behavioral techniques to them, and use data to inform their decisions. CT Insider follows COMPASS Peacebuilder Isaiah Luna to understand how he supports youth to disengage in violence.
Liz Giannetta, Program Director of CTOP Grantee Partner COMPASS Youth Collaborative, participates on the Woman to Woman segment on WTNH discuss how COMPASS transforms the lives of young people in Hartford through relationship building, training for employment, and basic needs support. Watch this video to learn more about the incredible work COMPASS does every day in Hartford and how they change the trajectory of youth's lives in the city.
Forge City Works hosted Senator Richard Blumenthal and Connecticut Attorney General William Tong at their social enterprise grocery store, The Grocery on Broad, where the two officials discussed rising concerns for corporate price gouging due to the anticipated tarriffs that will strain Connecticut families. Executive Director Ben Dubow described the current environment as a “perfect storm” and The Grocery on Broad's innovative sliding pricing scale seeks to ease some of that pain.
With nearly 800 low-income young people set to start their summer employment, Hartford will provide $1 million dollars for the Summer Youth Employment and Learning Program this year after it was thrown in jeopardy when one of the program's administrators shut down. Our Piece of the Pie, a CTOP grantee partner, is set to support many of the young people in this program to build their leadership and workforce skills.
COMPASS Youth Collaborative Peacebuilders drive through the streets of Hartford aiming to connect and engage with the city's hardest-to-reach youth. Peacebuilders track and maintain data in the organization's custom, secure, mobile-first data platform called Navi that was designed by Peacebuilders to support their work most effectively. Navi has become the digital backbone of the organization's efforts to interrupt gun violence. Learn more.
After coming to Hartford in 2021, Roca Inc's Young Women's Program celebrated their first-ever cohort of graduates, which consisted of 22 young women. This program seeks to help young women break cycles of poverty, trauma, and violence. These women have learned emotional regulation, workforce, and life skills to get back on track to a path of self-sufficiency and build a life without violence and poverty for themselves and their children. Watch the video for more.
In Fox61's segment Making an ImpaCT, the news team highlights CTOP Grantee Partner, COMPASS Youth Collaborative, for their work interupting violence in Hartford. Peacebuilders are anti-violence professionals who go into the community to connect with the hardest-to-reach young people by showing care, offering support with basic needs, and building trust to help young people change their behaviors and get back on track.
In this op-ed, Domus Kids' Chief Justice Officer Tom Langan urges the Connecticut Legislature to take action to reconnect the one in five young people in the state who are experiencing disconnection or at risk of it. He discusses recommendtions on how to support nonprofits in making a measurable impact on young people's employment outcomes and get them on a path to self-sufficiency.
The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving awarded our grantee partner Roca Hartford Young Women's Program to continue their work in supporting young women from the Hartford area to find employment, secure housing and child care, help them obtain their GEDs and open their own bank account. Their program allows young women to change their behaviors and live independent lives in the long-term.
CTOP Grantee Partner, Forge City Works, won $10,000 to renovate a former cafe space into a flexible and functional training center from The Jacques Pépin Foundation. This funding will allow Forge City Works to increase the number of trainees in their program and increase the number of participants at public cooking classes.
