About Us

Our History

Workforce Enterprises (WE-NYC) was launched April of 2009 to address the growing gap between the increasing demand for productive, entry-level digital printing and document management staff, and the availability of trained personnel.

As a social enterprise, WE-NYC is in the unique position of providing a training program in New York City that can combine skills training within our commercial print shop setting with the support of our students through our nonprofit partners.

Workforce Enterprises began in the basement of the Holland House with the founding sponsor support of Project Renewal’s NextStep program. We are especially grateful to Project Renewal for its contribution of resources as a Founding Sponsor, and deeply appreciative for the participation of its staff whose time, skills and collaboration made Workforce Enterprises’ launch possible.

Our first class of 10 students started in July 2009, with curriculum content approved by Xplor Document University^®, also known as Xplor International^®. Xplor^® is the worldwide association of users and suppliers of the products and services for a variety of document technologies.

In July of 2010, WE-NYC signed our First Service Agreement for training with the International Center for the Disabled (ICD). Together ICD and Workforce Enterprises have launched a joint effort to provide a 9-week program of specialized learning and internship experience for ICD Office Technology training program participants to enhance their prospects for sustainable employment. Partnering with ICD also allowed us to increase our training capacity with a larger classroom and access to more students.

During September of 2010, Daren Stone, the Director of Training, was honored by NY1 as their New Yorker of the Week for his dedication to training and for his ability to combine classroom study with practical experience within a commercial print shop setting.

Our Future

Our model for building sustainable and scalable profits through this sector-based workforce development training is not limited to the document management and digital printing industry. Opportunities exist to replicate our social enterprise model in other business sectors and other metropolitan areas where there is a demand for staff to fill technology-based jobs but a shortage of appropriately trained personnel. WE-NYC is motivated both by profit and by a desire to improve society. Our mission is twofold:

• Train unemployed and under-employed workers facing barriers to employment and place them in meaningful careers that pay above minimum wage.
• Build a profitable, sustainable, and scalable business that can be replicated in other markets and in other industries.

If you are interested in creating a partnership, or simply looking for more information, please contact Joe Hunt at jhunt@we-nyc.com or call 917-613-5093.