We Are Cara Collective

Fueling a courageous national movement to eradicate relational and financial poverty

We engage job seekers, employers, and other organizations across the country to break the cycle of poverty through the power and purpose of employment.

EQUIPPING JOB SEEKERS

We provide free workforce training, job placement, and personal and professional coaching to pave the way for gainful employment.

BUILDING THE FIELD

We work with organizations across the country to build, deploy, and grow strong workforce solutions to help more people experiencing poverty get back to work. 

SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES

We engage employers, civic leaders, and policymakers to shift perspectives on the issues that shape poverty and the opportunity we all have to help people out of it.

What Cara Collective Does

Since 1991, our mission has been to eradicate poverty and create hope, jobs, and opportunity. 

ABOUT US

FOR JOB SEEKERS

If you’re unemployed or underemployed, Cara offers a structured pathway to help you achieve long-term career success. Let’s work together to help you get and keep a job you’ll love.

FOR EMPLOYERS

Are you a hiring professional searching for screened, trained, qualified, and motivated entry-level talent? Let’s work together to source the talent you need. 

FOR ORGANIZATIONS

We share both our best practices and our best failures, in partnership with organizations across the country, in order to accelerate our collective learning and grow our impact.

GET INVOLVED

Inspired to help Cara Collective provide hope, jobs, and opportunity? Find out how through a wide variety of both charitable donation and volunteer opportunities.

Meet Cara Collective

The combination of our local practice and our national platform drives our vision to fuel a courageous national movement to eradicate relational and financial poverty. We achieve this through our three entities:

Cara

Our signature workforce readiness program that focuses on personal and professional development through intensive and flexible training models. Founded in 1991.

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Our Impact

34 Years
Of Social Impact Work
16,034
Jobs Since 1991
9,441
People Employed
$10.8M
Total Annual Earnings of Cara Participants
62%
One-Year, Same-Firm Retention Rate
98%
Participant Satisfaction with Program Outcomes

Cara Collective Stories

Philile

Cara’s 2020 Jesse Teverbaugh Distinguished Alumni Award honoree Philile Mabuza shares her story of having to flee her native country to save her and her children’s lives, the difficulties of acclimating to a new world, and the community she found at Cara.

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Donate

Please consider a gift to this mission, and help bring people back to hope, jobs, and opportunity.

More Ways to Give

Discover more ways to support our mission and help set our Cara participants up for success.

Contact Us

Have a question or want to learn more about Cara Collective? We’ll help point you in the right direction.