Our Mission: To drive up employment for people with disabilities, including Veterans.
The Sierra Group Foundation - Questions? Call 888.492.2402
Sierra Group Foundation
What does competitive employment for people with disabilities look like to you?
Recognizing that leadership is required to build the connections between job seekers and employees with disabilities and employers, The Sierra Group Foundation works to build collaborative solutions that are designed to reverse the high rate of unemployment for people with disabilities.
GIFT WILL HELP SIERRA GROUP FOUNDATION FIND JOBS FOR VETERANS WITH DISABILITIES
The Sierra Group Foundation has announced that in 2010 it will reach out to job-seeking veterans with disabilities via a holiday gift from the military-to-civilian recruiting firm RecruitMilitary, LLC. The Sierra Group Foundation is a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization whose mission is to cut the high unemployment rate of people with disabilities.
Read the full press release in PDF format. 
59 K (opens in a new browser window)
EXPANDING AND STRENGTHENING BUSINESS COLLABORATIONS:
THE SIERRA GROUP FOUNDATION AND THE PENNSYLVANIA BUSINESS LEADERSHIP NETWORK WORKING TOGETHER!
The Sierra Group Foundation is excited to announce our collaboration with The Pennsylvania Business Leadership Network (PA BLN). The over-all goal of this partnership is to build relationships with Pennsylvania businesses including small and mid-sized companies, accountants, and lawyers to spread the word and provide education regarding the benefits of hiring and/or increasing employment of people with disabilities including veterans.
Additionally, given The Sierra Group's expertise in the areas of accommodation, financial incentives, and workforce compliance issues, this collaboration will allow for the strengths of BOTH the PA BLN and The Sierra Group to reach more professionals in the state. Our anticipated outcomes will make connections that lead to more recruiting and retention of job seekers with disabilities.
The PA BLN will benefit by expanding their membership through the seminars, career fairs, presentations, and Breakfast meetings, hosted by The Sierra Group Foundation for all newly invited/identified members of the PA BLN.
About The Sierra Group: The Sierra Group, Inc. is a national consultancy with a mission of reversing the high unemployment rate for people with disabilities in America. The Sierra Group offers an array of recruiting, consultation and training services designed to assist corporations in their: “bring to work, stay at work and return to work” efforts. Focusing on diverse hiring, retention and accommodation practices, Sierra Group has three divisions: Candidate Sourcing, Vocational Rehabilitation, and Workforce Strategy, thereby serving needs of businesses, job seekers and their service providers across the nation. www.thesierragroup.com; www.onemoreway.org.
About the Pennsylvania Business Network (PA BLN): The Pennsylvania Business Leadership Network (BLN) is a statewide, employer-driven program designed for business leaders to promote hiring practices that enable qualified people with disabilities to enter and succeed in the workplace. The Pennsylvania Business Leadership Network offers employers:
- access to pertinent disability hiring information
- a network of employers who share information on common disability employment issues
- exposure to qualified job applicants with disabilities
- opportunities to provide training and work experience for job seekers with disabilities
- improved access to customers with disabilities
Business Leadership Networks have been established in many states as part of a national initiative started by the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) and supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
This project is being conducted, in part, with funding from the PA Department of Public Welfare, CMS Medicaid Infrastructure Grant CFDA 93.768.
UPCOMING opportunities MS Word Document 67K 
Download the free Word Viewer
Sierra Foundation Board Member Jeff Horner, of Candidate Sourcing Partner United Collection Bureau, Inc. (UCB, Inc.), recognized as a leader and “Difference Maker” in his industry, by their national trade publication!
The trade magazine Collections & Credit Risk, has a 15-year tradition of honoring outstanding industry performers. In their October/November 2009 issue, they presented their "Leading Lights: Industry Champions" to recognize individuals who have fought to improve Barefield in a meaningful way.
Sierra Foundation board member Jeff Horner, of UCB, Inc., a Sierra Group Candidate Sourcing Partner, was recognized as one of these "Leading Lights." UCB, Inc. recently received recognition as "Ohio Employer of the Year" for their work in hiring people with disabilities.
Read the cover story article, "The Difference Makers" in PDF format - 6.7 mb.
One More Way - Tour: 10 Cities, 10 Weeks to Drive up Employment!
Foundation Board Chair, Janet Fiore, congratulates Vickie Peirano Thompson on becoming the state of Ohio, One More Way Business Ambassador. Photo taken on Sept. 25, 2008 at the launch of the Ten City tour to Drive up Employment for Americans with Disabilities.
Vickie Peirano-Thompson is the Columbus Branch Manager, UCB, Inc. Vickie's company proactively recruits and hires people with disabilities.
For more information or to become a member of this open sourced collaborative, visit www.onemoreway.org.
Connecting the Need and the Resource
One major challenge involves identifying the population with disability. "Disability" refers to an individual's capacity to function within a given social and environmental context. An illness or injury may result in disability for one activity but not another, or for one occupation but not another. The complexity of the term has given rise to various definitions and indicators, and there is no current accepted gold standard for counting the population with disability. While the U.S. Census estimate offers a broad overview to the extent of limitation and disability across the nation; nationally representative, well-designed surveys and studies have produced differing but equally credible estimates.
A related challenge involves projecting the number of people who will have a disability and need support in coming decades. Such projections involve debates among experts about the extent to which life expectancy will rise, and whether the risks of developing and recovering from a disability are increasing or decreasing. Over the last few decades, disability appears to have diminished among older people; but it is not clear whether younger people have experienced a similar improvement. At this time, reasons for the decline in disability are not clear, adding to the difficulty in forecasting trends.
50 million Americans
According to the 2000 U.S. Census, nearly 50 million Americans or one of every five people ages 5 and older, have a disability. That number is expected to grow over the next 25 years as the U.S. baby-boom generation enters the ages most prone to disabling injuries and illnesses. Participation in society to the fullest extent possible by people with disabilities, whether young or old, veteran or civilian, has been a goal of U.S. policies and programs. Translating this aim into reality requires confronting a series of challenges. We estimate that Federal and State budgets support over 15,000 programs designed to help people with disabilities find and maintain employment. Despite this massive investment, the unemployment rate of people with disabilities is still estimated to be over 50%.
What we do
The Foundation has been established as a 501C(3) non-profit organization that invests our resources in three areas. They are:
- Establishing sustainable forums and tools that connect people to existing resources. All too often the systems designed to save a job for a person with a disability are complicated to navigate. The Foundation seeks to deploy tools and training that allow for easier access to the funded infrastructure already in place.
- Supporting relevant research on accessible technology in the workplace and supporting high levels of professional standards and credentials. Accessing reliable information and consistent advice lies at the center of every sustainable business process. The Foundation seeks to share best practice ideas that can transform the recruiting and hiring process allowing more qualified candidates with disabilities to secure competitive employment.
- Providing grants to support job-seekers with disabilities in securing the tools they need to secure competitive employment. Transportation, wardrobe, and adaptive technology costs can sometimes stand in the way of a person realizing an opportunity that they are qualified to accept. The Foundation seeks to provide resources to help eliminate these obstacles so that qualified people can succeed in employment
In
building the One More Way search engine, we've launched the world's
first comprehensive disability, incentive, and employment search tool. Rather
than searching the entire web, One More Way yields search results that speak
directly to your employment, accommodation, and diversity needs. Based on Google's
Co-Op Search technology, the One More Way search engine is the new tool that
needs to be included in every diversity toolkit.
Making a difference
100,000 hits per month!
The Sierra Group Foundation and its major funding partner, The Sierra Group have created employmentincentives.com as an informational tool to assist employers in recognizing the scope and value of various employment incentive programs. The Sierra Group is a national consultancy offering solutions in the areas of Accessibility, Compliance, and Diversity.
Do
you have an interesting point of view that can benefit our 100,000 monthly
visitors? If so, please email michael.fiore@thesierragroup.com.
We are always looking to add valuable content to this project. If you want
to write about disability and law, employment, discrimination, hiring trends,
services, employee morale issues, training tactics, risk management, or any
other topic related to the theme of the project, let us know.
The Sierra Group Foundation's 2007 Annual Report
The
Sierra Group Foundation is pleased to release our 2007 Annual Report. PDF
- 256 K The report is followed by a cover letter from the Foundation's
Executive Director, Michael Fiore). 2007 was a year of growth and change
as new programs were introduced and the Board expanded its roster. Feel
free to call our office to request materials in alternative format. Also Learn about our Board members.
Some of the items on this site are available in Adobe PDF format. You will need Adobe Reader installed on your computer to read the files. If you do not have Adobe Reader, you can download a copy of Adobe Reader from the Adobe web site.
You
can download the documents to your hard drive by right clicking on the file
name and choosing "save target as" from the menu. Go
to our accessibility page to find out more information on the accessibility
features of this site. PDF documents
will open in a new browser window.
INTERESTED? Please contact The Sierra Group via e-mail at info@thesierragroup.com or by phone at 1.888.492.2402.
We would like to receive your suggestions or comments. Please sign our Guest Book.
Accessibility - Compliance - Diversity