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Congratulations to the six Tech Hub designees that this week received Implementation Grants, totaling approximately $210 million, as part of a new round of funding from Congress.
Congratulations to the six Tech Hub designees that this week received Implementation Grants, totaling approximately $210 million, as part of a new round of funding from Congress.
The Tech Hubs initiative, which has overwhelmingly bipartisan support, is a critical component in building the workforce of the future, and strengthening the industries those workers will serve. This is a collective effort by communities, states, regions and our nation to ensure that everyone has a clear path to a good job and career, enabling them to support their families and advance economically regardless of where they live or whether they have a college degree. The new round of implementation grants announced this week by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration will further support efforts already underway to expand the production of critical technologies, create jobs in future-facing sectors, and advance our nation’s economic competitiveness and security.
Among the six recipients of the most recent round of implementation grants is the Birmingham Biotechnology Hub in Alabama, a regional coalition that received a $44 million award and that America Achieves has supported with in-depth technical assistance. America Achieves also supported and worked closely with six of the 12 regional coalitions that received implementation grants in July. Today’s announcement means a total of 18 regional coalitions have been awarded Tech Hub implementation grants, 7 of which have received intensive technical assistance from America Achieves.
Also this week, the Richmond-Petersburg Advanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Workforce Initiative in Virginia, which America Achieves advised, received a Good Jobs Challenge Grant of nearly $4 million from the Economic Development Administration. The Richmond coalition, led by the Community College Workforce Alliance, was one of eight designees that this week received a total of $25 million in Good Jobs Challenge program funding, as announced by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. The Good Jobs Challenge, which supports high-quality, locally-led workforce training programs that create a pathway for workers to be placed into good-paying jobs, has a portfolio that has grown to 35 states and one territory.
Congratulations to all involved and we look forward to the next chapter in this exciting work!
America Achieves, the national nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that everyone has a clear path to a good job and a career with upward mobility, congratulates Congress on the passage of several important bipartisan legislative measures. These include the reauthorization of the Economic Development Administration (EDA) and the continued commitment to the Regional Tech Hubs Program.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 20, 2024
Media Contact: communications@americaachieves.org
America Achieves Celebrates the Passage of Bipartisan Place-Based and Workforce Development Legislation
America Achieves, the national nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that everyone has a clear path to a good job and a career with upward mobility, congratulates Congress on the passage of several important bipartisan legislative measures. These include the reauthorization of the Economic Development Administration (EDA) and the continued commitment to the Regional Tech Hubs Program.
These achievements represent meaningful progress in helping people and the communities where they live and work by strengthening America’s workforce, boosting regional economies, promoting economic growth, and ensuring our nation’s competitiveness in the global economy.
Reauthorization of the Economic Development Administration
The reauthorization of the EDA – the first in 20 years – represents a forward-looking step in aligning regional economic development strategies with workforce priorities. The legislation reauthorizes the EDA’s authorities and programs for the first time since 2004, as well as regional commissions which will bolster economic growth and job creation in the areas that need it the most.
Continued Commitment to the Regional Tech Hubs Program
Funding secured for the Regional Tech Hubs Program underscores the federal government’s commitment to fostering innovation and driving economic growth in technology areas important to global competitiveness. By strengthening support for emerging technology ecosystems, this program helps spur new job creation, enhance global competitiveness, and ensure that economic opportunity reaches historically underserved regions. America Achieves celebrates this vital investment in our nation’s technological future.
A Commitment to Bipartisan Collaboration and Real Impact
“The passage of these important pieces of legislation demonstrates what is possible when leaders come together with a shared vision for building a stronger, more inclusive economy,” said Jon Schnur, CEO of America Achieves. “The bipartisan reauthorization and modernization of EDA and continued support of the Regional Tech Hubs Program represent significant progress toward equipping workers with the skills they need, addressing regional economic disparities, and positioning the United States as a global leader in innovation. We are thrilled to see these priorities come to fruition and look forward to working with federal, state, and local partners to ensure their successful implementation.”
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About America Achieves
For more than a decade, America Achieves has incubated high-performing initiatives, launched new nonprofit organizations, shaped over $2 billion in federal funding for inclusive economic development, and partnered with local leaders focused on making their communities better places to live, learn, work, and raise a family. Our organization and partners place a special focus on those who have been left behind — and whose talents are not yet being fully leveraged to build economic opportunity for themselves and their communities. America Achieves helps local economic and workforce development intermediaries, coalitions, and states to fund, develop and implement the programs, strategies and systems that create sustainable pathways to good jobs.
For more information, visit americaachieves.org.
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Transformative grant will accelerate national nonprofit's effort to build a "Good Jobs Economy"
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Media Contact: communications@americaachieves.org
NEW YORK, NY (December 18, 2024) – America Achieves, the national nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that everyone has a clear path to a good job and a career with upward mobility, announced today that it has received a $15 million grant from Yield Giving, the groundbreaking philanthropy founded by MacKenzie Scott.
This unrestricted investment will bolster America Achieves' mission to help communities, regions, and states build a "Good Jobs Economy." These initiatives align the supply of diverse talent to the demand for good jobs – especially in high-growth occupations and high growth economic sectors – with a particular focus on overlooked communities and the people who have long called those places home. This strategy is a crucial element of helping community and state efforts to advance and integrate economic growth and economic mobility.
"MacKenzie Scott and Yield Giving's extremely generous grant will help us support communities and states to effectively address two fundamental realities: millions of Americans from all backgrounds, with and without college degrees, need clear pathways to good jobs and most employers report challenges in finding enough skilled talent, including in high-growth and innovation sectors of the economy," said Jon Schnur, CEO of America Achieves. "This grant will help communities and states scale and spread what works to move tens of thousands of people into good jobs to sustain them and their families - while advancing place-based efforts to advance and integrate economic growth with economic mobility.”
America Achieves is one of 199 organizations receiving support from MacKenzie Scott's Yield Giving, which announced more than $2 billion in total grants today. The majority of recipients focus on expanding economic opportunity and stability for Americans facing economic challenges at this critical moment.
This work is addressing important and urgent needs in communities across this country. Consider that only 50% of children born in the 1980s will out-earn their parents, compared to 90% born in the 1940s. Today's families need 62 weeks of median wages to cover annual living costs, up from 40 weeks in 1985, and nearly two-thirds of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Meanwhile, three in four more employers report difficulty finding skilled workers.
America Achieves helps local intermediaries, coalitions and public officials to bridge these gaps by helping communities and states build strong programs and local systems that connect people to in-demand jobs and employers to skilled talent.
This grant from MacKenzie Scott and Yield Giving is an anchor investment in America Achieves’ go-forward strategy to help communities and states, over the next three years, increasingly move large numbers of people into good jobs and careers that will drive economic growth and mobility – particularly for overlooked people and communities. Using this strategy, America Achieves will over the next three years support local and state partners to:
America Achieves and its partners will work with states, local intermediaries, and coalitions on four strategic priorities aimed at comprehensive, lasting impact at the regional, state and national levels:
America Achieves has secured philanthropic funding to support the planning and launch of its “Good Jobs Economy” initiative from the following funders. In addition to the investment announced today by Yield Giving, philanthropic funding for planning this initiative was provided by Blue Meridian Partners, the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF), Strada Education Foundation, and others. Of those funders, GKFF also supported America Achieves’ efforts to help Tech Hub applicants develop their plans – as did the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and others.
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About America Achieves
For more than a decade, America Achieves has incubated high-performing initiatives, launched new nonprofit organizations, shaped over $2 billion in federal funding for inclusive economic development, and partnered with local leaders focused on making their communities better places to live, learn, work, and raise a family. Our organization and partners place a special focus on those who have been left behind — and whose talents are not yet being fully leveraged to build economic opportunity for themselves and their communities. America Achieves helps local economic and workforce development intermediaries, coalitions, and states to fund, develop and implement the programs, strategies and systems that create sustainable pathways to good jobs.
For more information, visit americaachieves.org.
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Today, America Achieves and 17 other workforce-related nonprofits and local, business-led regional impact groups involving small and medium sized businesses released a joint letter calling on Congress to urgently pass the bipartisan, bicameral substitute to the House passed H.R. 6655, A Stronger Workforce for America Act. This bill is otherwise known as the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Reauthorization.
First signed into law in 2014, WIOA is the primary federal law that funds and authorizes our nation’s workforce development system providing career and skilling opportunities to adults, dislocated workers and youth.
The proposed reauthorization includes key provisions that the coalition believes can help states and local communities address these challenges — and modernize and align the program to better meet the needs of workers and employers alike. Specific provisions of the reauthorization that the coalition supports include:
People and employers in communities across the U.S are experiencing a profound shift to an innovation and knowledge economy. With automation, digitalization, and other trends poised to further disrupt the labor market, it is more important than ever to help many more Americans have pathways to good jobs with upward mobility — and to align the supply of talent to in-demand good jobs. The coalition welcomes public and private efforts that effectively address these important nationwide challenges.
The bipartisan reauthorization of WIOA is a chance for Congress to play a role in helping communities and states to address critical skills gaps, empower displaced workers, and promote economic mobility while driving national competitiveness.
America Achieves is a leading nonprofit organization that supports a national network of communities and states that are working to ensure every American has a clear path to a good job with upward mobility.
The full text of the letter can be found here.
The full list of signatories is below:
Initiative Will Build on Recent Tech Hubs Successes – and Help Local Communities Integrate and Advance Economic Growth with Economic Mobility to Create Good Jobs and Ensure Fair Access to Good Jobs Nationwide.
Building on its recent efforts that helped to establish Regional Tech Hubs across the nation, America Achieves today announced a “Good Jobs Economy” initiative to help local communities integrate and advance strategies for marrying economic growth and economic mobility.
Through this initiative, the national nonprofit organization America Achieves will support local partners to advance growth of key industries and good jobs in local economies – and create clear pathways for local residents to attain living-wage jobs in high-growth sectors.
America Achieves is working with partners to build “proof points” of Good Jobs Economies in selected communities across the country; equip any community to do this work with useful tools, frameworks, and an evidence base on what works; and advance public policy and communications to advance this work.
To help do so, America Achieves and philanthropies will provide local partners with funding, a community of peers, and high-quality, tailored technical assistance. Areas of support include workforce and talent development, governance and capacity development for local intermediary organizations and coalitions, and sustainable funding strategies.
America Achieves secured more than $20 million in philanthropic funding to support the planning and launch of this initiative – and America Achieves is expecting to aggregate and announce additional funding in the coming months.
Philanthropic funding for planning this initiative has been provided by Blue Meridian Partners, the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF), Strada Education Foundation, and others. Of those funders, GKFF also supported America Achieves’ efforts to help Tech Hub applicants develop their plans – as did the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and others. Funders supporting implementation of the Good Jobs Economy initiative going forward include the philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, among others.
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced this initiative on July 29, following its Innovative Capital Summit. America Achieves CEO Jon Schnur also announced it while speaking at Jobs for the Future’s Horizons 2024 Summit (in its session on “Revving the Engines of Economic Mobility”).
In recent years, America Achieves has helped design, shape, and secure federal funding for $2 billion in programs and policies supporting place-based economic and workforce development — including the Good Jobs Challenge, Build Back Better Regional Challenge, and Regional Tech Hubs. Of the 12 communities receiving funding through the Tech Tubs program from a pool of over 300 applicants, America Achieves provided six of them with in-depth technical assistance developing their plans and applications.
“Communities across our country are putting local residents and businesses to work building new solutions to key challenges – and integrating strategies for economic growth and economic mobility,” said Jon Schnur, CEO of America Achieves. “With catalytic funding from initiatives like Tech Hubs, local partnerships are making substantial commitments to drive local economic competitiveness, create good jobs, and help more Americans pursue clear pathways to living wage jobs in high-growth local sectors of the economy.”
America Achieves will partner with a cohort of regional leaders to:
Strengthen the governance of diverse regional coalitions and the capacity of their lead organizations;
Support workforce and talent strategies, including the development of effective local workforce intermediaries; and
Identify sustainable funding to advance regional efforts.
America Achieves will also develop frameworks and tools based on lessons learned in these regions that can be shared with communities across the country interested in this work. In addition, the organization will continue to advocate for bipartisan efforts to advance public policy and communications in service of a Good Jobs Economy for everyone.
The initial communities receiving support from America Achieves, and additional funding and funders, will be announced in the coming months.
Out of hundreds of applicants to the bipartisan Tech Hubs program, 12 Tech Hubs to receive implementation grants totaling $504 million America Achieves calls for additional appropriations, already authorized by Congress with bipartisan support, to meet local demand for Tech Hubs nationwide
America Achieves congratulates the 12 regions winning Tech Hub implementation grants today. We are proud to have provided in-depth technical assistance to 6 of these 12 Tech Hubs.
The Biden-Harris Administration announced grants today through the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA). This program was enabled by Congress’ bipartisan $10 billion authorization of the Tech Hubs program as part of the CHIPS and Science Act in 2022 and an initial down payment of just over $500 million in appropriations.
America Achieves is calling on Congress to appropriate an additional $2 billion this year – 20% of bipartisan authorization levels – to fully fund all 31 of the designated Tech Hubs and enable a second funding competition. Further appropriations would put Americans to work in hundreds of thousands of good jobs that grow local industries of the future and strengthen U.S. competitiveness and national security.
“In rapidly changing local economies, communities across America are investing in local businesses, good jobs, and quality training for their residents to solve problems, grow the economy, and advance national security and competitiveness,” said America Achieves CEO Jon Schnur. “Today’s announcement – funded by the bipartisan Tech Hubs program – responds to surging local interest and leadership aiming to build vibrant Tech Hubs and a ‘Good Jobs Economy’ that creates new, good jobs and ensures that local residents have fair access to good jobs.”
Nearly 400 local coalitions submitted applications in the first round of the Tech Hubs competition last year. Of those applicants, 31 became designated Tech Hubs in October 2023. Today’s announcement provided a total of $504 million in funding to 12 of these Tech Hub designees. America Achieves also celebrates the incredible work of the 31 designated Tech Hubs that are poised to help communities compete globally, drive economic growth locally, and create good jobs; the EDA announced that all of them will receive significant benefits, regardless of whether they received federal funding this round.
The regions supported by America Achieves in their applications and receiving funds today include: The Tulsa Hub for Equitable & Trustworthy Autonomy (THETA) (Oklahoma); Headwaters Hub (Montana); the South Florida Climate Resilience Tech Hub; the Wisconsin Biohealth Tech Hub; and the Nevada Tech Hub.
After working closely with these coalitions, America Achieves feels confident that the Tech Hubs grantees will deliver on their potential by using funds effectively and creating Good Jobs Economies in their communities – growing a local economy that equips local residents with the skills, pathways, and support to get and keep good jobs that deliver on the Tech Hub promise.
“America Achieves was a trusted partner supporting our hub throughout this process,’’ said Wendy Harris, Regional Innovation Officer of the Wisconsin Biohealth Tech Hub. “From their expertise in workforce and economic development to their hands-on assistance with our application, they helped us lay the foundation for the Wisconsin Biohealth Tech Hub and our work to come.”
“Making Tulsa’s Tech Hub a reality was no small feat,” said Jennifer Hankins, managing director of Tulsa Innovation Labs, which led Tulsa’s Tech Hubs strategy, “and required contributions from partners across the country. America Achieves brought invaluable expertise and capacity to our team and was integral to developing a proposal that ultimately resulted in a historic investment to secure Tulsa’s economic future.”
A clear pathway toward fully funding the Tech Hubs program is essential to sustain the momentum that local leaders around the country have generated. In 2022, Congress provided bipartisan authorization for $10 billion to support the Tech Hub funding competition created by the CHIPS and Science Act and the Department of Commerce. To date, Congress has appropriated $541 million – just 5% – of this funding. This funding, while significant, is a first step that has only supported 3% of this first round of Tech Hubs applications. To fulfill the potential of this program and build Tech Hubs that create good jobs across the country, Congress must build on this down payment and appropriate the full amount authorized.
About Some of the Regions Supported by America Achieves
About America Achieves
America Achieves is a nonprofit organization that partners with local communities to support a blend of economic growth and economic mobility – creating Good Jobs Economies that create good jobs in high-growth sectors and ensuring that participation in those jobs much more closely reflects the diversity of local communities than it does today. For more than a decade, America Achieves has incubated high-performing initiatives, launched new nonprofit organizations, and partnered with local leaders focused on making their communities better places to live, learn, work, and raise a family. In recent years, our nonprofit organization has helped design, shape, and secure federal funding for a series of new programs and policies supporting place-based economic and workforce development. America Achieves helped regional coalitions that applied for this funding, with a combined success rate more than four times greater than the national average.
As my America Achieves colleagues and I close out the year, there is much to be grateful for and even more to be hopeful about. Recently, I read Heather McGhee’s The Sum of Us, and in it, she discusses the concept of a solidarity dividend, whereby gains in economic growth and generational wealth are made when communities come together across race, geographic boundaries and historical divides, and the outcomes benefit everyone.
This framing is something that has come to life this past year in communities across our country as federal funding has galvanized a new paradigm for economic development. A recent infusion of federal funding – including the Commerce Department’s Build Back Better Regional Challenge and Good Jobs Challenge initiatives, as well as the National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines and the CHIPS and Science Act – is creating momentum for economic growth that is equity-centered and workforce powered. In the new year, I am hopeful that even more coalitions across our country will lean into a solidarity dividend as they feel incentivized to do even more, particularly as more models of success proliferate and as those coalitions recognize the urgency, imperative and mutual benefits of increasing the pie.
When I think of the opportunity ahead, I am inspired by the progress that is sprouting in communities across our country. This includes the community in Port Arthur, Texas, where the stress on its healthcare system in a mostly rural area means emergency response takes an average of 30 minutes, in stark contrast to the industry gold standard of a less than 5 minute response time. A severe shortage in nursing and healthcare workers is the root cause of the problem, so the Lamar State Community College is working with four local universities and a coalition of partners to build a robust apprenticeship program to deepen and expand the pipeline of individuals entering the healthcare field, with a focus on communities of color, significantly underrepresented in the field at present.
Meanwhile, the Alliance for Building Better Medicine in the Richmond/Petersburg region is growing the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector, seeking to onshore the production of orphan drugs and generic medications. The sector's growth will benefit both the rural and urban communities in the region, including in communities where the poverty rate is 76% higher than the national average. They will do this through building bridge programs targeting Black youth and young adults and creating pathways for upwardly mobile jobs through partnerships with school districts, community colleges, local outreach partners and research universities.
In Ohio, an enhanced broadband strategy is bringing high speed internet access to unserved and underserved areas of the state by convening key stakeholders to build a broadband workforce, led by a central coordinator from the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation. Blending state and federal funding, these investments in broadband and 5G are expected to create tens of thousands of jobs in Ohio over the next decade.
These groups, among many others, are part of a movement that is afoot to create hope in communities where distress has been the primary commodity. Each of them is taking a unique and varied place-based approach – and doing so with a goal, implicitly or explicitly, to build a solidarity dividend, to grow the pie and to share it more broadly, enabling the benefits to multiply in breadth and depth.
These stories, and many more, are just the beginning of what is shaping up to be an epic, inspiring narrative about economic prosperity, with the bulk of its chapters yet to be written.
But the final version can only come to fruition if even more partners – including philanthropists, state leaders, businesses and educational institutions – come together to invest more deeply in making the impossible possible. Consider that this past year, 508 coalitions applied for the Good Jobs Challenge, 529 applied for the Build Back Better Regional Challenge, and 679 submitted concepts for NSF Engines.
Next year, we anticipate that even more coalitions will come together to pursue their visions, leveraging additional federal dollars from the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, to name a few. Regional coalitions cannot do the work alone. Only a fraction of the coalitions that have applied or are applying for federal grants will receive large funding, and even those that receive federal support have additional funding needs if they are to realize their goals of implementing programs that will achieve equitable systemic change.
In the coming year, one way that America Achieves will continue to seek to bridge that divide is through the Catalyze Registry that the White House announced in early November. It is intended to connect funders to promising coalitions with equity at their core, with the hope that an infusion of capital might enable them to construct a talent pipeline that could serve workers and businesses in in-demand sectors alike.
America Achieves will have exciting updates about the Catalyze Registry in the New Year, along with more specifics about our work and ways we hope you will actively engage. But for now, we wanted to say thank you for being part of this hope-building movement. Wishing you a safe, healthy, and hopeful holiday season.
As part of the White House Infrastructure Talent Pipeline Challenge and call to action this summer, President Biden announced today substantial commitments from across the country to equitable workforce development that supports good jobs building our nation’s infrastructure.
As part of the White House Infrastructure Talent Pipeline Challenge and call to action this summer, President Biden announced today substantial commitments from across the country to equitable workforce development that supports good jobs building our nation’s infrastructure.
One of the centerpiece announcements is $70 million in aligned philanthropic commitments from foundations working with the Families and Workers Fund, the What Works Plus Collaborative, and America Achieves. This includes more than $50 million in new philanthropic funding and a commitment to secure an additional $20 million in philanthropic funding for workforce development and equitable access to quality infrastructure jobs.
A key component to securing that funding is the Catalyze Registry, which America Achieves and the What Works Plus Collaborative are launching today. The registry is an innovative hub and matchmaking service that will help connect promising local talent pipeline initiatives – which seek to build skilled, diverse talent pools for upwardly mobile infrastructure jobs – with foundations and other nonprofit organizations that might fund those efforts.
One of the important and needed bipartisan efforts in recent years was the enactment of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law by Congress and the Biden Administration. This law will help create good jobs and strengthen the economy in communities across the country as they rebuild roads, bridges and rails, and ensure everyone has access to high-speed internet. But this critical national effort will not succeed without ensuring that qualified, local workers from all backgrounds are prepared and hired for these good jobs.
That’s why the Biden Administration has rightly focused the country on the need to help workers from all backgrounds prepare for and access quality infrastructure jobs. Successful implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will depend on sustained commitments and effective programs putting America’s talented and diverse workforce to work. Commitments from America Achieves and our partners are a response to this imperative and to the Infrastructure Talent Pipeline Challenge.
Critical to the effort will be information sharing and storytelling. America Achieves will support coalitions – partnerships of local and regional employers, community colleges and labor and workforce groups, community based organizations and intermediaries, among others – as they build profiles in the registry. Their profiles will include summary information about their projects, including partners, funding needs, geography – as well as photos to bring their stories to life. Finally, they will include any federal proposals and links to websites with more information. These profiles will show to funders the transformative potential of their work to improve lives through pathways to good jobs in in-demand sectors like broadband, construction, and electrification.
The leader of one of those coalitions, Maud Daudon of Career Connect Washington, told us: "We are excited to be a part of this registry as we look to maximize the impact of federal funding by attracting philanthropic dollars to fill in for critical activities that public dollars cannot support.”
The registry will be a one-stop source of information for philanthropic organizations looking to connect with local and regional initiatives that are applying for funding from various public programs. America Achieves will support funders as they engage with the registry by easily searching and filtering proposals based on their funding priorities and mission, and we will follow up with coalitions and initiatives that may align.
In partnering to help create the registry, America Achieves and the What Works Plus Collaborative are responding to a collective desire expressed by funders across the country for additional, creative ways to support these innovative efforts and to have a one-stop hub to view opportunities to provide funding.
“The recent surge in federal infrastructure funding offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to advance equity, fight climate change, and create good jobs in communities across the country,” said Sasha Beder-Schenker, a program director at What Works Plus. “This public-private partnership will help further these goals by enabling philanthropy to scale needed support for initiatives that build a diverse talent pool for good infrastructure jobs,” she added.
Funders will be able to search the registry for any key words, as well as filter and sort by fields – such as geography served and sector – that can help them identify potential projects to support. The image on the left shows an example of the profiles funders will be able to see.
The initial focus of the registry will be initiatives centered on workforce efforts aligned with federal infrastructure funding. Through philanthropic funding, America Achieves will also seek to increase the number of initiatives included in the registry to include promising, inclusive, place-based economic growth coalitions and workforce efforts.
As a result of Congress and the Biden Administration's inspiring leadership on this issue – and the commitment of our mission-driven philanthropic partners – people across the country, from small towns to big cities, will have access to pathways leading them to good jobs and careers in infrastructure and beyond. At the same time, employers and communities will benefit from connecting with the workers and talent pool needed to repair our roads and bridges, build out broadband, and expand access to electric charging stations across our nation, among other areas of great need.
You can read more about today’s announcement in this press release. If you work for a foundation seeking to have impact in the spirit of the Talent Pipeline Challenge, you can learn more about how to sign up for the registry here.
And if you’ve got questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me, at communications@americaachieves.org.
Investments will help ensure a diverse, qualified talent pool for quality infrastructure jobs impacting tens of thousands of underrepresented workers
Today, President Biden announced commitments made by more than 350 organizations in 50 states and territories as part of the InfrastructureTalent Pipeline Challenge. This includes more than $70 million in aligned philanthropic commitments from foundations working with The Families and Workers Fund, the What Works Plus Collaborative, and America Achieves. The Challenge, launched by the Biden-Harris Administration in June, is a nationwide call to action for making tangible commitments supporting equitable workforce development focused on quality infrastructure jobs.
Today’s announcement includes more than $50 million in new philanthropic funding and a commitment to secure an additional $20 million in philanthropic funding for workforce development and equitable access to quality infrastructure jobs. To help secure that additional funding, America Achieves and the What Works Plus Collaborative are launching the Catalyze Registry, with matchmaking services to connect foundations with promising initiatives, and the Families and Workers Fund is launching a pooled fund portfolio.
The Catalyze Registry is an innovative hub and matchmaking service that will connect promising local talent pipeline initiatives – which seek to build skilled, diverse talent pools for upwardly mobile infrastructure jobs – with foundations and other nonprofit organizations that might fund those efforts. The goals of the registry are to:
America Achieves will support coalitions – partnerships of local and regional employers, community colleges, and labor and workforce groups, among others – as they build profiles in the registry. Those profiles will include summary information, photos, proposals, and other materials that explain to funders the transformative potential of their proposals to improve lives through pathways to good jobs in in-demand sectors, such as clean energy, transportation, and broadband. America Achieves will also work one-on-one with interested funders to support them in finding aligned and promising initiatives.
Established in 2010, America Achieves’ strategic focus and mission is to create clear pathways for economic advancement and success for all in a rapidly changing economy. America Achieves catalyzes large-scale impact by generating and incubating ideas, delivering thought partnership and philanthropic funding to promising and sustainable models, and convening and advising foundations and other key leaders to advance evidence-based solutions. Essential to these efforts is creating a shared understanding of the challenge and the range of potential solutions to ensure Americans can obtain the education and skills they need to be successful in the 21st century workplace.
Launched in 2022, the What Works Plus (WW+) Collaborative coordinates across philanthropy, non-profits, and government to advance equity and climate resilience by addressing gaps in the implementation of federal infrastructure funding. The collaborative focuses on developing and supporting partnerships that result in better outcomes for communities, workers, and entrepreneurs across four main areas: 1) government capacity building, 2) diverse pipelines to good infrastructure jobs, 3) inclusive and equitable procurement, and 4) community engagement. What Works Plus (WW+) is housed at Freedman Consulting, a firm known for its public-private partnership expertise and is creating a learning community for philanthropic funders interested in cross-sector collaboration.
The Families and Workers Fund is a coalition of diverse philanthropies working to help repair and reimagine the systems that fuel economic security, opportunity, and mobility. By deploying funding and building partnerships, the Fund seeks to advance jobs that sustain and uplift people and invest in developing a more inclusive, effective public benefits system.
“The Biden Administration has rightly focused the country on the need to help workers from all backgrounds prepare for and access quality infrastructure jobs. Successful implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will depend on sustained commitments and effective programs putting America’s talented and diverse workforce to work. Commitments from America Achieves and our partners respond to this imperative and to the Infrastructure Talent Pipeline Challenge. As a result of the bipartisan efforts by Congress and the Biden Administration’s leadership on infrastructure and workforce development, communities across the country, from small towns to big cities, have an opportunity to build quality infrastructure while putting local residents to work in good jobs making this possible. With a successful focus on workforce development, employers and communities will benefit from connecting with the diverse, qualified workers needed to repair local roads and bridges, build out broadband, and expand access to electric charging stations. America’s talented and diverse workforce will be able to access good jobs and contribute their talents and skills to make this possible.”
“The recent surge in federal infrastructure funding offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to advance equity, fight climate change, and create good jobs in communities across the country. This public-private partnership will help further these goals by enabling philanthropy to scale needed support for initiatives that build a diverse talent pool for good infrastructure jobs.”
We are excited to be a part of this registry as we look to maximize the impact of federal funding by attracting philanthropic dollars to fill in for critical activities that public dollars cannot support.”
The White House fact sheet can be viewed here. Watch President Biden’s announcement at 2:15pm ET on November 2nd, 2022 here. The new Catalyze Registry site can be viewed here. More information can also be found on the America Achieves blog.
Accelerate, a new nonprofit organization that seeks to embed high-impact tutoring programs in public schools, today announced it has selected 31 education and research partners to receive over $10 million in grant funding to develop and scale sustainable, cost-effective models for high-impact tutoring that boost academic achievement for students. In addition to supporting innovative programs, the grants target research focused on specific barriers that have previously stood in the way of making high-impact tutoring affordable, accessible, and sustainable. Grantees are working in 28 states across the country.
Accelerate, a new nonprofit organization that seeks to embed high-impact tutoring programs in public schools, today announced it has selected 31 education and research partners to receive over $10 million in grant funding to develop and scale sustainable, cost-effective models for high-impact tutoring that boost academic achievement for students. In addition to supporting innovative programs, the grants target research focused on specific barriers that have previously stood in the way of making high-impact tutoring affordable, accessible, and sustainable. Grantees are working in 28 states across the country.
The announcement comes six months after the organization’s formal launch, at which U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona encouraged public schools to adopt high-impact tutoring models, and days after newly released National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores showed major declines in academic performance of American schoolchildren.
“We know that good tutoring programs work — partly because well-off families have used them to boost student success for generations. And we know that those same programs can be a powerful tool to close racial and economic opportunity gaps when we give less privileged students the same access. What we haven’t figured out yet is how to make high-impact tutoring available for everyone,” said Accelerate CEO Kevin Huffman. “With districts deciding how to spend one-time federal funds to combat the effects of the pandemic, solving that challenge has never been more urgent.”
Research has found well-designed tutoring programs to be one of the most effective educational interventions. However, the best-proven models are labor-intensive, making them difficult and expensive to expand. Accerelate’s grants take aim at that tension.
Accelerate’s grantees, which represent school districts, tutoring providers, nonprofit organizations and others across the country, will receive financial and operational support to design, implement, and scale innovative tutoring strategies; join a national community in which they can share best practices and resources; and help inform Accelerate’s national research and policy agenda on tutoring. All grantees will participate in formal research to assess program effectiveness and to explore research questions that will shape the design of future tutoring efforts.
“The inaugural cohort of grantees represents some of the most innovative organizations in the space,” said Dr. Janice Jackson, Executive Chair of Accelerate and CEO of Hope Chicago. “From tutoring models that are virtual, to models that are embedded in the traditional school day, to models that focus on specific subjects or student populations, each grantee has a unique approach to high-impact tutoring, but all share a common goal of putting forward strategies that are cost effective, that can be scaled over time and that help close achievement gaps, particularly for our most vulnerable learners.”
Among the grantees is Reading Partners, a non-profit organization that provides foundational literacy tutoring to students, and has proven successful through randomized controlled trials. The non-profit received a grant to implement and study its new Reading Partners Connects model, a virtual tutoring program based on the successful in-person model.
“We are excited to be part of Accelerate’s new initiative to embed high-impact tutoring in public education,” said Adeola Whitney, CEO of Reading Partners. “High-impact tutoring is proven to increase student achievement and help close opportunity gaps. While much research has examined the positive effects of in-person tutoring, we are thrilled to be partnering with Accelerate to examine the impact of our Reading Partners Connects online tutoring program which we think can be a game-changer in advancing educational equity at scale.”
Among the other grantees:
The announcement of the inaugural cohort of grantees follows a competitive national selection process. In spring 2022, Accelerate released a Call to Effective Action to recruit partners to design, launch, and scale high-impact tutoring efforts and to build a community committed to impact. A diverse panel of experts reviewed more than 200 letters of intent and invited finalists to submit a full-length proposal. All 31 grantees receiving awards are working with students and schools in this academic year.
View a list of all grantees and a summary of their tutoring models.
About Accelerate
Accelerate is a nonprofit organization, incubated and launched by the national nonprofit America Achieves, that seeks to embed high-impact tutoring programs into public schools now and for the long term. Launched in April 2022 with an initial fund of $65 million, Accelerate funds and supports innovation in schools, launches high-quality research, and advances a federal and state policy agenda to support this work.
Accelerate is leading efforts to improve practice on multiple fronts, including as a lead technical assistance partner to the National Partnership for Student Success (NPSS). The NPSS is a joint partnership of more than 100 organizations, The Department of Education, AmeriCorps, the Johns Hopkins Everyone Graduates Center to launch a new coalition formed to expand high-quality tutoring, mentoring, and other evidence-based support programs, with the goal of ensuring an additional 250,000 adults serve in these roles over the next three years.
Accelerate is supported by Kenneth C. Griffin, founder and chief executive officer of Citadel; Arnold Ventures; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and the Overdeck Family Foundation.
For more information, visit http://www.accelerate.us.
