SkillsFWD awards six inaugural grants
December 7, 2023 — Today, SkillsFWD — a new initiative on a mission to catalyze a more equitable skills-based hiring ecosystem — announced inaugural grants to fund projects solving challenges around the adoption and accessibility of learning and employment records (LERs). LERs are digital records of an individual’s formal and informal learning and employment and can be used to represent diverse experiences on the job or inside the classroom.
Each project will bring together cross-industry stakeholders, including employers, learners and workers, education and training providers, and policymakers, to build upon existing tools and systems and demonstrate how to make LERs scalable. The six grant-winning teams will spearhead diverse projects across the country, generating replicable models and sharing original learnings and insights.
Accelerate Montana's Validated Skills will pilot statewide adoption of LERs among employers of all sizes in the construction trades and technology industries across urban, rural, and tribal communities.
The Alabama Talent Triad, supported by C-BEN, will leverage its comprehensive skills-based talent marketplace — which uses the lifecycle of LERs to connect job-seekers to employment and education opportunities — to scale state-wide pathways from entry credentials to middle skills jobs across four industries.
The Workforce Development Board of Central Ohio’s project, called the Central Ohio Talent Network — powered by SchooLinks, a market-leading college and career readiness platform — leverages SchooLinks’ work-based learning solution to power new modes of early career talent and employer matching at scale via LERs.
The Colorado Workforce Development Council’s ColoradoFWD project will leverage LERs to efficiently match skills and talent to opportunity, promote economic mobility, and empower learners and earners in order to address urgent direct care and behavioral healthcare talent shortages.
Arizona State University’s project, Student Worker Employment for Skills-Based Success, will empower students seeking work to gain meaningful student employment through a scalable LER-driven job marketplace while reducing barriers to hiring for employers.
Led by the Connecticut Office of Workforce Strategy, Scaling the Skills-Based Workforce System in CT will strategically expand the state’s skills-based hiring ecosystem, leveraging LERs to bridge the skills gap, foster equitable and effective employment practices, and set a scalable model for nationwide, demand-driven workforce development.
“LERs have the potential to transform the landscape of workforce and economic development, but there is still a gap between the existence of these records and their adoption and use by individuals and employers,” said Dawn Karber, director of SkillsFWD. “By collaborating with diverse stakeholders to reshape the narrative around skills, SkillsFWD grantees will drive meaningful and measurable change to ensure that every individual's unique learning journey is recognized and valued.”
These six projects, which will help shape the future of the skills-based hiring movement, come at a critical juncture. More than 70 million adults in the United States are skilled through community college, workforce training, bootcamps, certificate programs, military service or on-the-job learning, rather than through a bachelor’s degree. Fueled by an intensely competitive job market, employers are beginning to adapt their hiring practices to reach this underutilized talent pool — between 2017 and 2019, employers removed degree requirements from nearly half of middle-skill jobs and a third of high-skills jobs.
Increased adoption of LERs is crucial to continue this shift and ensure it is implemented equitably, enabling workers to better track and express their unique experiences and ability to succeed in a job while helping employers transform how they source talent and establish work cultures focused on lifelong learning and demonstrated ability.
“SkillsFWD was created in recognition of the unique opportunity we have to ensure the digitization of education and employment is implemented effectively and with equity at its center,” said Heidi Hernandez Gatty, vice president of arts & education at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, which is the fiscal sponsor for SkillsFWD. “We’re excited to see the transformational change that these grantees will drive to enable more learners and workers to access quality education and career opportunities.”
SkillsFWD receives funding support from Ascendium Education Group, the Charles Koch Foundation, Strada Education Foundation, Walmart and other funders.
