America Achieves Inc

Implementation support for other competitive federal investments (build back better regional challenge, good jobs challenge)additionally, over the past year, we have actively supported 7 regions receiving build back better regional challenge grants and good jobs challenge grants (programs we helped design) to build their workforce intermediary capacity through our education-to- employment (e2e) applied professional learning cohort that included workshops featuring regional exemplars from across the country, peer learning, and technical assistance. (continued on schedule o)following this, we began developing our technical assistance teams and approach to provide customized support to four regional coalitions, along with an applied professional learning cohort for 11 regions. We are partnering with brookings metro to provide this applied community practice, along with accompanying research briefs and webinars that share insights and emerging evidence from inclusive economic initiatives across the country.these supports - ranging from dedicated advisors to a soon-to-be-launched applied professional learning cohort to capacity-building grants - have focused on helping regions strengthen their multi-sector coalitions, begin to implement strategically coherent outcomes-focused governance practices, and build backbone organization capacity. Strategic planning and associated design work for aligning the supply and demand of talent with regional economic developmentduring the grant period, we also designed the next phase of our work: the good jobs economy initiative. A centerpiece of this work is to align the supply of diverse talent with the demand for good jobs, driving both equity and growth in key economic innovation sectors, as well as in-demand local occupations. Our national security and economic competitiveness depends on a much broader set of our population set up to drive and benefit from economic growth and innovation. To address this challenge, place-based efforts are crucial partly because so many places risk being left behind without a focused place-based strategy, and because labor markets are mostly local. The implications for the economy and democracy are severe unless a larger and diverse set of communities are helping to drive and benefit from economic growth and innovation. This next phase of our strategy includes providing enhanced support to a small set of proof-point regions to demonstrate inclusive economic growth, providing a set of core supports to help a broader set of regions make progress toward their regional visions, and supporting a set of states to build statewide workforce intermediary capacity and the conditions and policies to support, scale, and sustain the regional work. One of the key features of this work at both the regional and state levels is to build workforce intermediary capacity to develop, coordinate, and sustain expanded pathways to opportunity. This includes aligning training systems to industry demand linked to good jobs and associated career navigation and wraparound support to help local residents access, benefit from, and contribute to economic opportunity in their communities. This state-level work also includes enabling policies, longitudinal data systems to clarify gaps between demand and supply of talent for good jobs and track equity of outcomes, sustainable funding streams, and multi-sector coalitions across regions that include large employers, higher education institutions, and state government.we will complete the three-year strategic plan aligned to this direction in the first half of 2025 and fully launch this work in the summer or fall of 2025.