Six National Training Providers and Three Major Donors Join Nationwide Effort to Help Millions of Americans Get Back to Work
The SkillUp Together Fund announced an ambitious expansion of its national effort to provide training and job placement support for millions of American workers displaced by the ongoing economic impacts of the recession. In the past six months they’ve awarded $500,000 in grants to people seeking new skills to get in-demand jobs. The SkillUp Together Fund is an initiative of the national social impact nonprofit SkillUp Coalition, founded in 2020 to create paths to economic mobility for more than 40 million workers nationwide.
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“Workers embarking on the path to gain skills leading to in-demand jobs face a lot of challenges; finding a high-quality program that leads to a good job, completing those rigorous programs and supporting themselves and their families,” said Beth Davis, VP of training and analytics at the SkillUp Coalition. “The fund aims to help workers by finding partners who are at the top of their field and offering financial support to assist workers with the financial burdens of reskilling. Learners have used their grants for everything from childcare to books to groceries to rent — underscoring the critical role that financial support can play in helping displaced workers navigate the path back to financial stability.”
As part of its expansion, the SkillUp Together Fund welcomed six new training providers to its platform: skill seekers will now be able to access training for in-demand roles including HVAC technicians, medical assistants, and electricians from Austin Career Institute, Climb Hire, Creating Coding Careers, ForgeNow, NPower, and Propel America. Supporting this effort are commitments of more than $1 Million from new funding partners including Charles D. and Mary A. Bauer Foundation, Macquarie Group Foundation, and Mark IV Capital’s Victory Logistics District.
“NPower’s Tech Fundamentals program helps individuals not only transition from ‘hourly to salary’ jobs, but moves them to high mobility occupational clusters where they have far greater opportunities for growth—and to become more insulated from economic dislocations like another pandemic,” said Bertina Ceccarelli, CEO of NPower. “We are thrilled to be part of the SkillUp ecosystem of training providers and for the opportunity to connect more members of our community to quality jobs and a path to self-sufficiency.”
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The SkillUp Together Fund provides financial support to workers enrolling in training programs that can lead to in-demand careers in growing industries. Workers enrolling into programs offered by our fund-eligible partners who are 18 years or older making under $40,000 a year and have less than a bachelor’s degree are eligible for the grants provided by the SkillUp Together Fund. In the last six months, the fund awarded more than 500 grants to learners across the country, many of whom are now graduating from their respective programs. The SkillUp Together Fund partners with training providers with demonstrated retention, completion and placement rates in the top of their category—typically completion rates near 90 percent, job placement rates of more than 80 percent, and an average of at least $20,000 in annual wage increases.
“I was working third shift and going to training full-time. The grant from SkillUp helped me pay my rent a month early, so I didn’t have to worry about it while completing my program,” said Brianna Griffin, a Per Scholas graduate and SkillUp Together Fund grant recipient who now works at Encore Technologies. “Before this, I was a custodian. I knew I could do more, I just never knew what I should do when it came down to my career. I just wanted a work life balance and I knew I could get there with this program. I am really grateful for this program – it changed my life.”
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