Accelerating Industry-Led Regional Talent Development Competition

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Overview

The goal of this competition is to identify, disseminate, and facilitate the replication of best practices in private-public partnerships to build a regional pool of workers with the skills needed by regional businesses. Through this Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO), EDA seeks a non-profit “national partner” that will work with a Federal team led by the Department of Commerce to launch a learning exchange to identify, promote, and expand upon successful best practices for industry-driven regional partnerships for talent development. The learning exchange is a mechanism to identify, understand, and elevate best practices, facilitate peer learning and deepen knowledge, spark replication and advancement across regions, and inform the long-term public investment in talent development.

Through the learning exchange, EDA seeks to: (a) develop a better understanding of successful regional partnerships for talent development, with a focus on how and why industry-led regional partnerships lead to better outcomes for employers, workers and the regional economy; and (b) accelerate the adoption of industry-led regional partnerships for talent development. Regional partnerships can result in positive impacts, including: fewer companies asserting that they cannot find an appropriate quantity of skilled workers; increased information on job availability; increased regional hiring rates and wages; increased new domestic and foreign business investment; increased job quality and job functions in targeted industries; and a potential decline in regional unemployment.

The project will help communities identify and expand best practices and strategies that help align successful, replicable job-driven efforts within a broader, comprehensive frame of regional economic development. EDA seeks to review the attributes of successful regional or local partnerships for talent development, analyze the types of activities that have the greatest impact, and identify best practices based on this review. This work will enable development practitioners and policymakers to more effectively understand the role of the private sector, economic development, regional partners, and government in addressing critical skills needs. These best practices will be used to scale and sustain the adoption and acceleration of industry-led regional partnerships for talent development across the nation, and to inform future Federal, state, local and philanthropic initiatives.

Available Funding

This competition will be funded through EDA’s Research and Evaluation program, at a level of up to $500,000 with a minimum 20% in matching funds from the applicant.

For more information please contact EDA at: [email protected]