Announcing The Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship 2021 Grantees

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA), a multi-stakeholder initiative led by New America, has awarded 17 grants to regional youth apprenticeship partnerships. Totaling nearly $3 million, the grants will support collaborative efforts among employers, educators, community partners, and policy leaders to pilot and expand high-quality youth apprenticeship programs.

These grants will advance PAYA’s goal of creating 10,000 youth apprenticeships by 2025 that put young people onto postsecondary pathways and into good jobs. PAYA’s work is guided by a set of Principles for Youth Apprenticeship that put quality and equity at the center of program development efforts. The investment and technical assistance strategy includes three types of grants, each designed to meet the specific needs of partnerships at different stages of development.

PAYA Development Grants:

Development Grantees will receive grants and technical assistance to support early-stage design and implementation of programs. Over an 18-month grant period beginning in May 2021, grantees will participate in a structured, cohort-based planning sprint to develop multi-year strategies for expanding and strengthening youth apprenticeship. The Development Cohort includes:

• Albuquerque Partners for Youth Apprenticeships, led by Future Focused Education (Albuquerque, NM)
• Ascend Indiana (Indianapolis, IN)
• Career Launch Kalamazoo (Kalamazoo, MI)
• LAUNCH Apprenticeship Network (Riverside County, CA)
• Southeast Tennessee Works (Chattanooga, TN)
• The Youth Apprenticeship of Western New York Partnership (Buffalo, NY)

PAYA Accelerator Grants:

In 2019, PAYA awarded grants to nine partnerships in the first joint philanthropic investment to expand youth apprenticeship in the United States. To accelerate implementation of these strategies, PAYA has reinvested in its original nine grantees:

• Apprenticeship 502 (Louisville, KY)
• ApprenticeshipNC (Raleigh, NC)
• The Birmingham Promise (Birmingham, AL)
• Career Launch Chicago (Chicago, IL)
• Early Care & Education Pathways to Success (Walnut Creek, CA)
• King County Regional Youth Apprenticeship Consortium (Seattle, WA)
• Montana Youth Apprenticeship Partnership (Helena, MT)
• Texas Youth Apprenticeship Program (Austin, TX)
• PPL LEAP Youth Apprenticeships (Minneapolis, MN)

For more information about the programs and strategies led by these partnerships, see the profiles of all Accelerator Cohort grantees here.

PAYA National Learning Hub Grants:

To support the growth of a well-networked, self-sustaining field of youth apprenticeship, PAYA has awarded grants to establish two National Learning Hubs to help drive the expansion of high-quality youth apprenticeship. The hubs will be led by two of PAYA’s inaugural National Partner organizations:

• CareerWise Colorado (Denver, CO)
• Charleston Regional Youth Apprenticeship at Trident Technical College (Charleston, SC)

“To compete for quality jobs in the recovery and build careers in the economy of the future, young adults will need postsecondary options that combine work experience and structured, low-cost pathways to degrees. Youth apprenticeship is uniquely designed to meet these needs,” said Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America. “As communities navigate the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, these grants will provide critical support to public-private partnerships working to develop and rapidly expand apprenticeship opportunities for youth. We are thrilled to award grants to these 17 local and regional innovators to support their efforts to build more inclusive economies through youth apprenticeship.”

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About Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA):

Created by New America in 2018, the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA) is a multi-year, multi-stakeholder initiative that expands economic opportunity by assisting innovative organizations around the country in developing robust youth apprenticeship programs that are scaled and replicated to serve students, employers and communities alike. Since launch, PAYA has supported the work of more than 50 place-based partnerships across the U.S. through its grants and the recently-expanded PAYA Network.

PAYA is comprised of the following National Partner organizations: Advance CTE, CareerWise Colorado, Charleston Regional Youth Apprenticeship at Trident Technical College, Education Strategy Group, JFF, the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity, and the National Governors Association. PAYA is supported by funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Ballmer Group, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Joyce Foundation, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, Siemens Foundation, Smidt Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation.