Nonprofit Organizations are Invited to Apply for CareerReady ATL Request for Proposals in March
By Michele Jacobs, Senior Director of Youth Development at United Way of Greater Atlanta
Recently, United Way of Greater Atlanta and NBA Foundation had our first site visit for CareerReady ATL. Our CareerReady ATL partners in the industries of Film/media, Construction and Information Technology shared their insights about creating youth apprenticeship programs for youth ages 16-24. Thanks to NBA Foundation and our other philanthropic partners, United Way of Greater Atlanta is launching its first CareerReady ATL Request for Proposal in February 2023 to identify and fund organizations who are creating pre-apprenticeships and youth apprenticeships in the Greater Atlanta area (13-County region).
CareerReady ATL is an initiative to build a Youth Apprenticeship System that will scale and sustain youth apprenticeship opportunities for Black, Hispanic, and other youth of color furthest from opportunity in the Greater Atlanta region. CareerReady ATL was launched by the United Way of Greater Atlanta (UWGA) in alignment to their College and Career Ready investment priority which aims to improve the college and career readiness for 15,000 youth.
It is critical that our region increases access to college and career ready opportunities for youth and young adults while addressing systemic issues, racial equity, and poverty in our current educational and workforce systems. Our focus is to equip youth with high quality college and career opportunities that eliminate achievement gaps and lead to sustainable careers and greater economic prosperity. Youth apprenticeships are programs designed to do this by preparing youth for the workforce with paid, hands-on work experience alongside coursework. In the past, apprenticeship was focused on the trades, but now it is being used to grow talent pipelines in all fields for 1,000s of high growth, living wage occupations.
CareerReady ATL celebrates the robust work-based learning and adult workforce programs and leadership that exist in Greater Atlanta. We want to build upon this success and work with partners to grow the capacity for more youth apprenticeship opportunities. Therefore, the RFP will focus on two types of CareerReady ATL investments in youth apprenticeship: 1) Program Development Grants and 2) Program Implementation Grants through our career pathway strategy. This strategy focuses on cultivating developmentally appropriate opportunities for young people to build soft and hard skills including youth apprenticeships that will make them competitive in the current and future workforce. The grant application is open from March 13th – April 7th. For more information, please visit https://unitedwayatlanta.org/funding-opportunity/careerready-atl-grant-opportunity/.
