RISE II

The goal of the RISE initiative is to help secure good careers for low income Wisconsin adults and a skilled workforce for Wisconsin employers by increasing the number of low skill adults who earn postsecondary credentials related to high-demand jobs. We are committed to reaching that goal by establishing a policy environment in which career pathways, including bridge programs, can flourish.

Under our first Joyce Foundation Shifting Gears grant, Wisconsin has established important career pathway concepts and definitions to anchor further work, established a local base of support in technical colleges and workforce development programs, seeded local innovation, developed a basis for new analysis of adult learning trajectories and outcomes, and assembled a comprehensive policy agenda. To name some specific accomplishments, we:

Built our career pathway model and defined career pathway operational elements;
Defined the RISE initiative’s target population and middle-skill career job opportunities;
Raised the level of awareness and professional knowledge of stakeholders throughout Wisconsin’s technical college system and workforce development system regarding the career pathway strategy;
Created a technical college system data set to support adult learning pipeline analysis and carried out initial descriptive analyses;
Identified workforce development and technical college system administrative policy challenges and began work to develop policy solutions;
Funded the development of prototype career pathway and bridge curricula;
Funded projects to stimulate industry engagement in career pathway work and create tools and protocols to boost future industry engagement work.

Wisconsin received a second round of funding from the Joyce Foundation. With this grant, we will move forward to accomplish the policy changes identified in our policy agenda. We will turn our communications efforts outward and plan and conduct a strategic communications campaign aimed at developing broad public and private support for our overall goal. We will proceed with our data work to create a new, effective system for examining adult learners’ educational transitions and outcomes to inform our policy change efforts, strategic communications campaign, and career pathways development and evaluation.