In 2020, Spark the Journey co-founded the Talent for Tomorrow Alliance consisting of Spark, Year Up, New Futures, Genesys Works, and Per Scholas. This alliance was founded to ensure that students have ready access to different programming resources as their journey changes. We work purposefully to close racial, income, and opportunity gaps by developing a new collaborative paradigm that invests in a diverse and skilled talent pipeline.
This partnership works with students who miss access to economic opportunity due to a lack of credentials, degrees, and perpetuated cycles of inequity. The Alliance leverages the strengths of each organization to support the student life cycle through to a career. We share an office with a dedicated classroom and event space to deliver collaborative programming.
“Year Up is a workforce development program that prepares you for internships. It’s unreal how much I have learned in the past 6 months. I was taught professional etiquette, resume building, and how to leverage LinkedIn. Currently I am a software development intern at Navy Federal, this alone would not have been possible without Year Up. Yes, I could have taken a traditional 4-year route but even that doesn’t guarantee results. I am now a certified scrum master (at no cost to me) and am pursuing a PEGA developer certification paid for by Navy Federal.”
– Erick, Spark student
For the last three years, Spark’s programs team has delivered college application workshops and assistance to Year Up students. We refer Spark students like Erick to participate in Year Up, New Futures, and Genesys Works’s programming concurrently with our offerings. Early impact analysis shows a strong correlation between improved economic mobility and participating in two or more Alliance programs.
Additionally, we are currently piloting a program to deliver our mentoring program directly to Year Up’s students, who participate in six months of paid job training followed by six months of paid internship placements. During our 2023 fiscal year, we aim to match up to 120 young people with Spark mentors who will support them through their Year Up experience.
This shorter program duration gives our mentors and staff the opportunity to have a significant impact on important life transitions in far less time than our traditional model and will be less expensive to operate on an annual basis. Expanded programming with Year Up and our other Alliance partners will enable Spark to reach almost twice as many young people a year than we previously could through academic programming alone. Over the next three years, we anticipate supporting an additional 480 young people through these partnerships and pipeline programs.