REGIONAL CAREER NETWORKSREGIONAL CAREER NETWORKSA free tool for nonprofit leaders serving opportunity youth, veterans, adults with autism, and career changers
A program that outlives its grant starts with seeing the grants your region could win next. RCN Grant Watch shows your nonprofit the verified workforce grants worth your board's time, the role a Nonprofit plays on each one, and what it looks like to go after them with a full team behind you. It is how we find the nonprofits we win grants with.
In San Bernardino, the people a nonprofit serves now walk a career pathway the state funds, with the region's educator and companies committed in writing. Here is the model, the tool behind it, and how your nonprofit can use both.
CREATE MY FREE RCN GRANT WATCH ACCOUNTSee the grants your region could win.Takes about two minutes.
Where this came from
My name is Daniel Wierman. Before any of this had a name, I ran a registered apprenticeship on a machine shop floor in Southern California. One day a young man in quality control asked me to print his training certificates. There were about twenty of them. I handed him the stack, he looked at it for about ten seconds, looked up at me, and said, bro, I barely graduated high school. I knew he was going to go tell his girlfriend. He was going to tell his mom. He had earned something.
That moment changed how I see this work. A career pathway makes hope visible.
Then I spent years inside a Southern California workforce system that managed 120 programs, and I watched the same movie on repeat. A nonprofit wins a grant. They build a program that works. People get trained. Companies start hiring. Then the money dries up, and the program could end with it. The partners scatter. The staff move on. And the nonprofit that held the grant is the one left explaining to the funder why the numbers fell short. When the next grant arrives, everybody rebuilds from scratch.
That showed me the real problem. The nonprofit, the school, and the company each did their part. Programs die because they are built on a single grant, and because they run alone.
The fix
So we built a way for a region's partners to do the work together. In plain words, a Regional Career Network is the nonprofits, schools, and employers of one region, committed in writing to run one career pathway together, so the work survives any single grant. The formal definition, the one we use in grant narratives:
A Regional Career Network is a locally coordinated system of nonprofits, educators, and employers that moves people into careers, with sector-specific pathways like CNC, Welding, or Maritime deployed based on regional demand.
Inside it, the load is divided by design. Nonprofits provide participants and wraparound services. Educators provide the training needed to be hired. Companies hire graduates and sponsor apprenticeships. Support Partners, such as chambers, workforce boards, and conveners, provide resources and networking. People move through one simple path: Get Informed. Get Trained. Get Hired.
Every commitment is in writing, and the network stays standing between funding cycles, so the partners can go after the next grant together without starting over. We build the working pathway that moves people through each step.
RCN Grant Watch
I read grant opportunities across the country and load the real ones into a tool called RCN Grant Watch. Each grant in it is verified and read for your region and your role, so you open it already knowing whether it fits your nonprofit. One real card of the 71 in the watch as I write this:
A person read and checked every grant in the watch. When a round closes, the card says so and watches for the next one.
Each card shows what the funder says next to Our Narrative, the story we would tell for your region, and each partner's role.
Your account carries your ZIP code, so I know which region you are watching from. Federal and national grants apply everywhere, so no region starts empty.
How your nonprofit uses it
Enter your first name, your work email, and your organization's ZIP code.
Every grant card is read for what a Nonprofit does on it: the ask, the deadline, who can apply, and what it funds.
Which partner carries it changes from grant to grant: a nonprofit, an educator, or a support partner. When it is your nonprofit, the money flows through you and the other partners back you with signed Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs), each committed in writing to what it will do for the grant. When it is another partner, your nonprofit backs them the same way.
Every card has that button. It opens my calendar. You pick a time for a thirty minute meeting about the people you serve, and the grant comes with you. The meeting is a working session on the people you serve, the grants that fit them, and the partners we would go after them with.
Partnership
RCN Grant Watch is how I meet the nonprofits I go after grants with. When a region wins, each partner carries its part of the work, and so does my team. Your account puts your nonprofit on our map, so when the right grant lands in your region, we already know each other.
The proof
A California Opportunity Youth Apprenticeship award, alongside a Strong Workforce Program grant, supported an operating STEM Lab in San Bernardino and an apprenticeship formed with the state.
Enter your first name, your work email, and your organization's ZIP code, then press the gold button. Your account opens right away.
So I know which region you are watching from.
When you want more than the watch
In a Regional Career Network, your nonprofit does what it already does best. You provide participants and wraparound services. The fiscal lead on each grant is chosen from the partners, and it changes from grant to grant.
Your team already writes grants. What it has not had to write is an advanced manufacturing grant: the occupations, what a STEM Lab holds, what the educator needs, what a company will commit to, and the story of a whole region's partners moving people into one pathway. That is what we bring, into the grant with your writer. The rest of the pathway work is carried by CNC Career Network, our delivery team, named for the first sector we built pathways in: the materials that fulfill the grant, the career pathway itself, training for your regional partners, promotion that fills the pipeline, and the outcomes your funders ask for. The educators and companies come from your region's own network, each signed through an MOU that says what they will do for the grant: the educators to training matched to the skills the companies hire for, the companies to interviews, tours, and classroom speakers. The partners doing funded work are attached to the Lead Applicant as contracted partners, each with a Scope of Work in the budget. Your board sees each partner's commitment in writing.
When you sit down with a college, a machine shop, or a workforce board, bring me. I explain the sector and the regional strategy to them, and bring them into the Regional Career Network for your region. You do not have to know the sector to have those meetings.
Once your people leave you for the trainer or the company, you cannot see what happened to them, and the funder wants those numbers from you. In a Regional Career Network the CNC Career Guide records each step a career seeker takes toward the trainer and the company, and the RCN Upskill Tracker records what they can do once hired. The report to the funder comes from the tools, not from chasing partners.
When your region wins, every partner in the coalition is funded for its part of the work, whether your nonprofit is the Lead Applicant or backs the partner who is.
Your nonprofit brings a lot to a regional partnership. You have the participants, the wraparound services, your own grant writers, and the community standing. You do not have to wait for a grant card. Start the conversation now.
Apply to Work With Us on Your RegionTakes about two minutes. Then I reach out to set up a meeting about the people you serve and the role that fits your nonprofit.
This is what we're going to do. Do you want to be a part of it?
CREATE MY FREE RCN GRANT WATCH ACCOUNTSee the grants your region could win.Takes about two minutes.
P.S. RCN Grant Watch is a free tool for nonprofit leaders who serve opportunity youth, veterans, adults with autism, and career changers, and want programs that outlive the grant. Every grant is verified by a person and read for your region and the role your nonprofit plays on it. It is how we start the partnerships that win grants for a region. Create your account, and if you want a career pathway for the people you serve, apply to work with us on your region.