REGIONAL CAREER NETWORKSREGIONAL CAREER NETWORKSFor workforce boards, chambers, economic development groups, credentialing bodies, and the service providers who grow a region
A Regional Career Network is the nonprofits, schools, and employers of one region, committed in writing to run one career pathway together. Support Partners bring the resources, networks, and introductions that grow it. When your service helps a career seeker get informed, trained, or hired, it is written into the grant as a defined part of the work. The network stays standing between grants, so the region goes after the next one together.
In San Bernardino, a region's partners went after grants together and won them: an operating STEM Lab (science, technology, engineering, and math), an apprenticeship formed with the state, and the first company hosting apprentices at its own facility. This page explains the model, where a Support Partner's service fits in it, how that service gets written into a funded grant, and how to start.
BOOK A MEETING ABOUT YOUR NETWORKThirty minutes with Daniel Wierman.Pick a time that works. Come with the regions you work in.
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. He had earned something he could see.
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 region wins a grant. A nonprofit, a school, and a company build a program that works. The workforce board, the chamber, and the credentialing partners help it along, often without their part written into the grant. Then the money dries up, the partners scatter, and the next grant starts from scratch with a new narrative that may or may not include them.
Nobody failed. Every partner did its part. Programs die because they are built on a single grant, and because they run alone.
The model
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.
Each partner does one part. Nonprofits provide participants and wraparound services. Educators provide the training needed to be hired. Companies interview and hire graduates. Support Partners, such as workforce boards, chambers, economic development groups, credentialing bodies, and training providers, bring the resources, networks, and introductions that grow the region. A career seeker moves through one simple path: Get Informed. Get Trained. Get Hired.
Every partner signs a Memorandum of Understanding, an MOU, that says what they will do for the grant. The partners doing funded work are attached to the Lead Applicant as contracted partners, each with a Scope of Work in the budget. When a Support Partner's service is funded by the grant, that is how it is written in: a defined part of the work, tied to that grant, in writing before the award. The fiscal lead is chosen per grant from the partners. An organization that sits outside all of them, Regional Career Networks, holds the group together between grants, so the partnership is not rebuilt each time a new grant opens.
That is why a region with a standing network can win grant after grant. In San Bernardino the first grant supported the STEM Lab. The next formed an apprenticeship with the state. The one after that certified instructors, so the region can keep teaching the pathway. Each grant built one more piece, and each new grant is another place a Support Partner's service can be written in.
What we bring
Your organization already brings services, members, and relationships across the region, and your board expects to see them put to work. What is usually missing is a live regional project to plug into, and a narrative that writes your part in before the grant is submitted.
A Regional Career Network is a standing coalition with grants in motion. Your service plugs into a working pathway, with the nonprofits, schools, and companies already committed in writing.
We write your service into the grant narrative and the budget wherever it helps a career seeker get informed, trained, or hired. Your part is a defined Scope of Work tied to that grant, attached to the Lead Applicant, and written before the award. Every part written in is tied to what the career seeker needs, so it holds up with the funder.
Career staff face a dozen careers and cannot be experts in all of them. The CNC Career Guide explains the advanced manufacturing career for your staff, with the local trainer and the local companies inside it. Your staff point a career seeker to the Guide, and two clicks books a tour.
The CNC Career Guide records each step a career seeker takes toward the trainer and the company, and the RCN Upskill Tracker records the skills workers reach at the company. The numbers your board and your members ask about are captured along the pathway.
What to say to the nonprofits, schools, and companies in your network about joining a Regional Career Network. We hand you the strategy for each partner type, and I come to the meetings with you.
Your organization knows the nonprofits, schools, and companies across the region. When you sit down with them about a Regional Career Network, bring me. I explain the sector and the regional strategy to each of them, and bring them into the network for their region. Your introductions are how a region gets assembled.
Two ways in
The model is operating in San Bernardino and is building or being explored in more regions. If your organization works in one of them, your service is matched to the grants in motion there and written into the ones where it helps a career seeker.
If your region has no network yet, we start one with you. Any partner can start a Regional Career Network, and a workforce board, chamber, or economic development group already knows most of the partners a region needs. On the meeting we look at who you already work with, the regions your members are in, and the grants that fit. Then we go meet the partners together.
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. The first company is hosting apprentices at its own facility, and the partners' commitments are signed in writing.
Thirty minutes. We talk about the services and members you bring, the regions you work in, and where your service fits a career pathway. You leave with a read on which regions and grants fit your organization, and where your part would be written in. From there I join you in the meetings with the partners around you.
BOOK A MEETING ABOUT YOUR NETWORKThirty minutes with Daniel Wierman.If you would rather write first, the application takes about two minutes, and I reach out to set up the same meeting. Apply to work with us on your region.
Questions support partners ask
Your part of the work is written into a specific grant as a defined Scope of Work, before the award. It is tied to what that grant funds, so it stays defined after the award.
The San Bernardino network won the grants that supported its STEM Lab and formed an apprenticeship with the state, and the network's partners have won over $1.95 million. Every partner signs an MOU that says what they will do for the grant, so the coalition is committed in writing before a reviewer reads a page.
In a Regional Career Network the narrative is written with the whole coalition. Where your service helps a career seeker get informed, trained, or hired, it goes into the narrative and the budget as a defined part of the work.
A region can hold more than one sector pathway, each deployed based on regional demand. Advanced manufacturing is the first one we built, and the same approach carries to the next sector your region needs.
We are written into the funded budget as a fixed fee for a defined scope, the same way every partner doing funded work is.
Not ready to talk yet?
RCN Grant Watch is a free account that shows the verified workforce grants worth a look, read for where a Support Partner has a role on each one. Open it, watch your regions, and when a card fits, the meeting is one click away.
Open a free RCN Grant Watch accountSee the grants your region could win.
This is what we're going to do. Do you want to be a part of it?
BOOK A MEETING ABOUT YOUR NETWORKThirty minutes with Daniel Wierman.Pick a time that works. Come with the regions you work in.
P.S. Regional grants leave support partners out unless someone writes them in. A Regional Career Network is the nonprofits, schools, and employers of one region committed in writing to one pathway, held together between grants, with your service written in where it helps a career seeker. Book a meeting about your network, or open a free RCN Grant Watch account and watch where your service fits first.