AchieveMpls Launches New Career Readiness Initiative

AchieveMpls has received a $750,000 grant from The Pat and Tom Grossman Family Fund of the Minnesota Community Foundation to create a comprehensive career advising system for Minneapolis high school students, with a particular focus on strengthening career support services for those who are not pursuing four-year college degrees. This new initiative—which will be implemented as a pilot program at MPS Edison and Roosevelt high schools starting this fall—is designed to ensure that all Minneapolis students have the resources and training they need to secure meaningful careers and high-wage employment.

With support from the grant, AchieveMpls will hire new career advising staff for its Edison and Roosevelt Career & College Centers to work one-on-one with students in focused career planning. These advisers will help students determine the careers that best match their interests, skills and aspirations, and then guide them in identifying and accessing the best training opportunities for their specific career goals—whether that means trade school, 4-year college, certificate programs, apprenticeships or other pathways. The grant will also support AchieveMpls’ efforts to align career readiness services for youth across the city in collaboration with Minneapolis Public Schools, the City of Minneapolis and other nonprofit organizations.

“We are grateful to the Grossman family for this generous support, which will enable us to connect Minneapolis students to a wider variety of post-secondary programs that can lead quickly to high wage jobs and sustainable careers, “ says Pam Costain, AchieveMpls President and CEO. “It will also strengthen our ability to provide targeted support for students who until now have been underserved. We thank Tom Grossman especially for his advocacy on behalf of all students, his belief in the dignity of work, and his challenge to educators and counselors to create a stronger link between school, work and future economic prosperity.”

Grossman, a Twin Cities philanthropist and entrepreneur, and his family have been extraordinary friends of AchieveMpls. In 2012, they awarded a $500,000 Transformational Fund grant to the organization, which was used for strategic planning, board leadership development, new outcome-based systems of measurement and accountability, and an expansion of the STEP-UP Achieve youth employment program (part of the City of Minneapolis STEP-UP program).

Minnesota Community Foundation is advising and assisting the Grossmans in approving and administering this grant. Minnesota Community Foundation is an affiliate of Minnesota Philanthropy Partners, which also includes The Saint Paul Foundation,  F. R. Bigelow Foundation, Mardag Foundation and 2,000 other charitable organizations and donor funds that are committed to solving complex community issues by strategically investing funds entrusted to the Foundations. Together, the Foundations and donors made $71 million in grants to nonprofits, projects and initiatives in the East Metro and across Minnesota in 2015.