The need for a tech-savvy, well-prepared workforce continues to rise. Despite steady growth in middle-skill jobs in information technology (IT)—such as IT support specialist, help desk technician, and network support technician—many positions remain unfilled due to a shortage of individuals with the necessary training and credentials. Many organizations have sought to address this critical need in a variety of ways. For example, NPower, a national nonprofit organization, prepares young adults and the military-connected community (such as veterans, veterans’ spouses, or service members transitioning out of active duty) to enter the IT workforce through its technology fundamentals program. This program introduces trainees to basic IT concepts and prepares them to earn a Google IT support professional certification. Urban Alliance, another national nonprofit organization, matches participating high school seniors across six urban regions (in Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, and Washington, DC, as well as Montgomery County in Maryland, and Northern Virginia) with paid internships in sectors such as IT, finance, and real estate, providing students with exposure to meaningful, career-relevant work experiences. To ensure students are ready to succeed, the program includes intensive preinternship training focused on professional skills (such as communication and time management) and workplace readiness.

In 2021, NPower and Urban Alliance formed a partnership to deliver digital literacy and IT training to high school students participating in Urban Alliance’s internship program, with the goal of supporting young people’s access to middle-skill jobs in technology and technology-adjacent fields. The two organizations, with support from Bank of America, merged their respective expertise in a three-year-long partnership between 2021 and 2024, where NPower provided technical training to students participating in Urban Alliance’s internship program. The partnership reached over 1,300 students and included two types of training programs, one meant to equip all participating students with digital literacy skills (such as familiarity with Microsoft Office products, and how to write professional emails) and another to help a subset of students earn technical certifications, such as a Google IT Certificate.

In 2023, NPower engaged MDRC, a nonprofit, social policy and education research organization, to conduct an implementation study to support its partnership with Urban Alliance. The study drew upon interviews with NPower and Urban Alliance leadership and program staff members. This issue focus discusses the development of the partnership between NPower and Urban Alliance and offers lessons for improving cross-organizational partnerships that support youth career pathways. It describes the two programs developed during the partnership, discusses some of the challenges that the two organizations encountered during the development and implementation of the programs and how they addressed those challenges, and provides additional considerations for future partnerships.

The Two Programs Designed by NPower and Urban Alliance

At the beginning of the partnership, leaders and staff members from both organizations met regularly over the course of a few weeks to share background information about their respective organizations and to design the partnership’s programs. This period was essential to the partnership, particularly because, while the two organizations were familiar with one another from operating in similar nonprofit spaces, not much was known about the specific elements of the other’s program model (such as delivery format or curriculum content).

Together, NPower and Urban Alliance designed two training programs to be delivered to Urban Alliance interns. The first was a professional skills training program that was delivered to all Urban Alliance interns over the course of a week. This program focused on digital literacy (such as writing emails and creating presentations), and in the second and third year of the program on Microsoft applications, such as Outlook, PowerPoint, and Excel. The second program involved a virtual technology training course delivered to a smaller subset of Urban Alliance interns who were specifically interested in pursuing an IT career pathway; it led to a Google IT certificate. This training occurred after students finished their regular prework program (including the digital literacy training) but before they began their internships.

Implementation Challenges and Solutions

NPower and Urban Alliance encountered several challenges as they began implementing these two new programs. This section discusses four of these challenges—which were centered around timing, staffing, student placement, and how to use data to monitor and improve their services—as well as the solutions the partners came up with to strengthen the programs.

Challenge: Condensed Timeline for Curriculum Development

Once funding was awarded for the partnership program in 2021, NPower and Urban Alliance worked together for less than two months to develop both training programs in time to launch during Urban Alliance’s scheduled prework time frame at the beginning of the 2021–2022 school year. During the first year of implementation, the digital literacy training course focused more on an introduction to internet exploration, cybersecurity, and data research; at the end of the first year, many internship placement sites reflected that students needed more targeted training in the applications they used in their internships, such as Microsoft Office applications.

NPower and Urban Alliance’s solution: The short timeline to develop the program required rapid coordination and shared learning both during and after each program year. For example, NPower quickly adapted program delivery before the start of the partnership to allow for more in-class time to practice skills in response to restrictions related to assigning homework to Urban Alliance interns. Central to this rapid coordination was establishing shared expectations and processes. One NPower staff member described this coordination as a series of questions, “What do we actually want to learn, what do we want to know, what needs to be documented, how long is this going to take to roll out?” Further, NPower adapted its curriculum between the first and second years of implementation to directly address the feedback from employer partners hosting Urban Alliance interns, redesigning the program to focus on more concrete skills such as writing emails, using Excel functions, and creating PowerPoint presentations.

Challenge: Scheduling Alignment and Staffing

In the last two years of the partnership, as the COVID-19 pandemic subsided, the training courses moved from virtual to in person. At the same time, the scheduling needs of the partner school districts created challenges for NPower when schedules overlapped across a region and the NPower trainers could not be in two places at once.

NPower and Urban Alliance’s solution: NPower hired additional instructors dedicated to delivering the digital literacy training course and shortened the course from 20 hours to approximately 12 hours. NPower found that during in-person training courses, strong instructors could cover material more quickly, could more easily troubleshoot technology problems, and could more efficiently check for understanding and engagement. One Urban Alliance staff member spoke about how helpful it was to have a strong instructor given these staffing challenges, “[The instructor] made the experience much more worthwhile and engaging for them ... he did it in a way that was engaging and thoughtful for the students.”

Challenge: Internship Placement Gaps

NPower had substantial experience with placing young adult students in technology internships. It had fewer existing relationships with employers who were prepared to host high school students. At the same time, Urban Alliance had connections with regional employers but more limited ties to technology-focused organizations. This created challenges to setting up internships for students in the technology pathway. Before the beginning of the partnership program, there was also uncertainty in forecasting the number and location of internship slots that would be needed, because the organizations did not know how many students per region would be interested in completing the second virtual technology training program.

NPower and Urban Alliance’s solution: Urban Alliance, with support from NPower, was able to draw on its existing strong local employer relationships to secure alternative placements across the different regions. One creative solution involved hosting some IT interns within the Urban Alliance offices.

Challenge: Evaluation and Data Collection

Due to the limited preparation time, it was challenging to establish a fully coordinated data strategy or engage an external evaluator to support this effort. Nevertheless, NPower and Urban Alliance collaborated to collect annual student survey data to inform program improvements. While the data offered some insights into the training programs, variations in survey design and response rates across groups who entered at different times limited its usefulness for assessing student experiences and outcomes over time.

NPower and Urban Alliance’s solution: To help address early gaps in data strategy and learning, NPower brought MDRC on as an external learning partner at the end of the second year of the project. This collaboration provided valuable insight into the implementation of the programs. However, because MDRC was not involved from the beginning, some challenges, such as developing a consistent, long-term data strategy, remained difficult to fully resolve. Having an independent evaluation partner from the outset would have supported the development of a shared evaluation plan for assessing student experiences and outcomes.

Conclusion

The NPower–Urban Alliance partnership demonstrated both the promise and complexity of bringing distinct program models together to serve a shared student population. The collaboration resulted in strong early practices, such as adapting instruction formats based on student and employer feedback.​ These experiences offer practical lessons for other organizations seeking to design or improve cross-organizational partnerships centered on youth career pathways.

Based on its broader experience working with nonprofit organizations, school systems, and workforce partners to support cross-organizational collaboration and program design and implementation, MDRC recommends the following additional strategies for organizations that aim to develop youth career pathways programs:

• Engage an evaluation partner early to support continual learning and build a culture of data use.
• Incorporate Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles with the support of an evaluator. Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles allow programs to test small changes—such as adjusting training content or scheduling—and assess impacts quickly. This approach supports nimble, evidence-based program adjustments without waiting to complete a full program cycle.
• Use journey mapping to coordinate student experiences. Create a student persona together and walk through each phase of the student journey, identifying interactions and support mechanisms while considering challenges and opportunities that students might experience at each step. Taking time early on to map the student journey supports more effective planning around staffing, scheduling, and program delivery.
• Design for place-based flexibility to meet the needs of high school students across different regions. This flexibility includes tailoring internships and training models to local contexts and engaging regional employers early to assess their readiness to support younger participants.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to express deep gratitude to the NPower and Urban Alliance staff members who allowed us to learn from their knowledge and experiences. We would like to thank Kim Mitchell and Leah Cullum at NPower and Tyran Omary at Urban Alliance for their thought partnership and collaboration. We thank our MDRC colleagues, Susan Sepanik and Emma Alterman, who reviewed and provided valuable comments; and Luisa LaFleur, who edited this issue focus.