Meaningful and scalable workforce systems change does not happen in silos. It requires coordination across employers, education providers, funders, and community-based organizations—each bringing distinct strengths to a shared goal. This premise anchored the session Leveraging Business Intermediaries and Community Colleges to Advance Inclusive Workforce Systems, which highlighted lessons from Lumina Foundation’s investment in the Equitable Credential Attainment Cohort, led by the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) Foundation in partnership with the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC).
Moderated by Georgia Reagan of Lumina Foundation, the session featured panelists Amy Shields, Executive Director of the ACCE Foundation and Vice President of Programs at AACC; John Dyer of AACC; and Sully Pinos, representing the York County Economic Alliance, a cohort participant. Together, they offered a national-to-local perspective on how chambers of commerce, community colleges and economic development partners—supported by philanthropy—can function as powerful intermediaries in building inclusive, employer-aligned workforce systems.
Why Business Intermediaries Matter
A central theme of the conversation was the value of employer-led, intermediary-driven approaches. Chambers of commerce, in particular, are uniquely positioned to convene partners, translate across sectors, and align workforce strategies with real labor market demand.
As several speakers noted, chambers bring credibility with employers and longstanding relationships across their regions, which is critical for driving industry buy-in and momentum, as well as long-term adoption and sustainability. This allows them to:
- Convene employers, community colleges, nonprofits, and funders around shared talent goals
- Identify and articulate talent gaps from an industry perspective
- Serve as translators between business needs and education and training systems
The Community College Role: From Partnership to Systems Alignment
From the community college perspective, John Dyer emphasized that while many colleges have employer partnerships, the depth, consistency, and sustainability of those relationships vary widely. The Equitable Credential Attainment Cohort offered an opportunity to strengthen these engagements by embedding colleges within broader, employer-led collaboratives.
Community colleges played a vital role in:
- Translating employer needs into curriculum and credential design
- Offering flexible, short-term credentials alongside longer career pathways
- Serving learners traditionally excluded from postsecondary education
Strong relationships between colleges and employers made it easier to navigate differences in language, timelines, and expectations—enabling faster movement from planning to implementation.
Philanthropy as a Catalyst for Innovation
The session also underscored the critical role of philanthropic funding, particularly in providing flexibility that federal and government funding often cannot. Lumina’s investment allowed cohort participants to experiment, pilot, and adapt approaches grounded in local context.
Key funding-related themes included:
- Flexible and braided funding: Helping partners navigate and align multiple funding sources to support learners holistically
- Innovation and experimentation: Enabling new models that would be difficult to launch under more restrictive funding streams
- Sustainability planning: Supporting organizations to move beyond proof-of-concept toward long-term ownership and scale
As Georgia Reagan noted, success was not defined solely by scale, but by outcomes on the ground—recognizing that hyper-local, relationship-driven strategies are often what make initiatives effective and durable, even when much of this work does not easily translate into metrics or outcomes that can be neatly captured at the end of a grant period.
The Power of Relationships and Community-Based Organizations
A recurring insight was the importance of strong, institutional relationships. Partnerships that were not dependent on a single leader or personality proved more resilient. Pre-existing trust also allowed partners to focus on implementation rather than alignment.
Community-based organizations (CBOs) emerged as essential partners, particularly in reaching learners, providing wraparound supports, and grounding workforce strategies in community need. Their involvement helped ensure that economic development efforts translated into real opportunity for individuals.
Equally important was elevating student, worker, and community voice in shaping programs—ensuring that workforce solutions respond to lived experience, not just labor market metrics.
A Local Example: York County
Sully Pinos shared how the York County Economic Alliance operationalized these principles on the ground. Serving as both a chamber and an economic development entity—and as an emerging CDFI through the BLOOM Business Empowerment Center—the organization bridged workforce, economic, and community development.
Key initiatives included:
- Training aligned with a hotel redevelopment project, paired with ESL programming
- Partnerships with the local community college focused on manufacturing and childcare, including a teacher aide apprenticeship
- Childcare startup loans paired with workforce training for childcare employees
- Workforce and residential construction training programs focused on carpentry and related skills
- Entrepreneurship as a core component of the workforce ecosystem, supporting small business growth alongside employment pathways
These efforts reflected a shift from transactional workforce programs to integrated systems connecting training, employment, economic development, and community investment.
Moving Forward
The Equitable Credential Attainment Cohort demonstrated that business-led, community-anchored, and education-aligned strategies can advance inclusive workforce systems when supported by flexible funding, strong relationships, and shared accountability.
As the session made clear, scaling what works does not mean replicating a single model everywhere. Instead, it means investing in the capacity of local intermediaries—chambers, community colleges, and CBOs—to design solutions that reflect their unique economic and community contexts.
