CareerWise is honored to announce that we received a $7 million gift from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott through her foundation, Yield Giving. The donation will help realize the promise of modern youth apprenticeship.

The generous gift from Ms. Scott is comes at a time when we are beginning to see the seeds of systems change towards a career-connected education system alongside the traditional academic paths. A parallel work-based learning path integrated into the existing system recognizes the skills and competencies learners achieve in work-based learning, enabling more access and opportunities academic attainment affords within the education system, creating equivalency between the two types of learning.

The gift also helps CareerWise continue to fine-tune quality programs in which employers play a central role. It’s important that earn-and-learn programs are of the highest quality—which industry demands—because the movement will only scale and become mainstream with fidelity to high-impact outcomes.

The donation is a testament to the hard work of not just CareerWise, but the entire work-based learning ecosystem—local and state governments, K12 districts, higher-education partners, and nonprofit intermediaries, as well as the employer partners and amazing youth apprentices themselves. Each is playing an important role in building a system that recognizes skills and experience as equal to degrees.