It’s Time for Philanthropy to Face the Future of Work

The disruptive forces that are transforming our lives – think artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, automation, demographics, and others – are the subject of huge dialogue and debate, but the implications of these forces on social problem solving are receiving less attention. A web search on “future of work” will generate innumerable articles about how companies are working to navigate this new reality, but a paltry few on how social sector organizations are grappling with the future. 

Enter Gerald Chertavian, who along with a few other social impact leaders is leaning into these issues and thinking about not just how leadership mindsets and organizations must change, but also how philanthropy, writ large, needs to transform to keep up with the pace of transformation to make sure struggling people and communities are not left even further behind. 

Chertavian is the Founder and CEO of Year Up, a national nonprofit that provides a runway for low-income youth to launch careers in high-growth industries. Through in-demand technical and professional skills training, internships at top employers and mentorship support, Year Up has helped more than 19,500 young adults in 21 cities across the U.S. go from minimum-wage jobs to meaningful careers in a single year — while ensuring more than 250 companies have access to a pipeline of skilled, motivated talent.

With its proven track record of success — 90% of Year Up graduates are employed or attending college full-time within four months, with average starting salaries of $38,000/year — Year Up is focused on broadening its impact to reach more young adults in need of an opportunity. The organization’s Grads of Lifeinitiative recently published a research study in partnership with Harvard Business School and Accenture that examines the economic costs of requiring four-year college degrees for jobs that don’t require college-level skills, and the business benefits of engaging with Opportunity Youth. Year Up is also piloting new program delivery options, including on-site solutions for employers such as State Street in Boston. 

Gerald is one of many leading social problem solvers that I often look to as I wrap my mind around the fast moving forces of change, and the big opportunities they present for us to drive equity of opportunity. I was thrilled to interview him as part of the Ensembles, No Soloists series (click to read my earlier interviews with Deloitte’s Sam Silvers and Teach For All’s Wendy Kopp). We’re excited to have him at New Profit’s Gathering of Leadersin a couple weeks to help lead our community’s dialogue on the future of work in the social impact sector.   

Jeff Walker (JW): How have you started to look differently at your original systems change vision - that Opportunity Youth are an incredible talent pool that corporate America overlooks at its peril - as the pace of workforce transformation and the "future of work" dialogue have accelerated?

Gerald Chertavian (GC):I would say that our vision has not changed, but our approach to realizing it has evolved far beyond what we were doing ten years ago, or even five years ago. Our strategy has always been focused on what we call the ‘3 Ps’: perceptions, practices, and policies. What that means is that our systems change efforts seek to shift employers’ – and society’s – perceptions of Opportunity Youth from social liabilities to economic assets; change employers’ talent acquisition and development practices to provide more onramps for Opportunity Youth to get in the game; and inform and support policies that promote effective interventions and partnerships. These three areas of focus represent what we see as the key systemic barriers preventing Opportunity Youth from earning meaningful careers, family-sustaining wages, and above all a W-2 that grows over time. 

What we have seen is that the education-to-employment market is evolving rapidly. Numerous new entrants – nonprofits like us at Year Up, coding bootcamps, startups like Blendoor or Jopwell or LaborX – have begun to offer employers real value propositions when it comes to finding skilled, diverse talent, but only a few have the goal of serving Opportunity Youth. At the same time, employers are starting to realize that they need to get more involved in the talent supply chain, because traditional four-year schools are not able to keep up with the needs of the labor market and employers are increasingly thinking out of the box when it comes to finding talent. But without addressing those key barriers – the perceptions, practices, and policies – we fear that these market conditions will only create another unequal system of privilege and access, and that Opportunity Youth will be doubly disadvantaged in the labor market. 

JW: As a leader, how do you keep up with the breakneck pace of change and the shifting context around your work? 

GC:One of the most important shifts in our organizational leadership happened about five years ago. We had just created a President role at Year Up in order to free up more of my time for systems change and external activities. As someone who founded and worked in what was primarily a direct service organization, it was hard to step back from everyday operations, but it enabled me to spend more time out in the market with our partners, our funders, and other leaders in the movement. Those experiences have been incredibly useful in understanding the trends driving change in the ecosystem, and they have shown me that there are many stakeholders thinking about the impact that structural unemployment, inequality, and technology will have on our society.

Organizationally speaking, Year Up serves its mission through the market – i.e., our ability to connect young adults to employment depends on our ability to understand and meet the middle-skilled hiring needs of our employers. To that end, we have structured our organization so that it looks and acts like a professional services company.  Our goal is to meet the talent needs of our clients and to gain regular feedback from the market on what roles are most in-demand, so that we can use that information to create the biggest impact in service to our mission. In that spirit, we have also launched several R&D, product development, and service delivery functions to ensure that we always know how to most effectively prepare young adults for jobs that employers need to fill.

JW: Do you believe that the social impact sector, including nonprofits and other changemakers, are involved enough in the "future of work" dialogue?  

GC: I think there are a number of institutions that are in danger of being “left behind.” When we discuss the future of work, we are discussing a fundamental reimagining of what it means to be a citizen of, and participant within, a civil society. If we widen our perspective about who is talented in this country and move away from four-year college degrees as the primary proxy for competency, what mechanism builds the human capital our country needs to be economically competitive? If climate change causes mass relocation within the United States, like we saw after Hurricane Maria and other natural disasters, who is responsible for ensuring there is an on-ramp into the local economy for those affected individuals? If in the next five to ten years our artificial intelligence and automation capabilities disrupt major industries – such as transportation, retail, and customer service – how will we help those individuals transition into new jobs?

I would say the good news is that we have a number of anecdotal but strong answers to the above questions. They all point to the need for systemic approaches. Bridgespan’s work on defining field catalysts has been instrumental in shaping how Year Up approaches its work. What that looks like in action is recognizing that scaling our organization – or any single organization – will not create the systemic impact we envision when we describe closing the Opportunity Divide. What will close the Opportunity Divide is a robust marketplace of training providers, employers, and nonprofits collectively committed to learning, partnering, and evolving in service to that mission. Above all others, I would say that that lesson is one of the most important for a social entrepreneur to learn.

JW: What's your most radical idea for how the business sector and the nonprofit sector can collaborate to address the biggest challenges we face? 

GC: I’ve been reflecting recently on Larry Fink of BlackRock’s recent letter to the S&P 500 CEOS and how refreshing it is to have a leader of his stature recognize and evangelize the role businesses can play as engines of economic mobility and social impact. Given that I am myopically focused on connecting young adults to good jobs, I can’t help but wonder at the impact we could have if there were a concerted push to hire Opportunity Youth, much like we saw with veterans. Imagine if every major employer in this country committed to a goal of 5% of their workforce coming from Opportunity Youth talent pipelines. Imagine the changes they would make in their hiring practices, like removing degree requirements or banning the box. Imagine the positive influence they would have in pushing community colleges and other training providers to deliver a broader range of skilled talent. Imagine the impact of hundreds of thousands of young adults suddenly earning good wages, succeeding in careers and higher education, and creating ripple impacts within their communities.

JW: How do you balance a focus on managing Year Up’s day to day activities with the work you can do to change the system overall?  

GC:This has been an ongoing learning process for us since we formally started engaging in systems change activities in 2007. We have to balance the growth and expansion of our program with the simple fact that no matter what we do our program will not serve every young person who needs opportunity, period. Our vision is to close the Opportunity Divide, not become the largest bridge across it. In that spirit, we continually focus on the bigger picture and ask ourselves “Is this strategy really bringing us closer to that vision?” That is a tough competency to build, both as a leader and as an organization, and it requires continuous inquiry and adaptation to ensure that what we do is aligned with what we believe.

Just recently, with the launch of our Grads of Life initiative, we have made significant investment in our ability to respond to emergent opportunities to impact more young adults in a more scalable, more sustainable way. We also launched a start-up within Year Up with the explicit goal of reaching 100X the number of young adults we do today.  It’s audacious, although unless we aim at this altitude, the challenge we are addressing will only grow larger on our watch. These are just a few examples of our commitment to creating impact over scaling a business.

JW: What young leaders, emerging organizations, or movements have caught your eye and given you hope and optimism about the future?

DeRay McKesson is a close friend and it is inspiring to see him engage so authentically in so many facets of social justice. He has spoken with Year Up alumni on several occasions and it is so cool to see him share his skills and experiences as a community organizer with that special community of young adults. Obviously, the young men and women involved in the March for Our Lives – as well as the activists from Ferguson, Chicago, Baltimore, and others who laid the groundwork for this march – have been bright lights during this time of extreme transition and volatility. But to be honest, what gives me hope and inspiration each day is an automatically-generated email I get at 11:03pm that lists the Year Up graduates from across the country who earned a job that day, including the wages and benefits that they now enjoy. Getting that email every night is proof positive that we are making economic mobility real for young people across this country, and that we are closing the Opportunity Divide.