Launching and Maintaining Rural Sector PartnershipsSix Lessons Learned from Implementing Rural Sector Partnerships

The Rural Workforce Opportunity

Most of us believe that businesses thrive when employees thrive and vice versa. But today, we live in a contradictory reality where our astounding worker shortage (9.5 million job openings) is so severe that even if we employed every unemployed person – some 6.5 million people – employers would still need more workers. Furthermore, due to the increasing pace of technological advancement and its impact on workforce needs, filling today’s roles is at odds with the need to prepare for the jobs of the future.

Government agencies committed to equitable workforce development have developed many programs to address these problems. But despite our best efforts, we’ve created a complex, disconnected system that fails to deliver long-term outcomes that benefit everyone, no matter their race, background, or circumstance.

That is particularly true in rural communities. Rural communities across the country continue to experience unique challenges, such as remote services and programs, a “brain drain” that widens prime-age employment gaps, and competition with large corporations in big cities for top talent.

Despite these challenges, rural workforce boards and employers are coming together to create a skilled, resilient workforce. They are leading the way for their rural communities to become economic development engines for their states. Sector partnerships are one strategy that can bridge the disconnected economic mobility system and foster new and sustained leadership from local employers to change how people are connected to jobs and how businesses are connected to their communities.

Six Lessons Learned

The six key lessons learned below come from 14 Rural Sector Partnership Leaders across 12 organizations and 26 rural sector partnerships in six states (CO, PA, WY, TX, LA, NC) as well as Third Sector’s own experiences and work to stand up these partnerships in Rural Central Texas.

  • Lesson Learned 1: Training Is Just the Beginning
    • Creating and planning training programs is just one part of the work of sector partnerships. Successful partnerships tackle a variety of issues, including recruitment and retention, sector marketing, and workforce policies.
  • Lesson Learned 2: Employer Leadership Is Necessary (and it’s OK to start small)
    • A sector partnership can start with a few dedicated employers who are interested in engaging others and discovering how they can help their sector advance.
  • Lesson Learned 3: One Size Does Not Fit All 
    • There is no wrong way to form a sector partnership. Sector partnerships can vary in how they are governed, when and how they meet, what models they use for inspiration, and how they are funded. Do what works for your sector and your community.
  • Lesson Learned 4: Building Trust Is Critical to a Sustained Partnership
    • Build trust through active listening, frequent communication, clear action steps, and strong follow-through.
  • Lesson Learned 5: Funding and Additional Resources
    • There are a lot of ways to create and sustain a sector partnership, and many of them do not require new funding to get started. Once your partnership has started, there are many creative ways to fund and implement activities, including grants, employer contributions, in-kind donations, and the use of third-party contractors.
  • Lesson Learned 6: Deepening and Scaling Sector Partnerships
    • Successful sector partnerships can be expanded through creating new partnerships in other high-demand or emerging industries or scaling your partnerships to new geographies.

At Third Sector, we are excited about and honored to help communities across the country implement the next evolution of sector partnerships that model how to center workers while remaining employer-led. Read the full brief here.