School, Business, and Community Partnerships

Strong connections between schools, businesses, and the community ensures School to Work efforts can be scaled and sustained over time. It starts with creating and strengthen relationships across different sectors to ensure students are exposed to and prepared for the workforce.  

• How to create School and Work Relationships that Transform Lives and Livelihood in Rural Colorado: Crafting a Community Gameplan

Businesses

• Resources for hosting an internship 

• Connecting Colorado 

• Talent Found 

Business Succession Plan

 Across the nation, rural communities encounter a workforce problem:  

1. Employers throughout these rural communities report a shortage of qualified employees. 

2. Youth are graduating high school without necessary skills to access career opportunities and be successful in the workforce.  

The gap between the needs of small businesses and the skills of students entering the workforce leads to challenges for employers, including deferring retirement and allowing the business to go into decline when a suitable replacement cannot be found for succession. For rural youth, this shortage can lead to underemployment or unemployment. 

Without intervention, this problem will worsen as these trends continue: 10,000 baby boomers are projected to reach retirement age every day for the next twenty years, while 84% of employers reported “applied skills shortages” (SHRM, 2016). The health of rural small businesses is integral to the health of rural economies as well as the quality of civic and philanthropic opportunities. Small businesses are an important part of rural life and rural communities, and small businesses can work together to improve the quality of the local workforce and develop a succession plan that maintains the value and stability that small businesses provide.  

Read more about the problem and find out how to create a business succession plan. The Small Business Administration offers tools to help small businesses grow, adapt, and prepare for challenges they may face.   

• Coming soon! Research surrounding benefit to community when a business stays open 

• Coming soon! Research around finding balance between desire to gain from sale of business vs community benefit   

• Coming soon! How the Indigo assessment can help businesses understand employee data 

The Democracy at Work Institute offers resources to help rural businesses thrive and prepare for the future.