Our approach

New Skills Ready-Nashville is a cross-sector initiative focused on building high-quality career pathways for under-resourced students. By addressing systemic barriers to postsecondary access, persistence, and success, the initiative supports students from high school through college and into high-wage, high-growth careers in the local economy.

Recognizing that deep, systemic change requires long-term partnership and adaptability, Elevate provided sustained support to the collaborative’s backbone (the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce) over the majority of the project’s lifespan. This role allowed us to serve as a steady presence through transitions, helping preserve institutional knowledge and build rapport with participants.

In collaboration with backbone representatives and co-chairs, Elevate co-designed a work team structure and facilitated design sprints to shape the collaborative’s activities. Ongoing work team facilitation created consistency and accountability, helping members stay aligned and focused on shared goals.

Elevate also provided evaluation services to measure the health and effectiveness of the collaborative over time, including designing regular partner surveys and conducting an Outcomes Harvest to understand systems-level changes. These insights created intentional feedback loops that led to meaningful improvements.

This long-term, hands-on, multi-faceted partnership not only strengthened the collaborative’s internal structure and processes, but also fostered a culture of trust, reflection, and adaptability. By combining facilitation, strategic design, and ongoing evaluation, Elevate has helped the collaborative stay aligned, responsive, and focused on systems-level impact—laying a strong foundation for continued progress and meaningful change.