STATE News:

SANTA FE – On Feb. 27, Innovate+Educate announced $200,000 in funding to communities in New Mexico interested in building their talent pipeline. 

The grants will bring together industry, community and education leaders to bridge the skills gap and develop new mechanisms for hiring, skills assessment and training.

These grants were made possible due to the funding from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to advance the New Options Project.

Awardees include:

• CHRISTUS St. Vincent’s Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe;
• Four Corners Economic Development (4CED) in the Farmington region;
• The Regional Development Corporation (RDC) serving a four county region in northern New Mexico; and
• The Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce  

The Northern New Mexico grant award through the RDC will include UNM-Los Alamos as a partner. Partners will work together to educate businesses about new ways of hiring and give job seekers new ways to demonstrate their abilities. 

“In today’s economy, the traditional hiring system is no longer working for the jobseeker or the employer,” Innovate+Educate CEO Jamai Blivin said. 

“Our model identifies a new way to match jobseekers to jobs. These grants are for communities to seed their own innovations and create models for Innovate+Educate to scale nationally.”

“As Chairman of the Board of Innovate+Educate, I am thrilled to help create the vision to solve the skills gap not only in New Mexico, but nationally,” Jami Grindatto said. “This grant program is the first phase of Innovate+Educate’s work to contribute to New Mexico’s continued economic growth.”