Curating Resources to Support Economic Mobility

The Box Elder Chamber brought together community partners to launch a one-stop website to address barriers to economic mobility and connect rural workers with skills training, employment services and community resources.

Convening a large group of stakeholders led to many ideas, and chamber CEO Monica Holdaway said the chamber is working to prioritize the ideas and take action in order to build momentum.

“We’re a small community, and the chamber only has two and a half staff members, so we went out and found the resources we already have in the community and put them all in one place,” said chamber CEO Monica Holdaway.

One area that arose during the discussions was the need for more soft skills training. The chamber partnered with Bridgerland Technical College on a series of 10 videos on what it calls power skills, topics ranging from professionalism and dress to critical thinking and problem solving. The videos live on the new workforce readiness resource webpage, along with an evaluation visitors can complete to prove they completed the course and issue them a digital badge.  

Also on the page is a centralized online resource hub that curates links to various services that can assist rural workers by addressing barriers to workforce participation and upward mobility. Resources include state and local services related to housing, childcare, mobility, food resources, employment services and more.  

The chamber continues to track the utilization of the new resource webpage, as well as the number of power skills training digital badges issued.

Over time, the initiative evolved beyond the workforce readiness hub itself. One of the most significant outcomes has been the community economic dashboard developed through the project. The dashboard has become the most widely used component of the initiative, generating more engagement than the workforce readiness pages and providing community leaders, employers, and residents with valuable labor market and economic insights. Its success led county partners to invest additional funding to sustain the dashboard over the long term.

The workforce readiness hub continues to play an important role as well. Education partners regularly share the resource with students and job seekers, and community feedback has remained positive. Similar to lessons learned by other communities, the chamber found that resource hubs require consistent outreach and promotion to remain visible and effective. This has been particularly true among small businesses, which have been slower to engage than anticipated. In response, the chamber redesigned its website and continues to identify opportunities to increase awareness and utilization.

As a result of this work, the conversation in Box Elder County has increasingly centered on the value of data-informed decision making and the importance of connecting workforce, economic development and community support efforts. The dashboard and resource hub have become practical tools that help facilitate those conversations while positioning the chamber as a trusted convener and connector.

Looking ahead, chamber leaders see continued opportunity to strengthen employer engagement, expand awareness of available resources and ensure that residents can access support they need to pursue employment and economic mobility. The chamber views the resources developed through this initiative as long-term community assets that will continue to support workforce development efforts well beyond the life of the project.