Funding Opportunity: Chamber/Community College Partnerships

ACCE Foundation staff presented at the recent Achieving the Dream (ATD) DREAM 2026 conference. We are partnering with ATD on a new grant to help community colleges and chambers collaborate to ensure that credential and degree programs match employer needs.

This grant builds on our experience running the Equitable Credential Attainment Cohort and provides subgrant funding for chambers to engage in this work. View the RFP here and talk to your community college partners. Applications are due April 10.

The DREAM conference is a gathering of national leaders in community college innovation. It provided opportunities for colleges to share strategies that help students succeed. The ACCE Foundation’s sessions focused on work-based learning and employer engagement, and there was strong interest from colleges in working more closely with chambers in these areas. Community colleges can help employers connect with local talent or develop training to upskill and reskill current employees. Chambers with strong relationships with their local community and technical colleges can serve as a trusted intermediary and connector between employers and colleges. 

Across the conference, three themes emerged: the promise of AI, the importance of economic mobility and the central role of data‑informed decision‑making in transforming outcomes for students and communities. 

• Artificial intelligence is rapidly expanding student support and institutional capacity. AI was a recurring theme throughout the conference. Sessions highlighted both practical uses and transformative potential. This covered everything from the ways that AI can help colleges better understand which engagement strategies keep students coming to class to the importance of building AI literacy alongside technical skills. It was clear that community colleges are committed to moving from experimentation to implementation. AI has the potential to help colleges extend personalized, just‑in‑time support while freeing up human capacity for deeper student engagement.
• Economic mobility is a key focus for community colleges. Community colleges seem to have embraced the idea that they must prepare their students for well-paid, in-demand jobs. Several sessions focused on strategies that support local workforce ecosystems. Colleges are looking at the ways that place-based partnerships, including strong employer partnerships, can improve outcomes for students and communities. There were also many conversations about how to expand pathways to well-paid jobs. Community colleges face challenges in attracting faculty to provide critical technical training, and speed to market can also be a challenge for colleges. Economic mobility is possible when colleges collaborate with community partners, employers and funders to build aligned pathways that allow students to access stable, high‑demand careers.
• Data‑informed decision‑making is now non‑negotiable. Across the conference, many sessions emphasized the critical role of data in shaping decisions, supporting faculty and advancing outcomes. As more states implement outcome-based funding for post-secondary institutions, access to data becomes even more important. Effective data practice is no longer about dashboards, it’s about empowering faculty, staff and leadership to translate insights into action that enhances experiences, closes gaps and improves long-term outcomes for students and local economies. Colleges are getting creative about how they leverage analysis tools and AI to connect and interpret the data they already have. There are also new tools coming to market, like CredLens, that aim to aggregate external public and proprietary data with student-level data to help colleges better understand the long-term economic outcomes of different programs. 

If you haven’t connected with your local college recently, this is a great time to reach out and learn more about the work they are doing to prepare students for employment. Don’t miss the miss the application deadline for this new funding opportunity for chambers and community colleges.