Launching the 10
I just launched a cohort of 10 projects I’ll coach for the next 18 months. A massive request for proposals, sponsored by Walmart.com, just wrapped, and it was wildly successful. We went from more than 420 applications down to these 10 selected projects, and they’ll go through an 18-month journey with me as their coach and champion, helping them get from beginning to end.
The purpose of putting this on my website has changed with the work. First it was to make people aware of the opportunity. Then it was to say we were going through the review process. Now it’s to tell the story of these projects and how they’re doing along the way.
The Cohort
The 10 projects all fall into the credentialing space, but they look very different from each other.
A group in Oregon is creating a new certification for mobile crisis workers. These are people with lived experience of mental illness who join law enforcement teams during an incident, so the police aren’t interacting directly with the person in crisis. They’ve got someone who knows what that mental illness is like to translate.
Another group in California is credentialing undocumented workers in janitorial roles, so they can move into leadership positions across a variety of organizations.
A third is working with incarcerated individuals who help clean up after wildfires, certifying them so that when they leave incarceration, they already have a job lined up.
My Role Right Now
This month I co-hosted the first community of practice meeting, with the group coming together to get to know each other. It’s not just learning through their own project, it’s what the group can learn from each other and together.
After that, I’m meeting one-on-one with each project team to figure out what each one specifically needs. That means aligning learning experiences, coaches, and experts that can help them get from point A to point B. I’m getting to know the projects and the people inside them, and helping each set its timeline.
Then I’m lining up resources at two levels. There’s the individual project level, where a team needs something specific to their work. And there’s the cohort level, where if three of these ten projects need the same thing, we bring someone in temporarily for that.
What’s Next
This week we’ll start doing the media blitz for the launch. There will be national press telling the broader story; this piece is my positioned view, what my role is and where I sit in the work. Over the next 18 months, I’ll be sharing how these projects are doing along the way, so you can see what each one is building and how the cohort is learning together.
If this work resonates with you, I’d love to connect.