After months of reflection, partner engagement, and strategic planning, I’m proud to share some exciting news: The Coalition for Career Development (CCD) Center has launched ALLready—an extension of the Center designed to accelerate learners and leaders in industry, education, government, and communities across America. ALLready represents an exciting amplification of the CCD Center. It will distill the Center’s vast body of work into actionable insights, guidance, and technical assistance, and elevate our efforts to make career readiness for ALL the number one priority in American education.
Why Expand Now?
When our founders created the Coalition for Career Development, it was an informal coalition that soon evolved into the CCD Center—a think tank that studied critical issues around the state of America’s career readiness. Over the years, our mission has never wavered—but our approach and activities have evolved and deepened. Put simply, we are no longer just a think tank, but a think and do tank that supports all learners’ ability to succeed and thrive in today’s employment landscape. We now have the tactics, case studies, and strategies to achieve our mission, starting in the early years and continuing across the lifespan.
What ALLready Means
The “ALL” in ALLready has a double meaning. It represents our desire to advance career readiness for all, while also capturing the initials of our new tagline, “Accelerating Learners and Leaders.” That all-encompassing spirit is important because we believe our mission applies to all people and all sectors, in an approach that’s all human.
We believe everyone—of all ages, backgrounds, levels of access, types of talent, learning styles, and personal traits—deserves educational experiences that support their unique path to a successful career.
We believe that achieving career readiness throughout the lifespan demands a dynamic, cross-sector collaboration, uniting industry, education, government, and communities in a collective effort.
And we believe in a human-centered education design that prioritizes the needs, perspectives, interests, and aspirations of individuals and the communities they call home.
What Won’t Change
While ALLready is an extension with its own unique website, our corporation remains the Coalition for Career Development Center, and our purpose has not changed. We have one mission, one board, and one organization.
We inform and equip government, industry, education, and community leaders with key tools and resources in the career readiness realm. We build individual and collective capacity to prepare individuals in every community. And we develop viable methods to expand opportunities to career awareness and development, economic mobility, social mobility, and wealth generation.
ALLready Looking Ahead
Between now and 2030, ALLready will be working to advance learners and leaders through three change initiatives:
- Integrating academic, career, and durable skills into the educational core for ALL.
- Nurturing career-ready cities with integrated partnerships between industry, K-12, and colleges.
- Building the capacity of community and youth organizations to lead career exploration and coaching.
These change initiatives represent our commitment and promise to our partners, stakeholders, and the future of our organization.
In the coming months, you’ll see the ALLready model unfolding in new and exciting ways. We’ll be launching new efforts, deepening partnerships, and publishing tools to help our constituents build and strengthen their capacity to advance America’s learners and leaders.
We’re grateful to our board members, partners, funders, and communities for working with us throughout the first chapters of the CCD Center Corporation, and for entering our next era of elevation with ALLready. Because when everyone is career-ready, we are ALLready to move forward.
Eva Mitchell is the Chief Executive Officer of the corporation of the Coalition for Career Development Center and is ALLready for our expansion and elevation.
