Report from Brookings Metro, in partnership with America Achieves, shares five foundational building blocks to help coalitions move from vision to results
Across the United States, regional leaders face a shared challenge: how to grow good jobs and expand economic mobility for all residents. To overcome this challenge, it will take cross-sector coalitions that include all stakeholders—government, business, education, and community groups.
But turning collaboration into results is not easy. A new guidebook produced by Brookings Metro, in partnership with America Achieves, shares practical guidance from regional coalition efforts across the United States.
Over the past year, America Achieves, in collaboration with Brookings Metro, worked with a group of 11 regions to collaboratively tackle critical coalition governance questions in a Good Jobs Economy Peer Learning Cohort. Through a combination of site visits, one-on-one technical assistance, cohort-wide problem-solving sessions, and workshops with researchers and leaders of similar regional efforts, we supported these regions as they made tangible progress to strengthen their coalitions.
A new guidebook released today, The Coalition Imperative: A Guidebook for How Regions Can Build and Sustain Coalitions Toward a Good Jobs Economy, provides lessons and leading practices from these coalitions to build the long-term civic infrastructure needed to grow good jobs, strengthen economic mobility, and build resilient regional economies.
“Growing an economy with plentiful good jobs and fair access to opportunity is a long-term national project,” said Jon Schnur, CEO of America Achieves. “This guidebook shows one way for regional leaders—from governors and mayors to business, higher education, and community partners—to collaborate to deliver measurable results. America Achieves is proud to support regions that are demonstrating what it takes to modernize talent systems and build prosperity that lasts.”
The report identifies five foundational building blocks for effective cross-sector coalitions: shared focus, governance structure, operational rhythm, performance management, and financial sustainability. It offers actionable guidance for local and state leaders to organize their economies around good jobs. It also highlights five implications for policymakers and investors, emphasizing how public and private funding can accelerate regional transformation.
“Across the country, regions are learning that no single organization has the resources or perspective to tackle the good jobs challenge alone,” said Joseph Parilla, Senior Fellow and Director of Applied Research at Brookings Metro and co-author of the report. “This guidebook is designed to help leaders translate that insight into action, and move from coordination to measurable impact.”
The publication informs America Achieves’ Good Jobs Economy initiative, a multi-year, outcomes-driven effort launched in partnership this summer with the National Governors Association Chair’s Initiative and Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt and Maryland Governor Wes Moore. Built on lessons learned from supporting more than 85 regional coalitions with their economic development and talent systems building efforts over the past six years, the Good Jobs Economy helps state and regional coalitions design, fund, and implement modernized talent systems that connect people to good jobs at scale.
The Good Jobs Economy initiative aims to identify, train, and place one million youth and adults into good jobs in priority sectors and high-demand occupations over a decade. This includes Good Jobs Funds, where philanthropic capital helps states and local regions unlock enacted large-scale public funding to launch, modernize, and scale effective programs and partnerships. It also helps states build integrated talent systems and policies enabling sustained impact at large scale. Good Jobs Funds will build the evidence, program capacity, and public momentum that will help states modernize their own funding and systems to enable sustained, scalable results. This work is based on a talent system framework that guides states to set and measure outcome goals, define employer demand regularly, build and scale effective programs, identify and connect talent to jobs, align funding to outcomes, and build implementation and governance infrastructure.
America Achieves and Brookings Metro collaborated to design and deliver the programming for the Good Jobs Economy Peer Learning Cohort. The guidebook draws from the insights generated from this program by participating regional coalition teams—from Buffalo to El Paso, Minneapolis to Miami—that are advancing cross-sector strategies in advanced manufacturing, biopharma, clean energy, and other high-growth industries. Together, these regions represent over $400 million in federal investment, billions of dollars in associated private investment, and the early stages of creating tens of thousands of good jobs.
The full guidebook and executive summary are available at https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-coalition-imperative/.
