Digital Pathways to Employment

Millions of working-age adults without digital skills, many of whom are people of color, can’t walk into most workforce training providers, college classes, or coding bootcamps. They don’t have the foundational digital literacy skills needed to begin tech training, let alone thrive in a computer-based career.

Byte Back’s solution disrupts the norm by starting its tech training pathway at beginner levels, ensuring no one is left behind. Byte Back is open to adults of all digital skill levels and backgrounds. They can begin with no or minimal digital experience 1) build a digital skills foundation, 2) advance and earn industry-recognized credentials, and 3) develop soft skills and receive career placements.

Since 2018, 107 adults have entered new careers increasing their average annual incomes by more than $23,000. By scaling its approach, Byte Back will help thousands more adults across the country move into the careers of now and the future.

Black unemployment is 63% higher than white unemployment (Economic Policy Institute) and Black and Hispanic Americans are 60% more likely to have been laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic (Strada).

Yet, there are middle-skill careers available now. 53% of jobs are middle skill but only 43% of the workforce is trained for middle-skill careers (National Skills Coalition). But white adults are 51% more likely to hold a certification or a degree than Black adults, a key career requirement. While countless programs recognize the skills shortage, their pathways don’t account for those with no or minimal digital skills now which includes 22% of Black adults and 35% of Hispanic adults who are digitally illiterate (National Center for Education Statistics). Too many don’t have digital skills to enter the economy, or even a free training. Byte Back’s solution links people from ALL backgrounds to middle-skill careers.

Byte Back is currently in Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD. In DC, 105,000 individuals three years or older lacked a household computer (US Census). In Baltimore, 75,000 households have no household computer (Abell Foundation). The need is already devastatingly expansive in current service areas and targeted scale will reach thousands more participants.

Byte Back’s solution is a uniquely inclusive pathway of free digital skill training. We’re changing the paradigm of employment pathway training. The solution meets adult learners where they are in their digital skill level and is a structured pathway from:

1)    Digital Foundations: Participants can begin with no or minimal digital skills and build a baseline in the computer, internet, email, and with Office.

2)    Industry-Recognized Certifications: In the pathway’s second stage, participants select a career pathway: IT or Administration. In-house curriculum leads to industry credentials and is designed to move slowly, incorporate wraparound service referrals, and tackle digital access issues to increase diverse learner success.

3)    Career Readiness and Entry: Training alone is insufficient to overcome long-standing barriers. Extensive soft skill and confidence building curricula are deployed along with employer relationships for post-training career placements.

Results are twofold. First, previously low-tech and digitally illiterate adults have the digital skills to thrive in the 21st century and navigate a global society. Second, these same adults enter careers paying family-sustaining wages. Program graduates begin careers increasing average annual income by more than $23,000. Sometimes, groundbreaking technology and innovation comes in the simplest form – redesigned curriculum that is truly inclusive.

Byte Back focuses on career-seeking adults who are unemployed or underemployed and face barriers to employment. The target population lacks digital skills, a college degree, and/or face long-term unemployment. With this focus, Byte Back’s students are 95% Black and Latin(x), 60% women, and 68% are adults in the career seeking but underserved ages of 25-55 years old.

Throughout planning and solution implementation, Byte Back solicits input to understand the digital and life needs of diverse participants. Focus groups and feedback surveys ensure participant perspectives are incorporated into program design and drives curriculum changes. Participants’ voices are key in understanding challenges and building action plans to address barriers. Whether participants need childcare, transportation, or housing assistance, their voices drive which referral services are provided. Through cross-sector partnerships, local community leaders and employers provide key input on the local labor market and employer needs at quarterly convenings, driving solution iterations at each site.

Recognizing the necessity of digital skills, Byte Back’s curriculum is built around the career transition needs of participants and the demands of local labor markets. Continual feedback and an understanding of challenges keeps the solution tailored during growth.

The proposed solution directly addresses a gap in high-quality training opportunities for adults without digital skills. Black and Brown adults, especially those with only a high school degree, are left behind in other skill training because of a higher likelihood of lacking digital skills. When this happens, the cycle this Challenge seeks to end is perpetuated.

Our innovative solution inclusively increases training access and digitally focused middle-skill career opportunities for ALL – not only young adults or people with well-developed digital skills. So, Byte Back is replicating its model – from two to 10 sites over the next decade.

Byte Back has an active team of 28 which includes:

·      21 full-time employees

·      5 part-time employees (technical instructors)

·      1 full-time volunteer

·      1 contractors

Byte Back approaches diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) with top-down and bottom-up approaches.

At staff and board levels, Byte Back has worked with consultants since 2019 to develop DEI committees. While the staff and board are more than 50% Black and Brown, reflecting the participant population, the organization desires to continue growing and cementing the importance of DEI in the long-term work of Byte Back.

Throughout the organization, diverse populations are the fabric of Byte Back’s training model of inclusivity. Participants are primarily people of color (95%), they’re women (60%), and they’re facing other barriers to equitable workforce entry like a disability, returning citizen status, or leading a single parent home. That’s why their input is incorporated into all of Byte Back’s work through regular focus groups and feedback surveys. For DEI to be successful, participant voices are critical in understanding challenges and responding as a unified organization.

Byte Back’s training takes a new approach with our pathway to employment. We saw a rapidly changing market in the tech-based workforce. A market where over the last 20 years, 28 million low-tech skill American jobs have either disappeared or now require medium- or high-digital skills (Brookings Institution, Muro). Education and employment pathways are not keeping pace, particularly for diverse adults from lower-socioeconomic backgrounds who don’t yet have digital skills. In response, we designed a new curriculum. The curriculum is built in house and wholly unique to Byte Back. And while there are many excellent workforce training programs, such as Per Scholas, Merit America, and NPower, Byte Back’s innovation is to provide a comprehensive and fully inclusive curriculum that trains communities lacking digital skills who are denied entry to other programs. With Byte Back, no digital skills are required to begin, and participants are not limited by age (with many, like Year Up, capping participation at age 24), gender, or educational level.

When participants begin with community colleges, nonprofit trainers, and coding bootcamps, multiple levels of restrictions are in place, whether cost, skill level, or age. Ultimately, this means cycles of poverty persist, those without digital skills remain unable to enter life-transforming, digital careers for the 21st century, and pathways to employment are still leaving out millions of American adults.

Inclusivity and opportunity start with basic technologies. Particularly when investigating advanced pathways to inclusion. Focusing solely on the newest technologies continues to marginalize communities (diverse, low-income) with fewer tech skills.

Technology is critical in the solution. The core curriculum is divided into three main categories, highlighted below with some of their key technology uses.  

·      Digital Foundations – As learners begin at this stage in the curriculum, basic computer technologies are used. Lacking confidence or digital skills, they’re learning the basics of the computer, email, the internet, files, and systems. It focuses on software for the computer and sets learners up for the more intensive certification training.

·      Industry-Recognized Certifications – Curriculum is designed and instituted with hardware and software. With the IT pathway, learners practice on applicable technologies with a learning lab, instituting hardware knowledge on real equipment and practice test help desk tickets and other workforce skills. For the Administrative pathway, learners participate in internships, manage files for the organization, and develop practical skills as experts in Microsoft Office and systems management. Byte Back uses additional AI tools, like Sorcero’s software (https://technical.ly/dc/2019/03/19/byte-back-and-sorcero-are-teaming-up-to-integrate-ai-into-tech-classrooms/) to integrate learning beyond classroom hardware and software.

·      Career Readiness and Entry – Focus is on basics like resumes, cover letters, and mock interviews, along with the soft skills needed for career success. While foundational, they’re all learned experiences that low-income, diverse communities have often not been exposed to previously.

Curriculum is deployed in-person and through blended learning models (and all virtual during the pandemic). 

The theory of change is aligned to solve a simple problem – a middle-skill worker shortage with simultaneously high unemployment for Black and Latin(x) US residents. Further investigation into the problem shows significant portions of Black and Latin(x) residents lack digital skills, a precursor for the majority of 21st century middle-skill jobs.

Work is divided into three complementary segments in our theory of change to progress toward solving this problem.

Activities:

·      Education – provide unique curriculum in digital skill training as a free pathway; incorporate soft skill building

·      Employers – create cross-sector partnerships with employers to work on changing employment practices and to directly place participants in employment

·      Thought Leadership – participate in local and national conversations on diversity in the workforce and tech, non-linear education routes, and share Byte Back’s model

Outputs:

·      Education – adults build foundational digital skills that allow them to overcome the digital divide and enter Byte Back’s industry-recognized certification training to prepare for a career

·      Employers – gain awareness of the validity of certifications and reduce unintentional barriers to hiring and diversity in the workforces

·      Thought Leadership – increased awareness around the digital divide and the lack of investment in training from zero to digital career

Short-Term Outcomes:

·      Education – adults earn industry-recognized certifications (proving job readiness) and enter living-wage careers; adults can use digital skills for life and work

·      Employers – companies develop case studies for other corporations highlighting the impact of non-linear educational backgrounds and diversity on their workforce

·      Thought Leadership – improved policies in place for adults with non-traditional educational backgrounds and larger-scale commitments to workplace diversity, particularly from Black and Latin(x) residents from lower-socioeconomic backgrounds

Long-Term Outcomes:

·      Education – adults retain careers; generational wealth is built; adults with families begin to pass digital skills to youth during their educational experiences

·      Employers – in recognition of the importance of Byte Back’s learner population, companies begin paying for placements

·      Thought Leadership – national reductions in digital illiteracy due to continued advocacy and investments in training for careers at all levels

Immediate goals:

·      Increase career placements in Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD sites – reaching 100+.

·      Expand to site three in Youngstown, OH in 2021. Byte Back is using a branching model for replication. Each site will have a Site Director and is guided by a central executive team. There is pronounced cross-site coordination with this model and Byte Back will use the model it developed and refined in a 2019 Baltimore, MD replication.

·      Using comprehensive growth criteria in the areas of employment, target population, funding potential, local infrastructure, and competition, identify sites four, five, and six from a comprehensive list of 20 metropolitan areas already analyzed in a first round of strategic growth planning.

·      Secure funding for sites four and five, leading to the hiring of Site Directors.

·      Hire Expansion Director to oversee expansion efforts, strategy, and initial hiring and partnership with Site Directors.

·      Begin building the continuous quality improvement infrastructure and use extensive data collection to make program iterations and improvements.

Five-year goals:

·      Grow to five additional sites (one per year during next five years), entering a scale phase by 2026.

·      Support free digital skill training for 4,500 adults (600 in 2021 at three sites; 750 in 2022 at four sites; 900 in 2023 at five sites; 1,050 in 2024 at six sites; and 1,200 in 2025 at seven sites).

·      Conduct yearlong randomized control trial evaluation on work, progress, and impact to further refine curriculum.

Byte Back has analyzed several key risks that create barriers to success and impact. These risks and the planned mitigation steps include:

·      Straining internal systems – With growth comes a push on the current systems and staff. Growing too big, too fast can cause the systems to bend beyond repair and disable the organization in the long term.

·      Rapid changes in tech – Tech changes fast. It’s critical Byte Back’s curriculum constantly evolve to stay updated with the latest trends and the latest high-demand jobs in the sector. Without this evolution, Byte Back’s work will be irrelevant in a heartbeat.

·      Financial uncertainty – As a nonprofit, providing all training free of cost, Byte Back raises its funds annually. But as the unprecedented uncertainty of the pandemic has demonstrated, raising funds and financial variations impact nonprofits too.

·      Market entry – Each new market requires a large upfront investment of time, resources, and a commitment to building local partnerships. The culture and community are different in every location. Without these investments, market growth is impossible. But they create a great barrier to entering any new market.

Barriers will be overcome with the following strategies:

·      Straining internal systems – Focus on strong internal communication and system expansion. In initial expansion phases, this included refining a Salesforce platform for student data and building a new website with cross-site functionality.  

·      Rapid changes in tech –To overcome this, and recognize market changes in differing geographies, Byte Back will continue to build cross-sector advisory councils with employer partners who can inform curriculum on local labor market changes and tech updates.

·      Financial uncertainty – In 2016 revenue was 60% generated from local government sources, but the organization has focused on diversifying and stabilizing revenue. While the current model –35% foundation income, 25% corporate, 25% government, and 10% from other sources – is stable, there is always future uncertainty with the economy. Thus, Byte Back will continue to solicit multi-year commitments and maintain financial safety nets. Working on additional generated revenue models, like paid-for training with corporate or nonprofit entities, will also help reduce the uncertainty and ensure free training for the target populations.

·      Market entry –First, Byte Back is using a model it developed in its Baltimore expansion which focuses on partnership building and initial funding pre-entry. This model of growth ensures long-term success through even more upfront work. Secondly, the growth of Byte Back’s curriculum in the virtual training space will decrease these barriers.

As Byte Back has refined its model over the last five years under the leadership of CEO Elizabeth Lindsey, we have significantly increased our data collection. From pre-data on digital skills, to increased investments in employment and employment retention tracking, there is a plethora of data in Byte Back’s Salesforce CRM system.

One of Byte Back’s key upcoming roles for growth is a Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Manager role. The manager will expand Byte Back’s tracking, and more importantly, ability to quickly analyze and appropriately respond to trends in learner performance and employment outcomes. In the coming years, Byte Back wants to increase its qualitative data collection on programmatic outcomes – to better understand impact beyond employment – and long-term employment retention tracking – to track success well beyond the first year of employment.

Under the leadership of CEO Elizabeth Lindsey, the diverse team is well-positioned to oversee growth. The five-person leadership team averages five years with Byte Back and has a track record of expansion and achieving key results. In 2019, the team oversaw the Baltimore site expansion, which is serving more 150+ adults within the first 18 months of operations. The team stabilized and diversified funding, transitioning from 60% of funding from local government sources to ongoing commitments from local and national foundations and corporations.

Since 2016, we’ve codified our programming pathway with revamped, in-house curriculum, built a partnership model for cross-sector collaborations, designed our long-term strategic pathway, and adapted and iterated along the way. As a team, Byte Back has focused on retaining high performers and expanding the community and relationships that drive growth.

CEO Elizabeth Lindsey, a Black woman and first-generation college student, launched these efforts because she understands the potential national impact of Byte Back’s model. As a first-generation college student, she understands her education opened the door to a career and the middle class.

Since taking the helm of Byte Back in 2015, Elizabeth’s efforts have brought organizational stability and process improvement, new communication strategies to illuminate inequities, and strategic planning and fundraising that has increased the budget by almost $1 million. Elizabeth earned a master’s degree from Princeton and led workforce and economic development strategies in New Jersey and DC. She also helped DC-based environmental nonprofit Groundswell grow from a local startup to a national organization.

In Byte Back’s current geographies in Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD, the organization operates with substantial partnerships in two categories:

Community Partnerships

Byte Back maintains key partnerships with local nonprofits and government agencies to provide additional wraparound services (housing, healthcare, childcare, food access, etc.) and for programmatic referrals and on-site training (Byte Back curriculum and instructors, partner sites). Across DC and Baltimore, these collaborations are critical for recruiting, expanding training, and ensuring access to holistic, comprehensive services. Collaborations allow Byte Back to focus on workforce training - what it does best - while reducing attrition with additional services. They also allow Byte Back to reach its primary target populations with ease and provide training where they live (in non-pandemic circumstances). Other community partnerships are focused on education. As graduates enter employment, maintaining collaborations with degree programs like Saylor and Nexford Academy open doors to additional certifications while in full-time employment thanks to stackable credentials.

Employer Partnerships

Byte Back organizes many of these employer partners under its cross-sector advisory councils. Employers meet and discuss hiring trends, labor market changes, Byte Back's curriculum, and challenges they face (or unintentionally create) in hiring non-linear employees like Byte Back graduates. Regular collaborators include places like Employ Prince George’s, DC Department of Human Resources, Opportunity@Work, Rebellion Defense, Reasonable Tech Solutions, Crossfire, Symposit, Wisetek, Noraye, Ave Point, KRA, and designData. Hiring partnerships have focused on small-to-medium sized employers who have been receptive and eager to participate in hiring processes to fill shortages in their workforces.

Byte Back offers a high-touch business model. This is a response to the value sought by the primary target populations. The organization’s key customer is any low-income adult facing barriers to employment. The typical barriers are lacking digital skills, lacking a college degree, and workforce discrimination. With this population, Byte Back delivers its product on a cost-free structure.

Ultimately, there are few-to-no paths from no digital skills to a digitally based career, Byte Back brings that value to its customers.

Byte Back’s model is deployed in a high-touch environment because of the foundational level of the curriculum and progress. Customers receive a free digital skills training that can guide them from no or minimal digital skills, to earning tech certifications, to entering living-wage careers using technology. It is provided in person and in blended learning models. While the model is difficult to apply virtually, Byte Back has completely revamped its services to ensure this possibility. That has meant other services – like basic case management, access to laptops and internet, and increased tutoring – are also provided in all virtual or blended learning environments to best deliver value to the customer.

Customers choose Byte Back because of a lack of ability to enter other pathways to employment. Their barriers are viewed as insurmountable within other institutions and they are denied access and asked to first build digital skills. Byte Back gets them those digital skills AND the career-ready certifications they need to complete the pathway to employment.

Byte Back has remained financially stable with its low-income client model of generating income to date. Sustained donations from grant programs, corporate partners, government institutions, and individuals allow programming to be offered free of cost to the low-income participants. In 2016, when CEO Elizabeth Lindsey took the helm of operations, funding was completely unsustainable. The organization had scaled operations to the point of 60% income from local government support. Recognizing the fickle nature of this income stream, the team built the relationships to diversify revenue over the next four years to ensure financial viability before continued growth. This has led to continued budget growth, programming expansion, and a reduction of government funding reliance to a balanced 25%.

This funding model will continue as Byte Back expands its program. Several additional paths are being investigated and are key reasons for Byte Back’s application for funding and advice now.

These include:

·      Service subsidization – Provide training courses to paying corporate or nonprofit partners to generate earned income.

·      Employment model – Provide consulting IT services, employing graduates of the program and creating additional routes to employment while generating revenue and providing a service to corporate, nonprofit, or government contracts.

These models, and additional investigations, can ensure even more program growth thanks to generated revenue beyond the low-income client training.

Byte Back raised funds in the last 12 months to ensure its operational success and the expansion of the programming. Funding was generated in these main categories:

·      Foundation grants – $1,013,525

·      Corporate grants and funding – $889,520

·      Government grants and contracts – $681,007

·      Individual donations – $122,978

·      In-kind, program revenue, and other support – $151,834

As Byte Back increases its revenue and investigates more models to financial sustainability, we seek to raise additional grant funding in the coming year to achieve expanding goals at scale. Outside of the funds planned to be raised in each additional site, Byte Back is seeking to raise $250,000 in its work to hire an Expansion Director and create the additional internal systems needed for large-scale expansion in the next year. Grant funding from the challenge would provide 50% of this revenue, and we believe the exposure would ensure the ability to raise the final $125,000 in that expansion.

Byte Back’s expected expenses for 2021 are $2,806,173. This estimation does not include expansion funds to new geographies, which if secured, would increase expenses.

Byte Back sees an opportunity to raise funds to grow its disruptive curriculum and enter the scale stage of impact over the next three years. The funding and advice generated through the Challenge network will be critical in our ability to make this leap. Beyond the advice, exposure, and other opportunities – we believe the Challenge will be critical in helping Byte Back with two of its barriers.

·      Financial uncertainty – There are two key advantages the challenge will support Byte Back with financially. First, funding, even one-time, at a large scale reduces the financial future and allows the organization to focus more on programming. Secondly, one of the key advice generators for Byte Back is to build additional financial models that are under investigation. We believe these can increase impact and long-term sustainability.

·      Market entry – We’ve codified our branching expansion model and have a template to demonstrate to additional funders. Support will help Byte Back begin to approach new locations and garner additional commitments that not only replace the funding from the Challenge but create routes for more expansion.

While all extremely helpful, Byte Back’s primary support goals are in advice and partnerships:

Advice

·      Evaluation – As Byte Back hires its Continuous Quality Improvement Manager, working closely with data and evaluation experts will be critical.

·      New revenue models – One area for long-term financial success and growth is to develop service subsidization models that can be deployed with corporate partners and help generate revenue for the free training with low-income participants. Other models, including paid IT consulting that employs graduates are also of interest.

·      Board members – With growth, continuing to bring new, highly talented board members to advice the organization is important.

Partnerships

·      Marketing and exposure – Sharing Byte Back’s vision beyond our current geographies and increasing exposure to new markets and new funding opportunities helps drive success.

·      Service distribution – Working with new partners on the service growth.

Partners drive Byte Back’s success. While many additional partners will be identified and approached in new geographies (particularly in the areas of nonprofit referral partners, government agencies, and local employers), in the present Byte Back is looking at additional national partners on the employment and training landscape.

Some of these potential partners include:

·      Charter Communications – With locations across much of the US, Charter (Spectrum) has a firm commitment to digital equity and would be a natural partner in Byte Back’s growth. While Byte Back has participated in opening discussions, nothing firm has come to fruition as of yet.

·      Google – Google’s national presence has led to innovative programs, like the IT Support Certification Training Program, that would be natural complements for Byte Back’s IT training on local levels. At this time, Google is only interested in partners with more national sites. Growth through this grant could help open this door for Byte Back learners.

·      Microsoft – As a Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) trainer, the company is a natural partner in Byte Back’s expansion. The organization has recently begun conversations with the local DC office and hopes to use these conversations to buoy national partnerships.

·      CompTIA – Like Microsoft, Byte Back is a trainer for CompTIA certifications. A growth in their collaboration with Byte Back would be beneficial in connecting to more employers as expansion continues.