Toolbox: Curate a toolbox of high quality, action-oriented STEMM learning and pathway tools, resources, and programs; deliver insights on data, partners, and practices to align and inform action; disseminate tools through SOA Partner and other critical national networks; and dive use of the tools through a public campaign.

The STEMM Opportunity Alliance will – leveraging AI where appropriate – establish a toolbox of resources that offer programmatic, relational, regulatory, and pedagogical support for networks and systems to accelerate access to quality STEMM learning and training. The toolbox will include a data dashboard that integrates SOA Partner data with education, sectoral, and economic data, guiding key decisions related to selection, adaptation, and implementation of practices and partnerships.  SOA Partners and national networks and coalitions will disseminate and utilize the tools across their distributed members.  

What we will offer:An open access, virtual toolbox and distribution chains that include:  

• Data insights related to progress across STEMM learning metrics and overlayed with STEMM economy and career insights

• A curated list of concrete tools, case-studies, resources, and programs that support partnerships, quality, and scaling effective practices and models (e.g. for engaging learners, jobseekers, and employees as they navigate education and career pathways; developing sector-based partnership; eliminating weed-out and exclusionary courses)  

• Mapping of SOA Partners’ assets, foci, and reach for forming partnerships and identifying gaps. 

• Technical Assistance by and connections between experts and the primary audience on selecting and adapting best practices tools, resources, and programs for their specific and localized context  

• Targeted audience delivery and engagements 

Influence: Build and carry out a public campaign that connects decision-makers and influencers with resources, messaging and stories that compel and enable them to make changes that empower STEMM pursuits among learners and jobseekers. 

The STEMM Opportunity Alliance will implement an influence campaign to persuade influencers and decision-makers to prioritize STEMM career-connected learning and take specific actions to transform STEMM learning and training outcomes. The narratives will situate this as a talent, labor, and economic necessity and compel influencers and decision-makers to take and encourage actions that help individuals pursue and succeed in STEMM pathways. 

The campaign will depend on SOA Partners – networks that support and inform influencers and decision-makers – to connect their audiences with these messages, narratives and tools that support persuasion, enrichment, and navigation through STEMM pathways -- including resources from the SOA Toolbox.

Influence Strategy Goals: 

• Compel specific (programmatic, relational, regulatory, pedagogical) action by influencers and decision-makers   

• Improve influencers and decision-makers' understanding of learning, cultural, and pedagogical practices that limit and support access and belonging in STEMM 

• Connect influencers and decision-makers with specific and concrete tools for changing actions, reducing barriers, and implementing effective practices 

• Equip influencers and decision-makers with stories illustrating a broad range of STEMM success and narratives of change in support of STEMM careers 

• Connect influencers and decision-makers with clear and consistent messaging about STEMM careers, pathways and success 

• Drive use of the SOA Toolbox, and participation in SOA Partner programs (see Toolbox Strategy) 

Hubs: Support and enhance the efforts of existing local STEMM Hubs to accelerate their alignment with the SOA common agenda and to create a replicable model for how our national Alliance can accelerate local impact across communities. Ensure that the SOA Toolbox and Influence strategies galvanize and respond to learnings from the local Hubs.

The STEMM Opportunity Alliance will establish a replicable model for enhancing and championing existing local Hubs managed by Partners that coordinate local stakeholders and activities. This effort is intended to catalyze existing ecosystems, seeking to enhance collaboration across sectors and networks, with a focus on SOA’s shared vision. The STEMM Opportunity Alliance will support Hubs in assessing local assets and needs, adapting national tools to their specific contexts, fortifying a coalition of essential systems level collaborators and referral partners, and serve as a model for regional systems change.  

These Hubs should advance the SOA common agenda in a local context, achieving measurable results across the focal areas. This could include working to:   

• Dramatically increase access to quality out-of-school STEMM engagement relevant to the (local) STEMM economy;   

• Ensure all students have access to, and 50% are enrolled in, algebra I before high school and access to advanced science and math curriculum in high school;   

• Eliminate K-12 STEMM educator shortages in and out of school and ensure a demographically representative and trained educator workforce;   

• Increase student enrollment and completion in postsecondary STEMM training and education programs;   

• Support higher education institutions in their efforts to hire, retain, support, and advance a demographically representative STEMM faculty;  

• Align STEMM learning and training efforts with R&D investments and regional economic drivers; encourage the growth of investment in community R&D infrastructure; and   

• Increase participation in STEMM career training, employer commitment to job quality, and the number of STEMM professionals in the workforce.    

The Alliance will support these Hubs to run as local collective impacts working toward these results.