From Inquiry to Action: Building Skills-First Ecosystems That Last

Our hypothesis: If regions ground skills-first work in asset-based, community-driven research, then they will build the trust, shared understanding, and sense of ownership required to sustain change beyond any single grant or initiative.

Currently, the selected communities are deeply engaged in the inquiry phase, which emphasizes asset-based, qualitative research. Participating organizations craft a problem statement, map their local ecosystems, develop a detailed research agenda, and conduct community conversations to understand the present state, stakeholder visions, key needs, and potential opportunities from multiple perspectives.

Rather than centering deficits, regions are learning to shape their conversations to look for what is already working well, where trust and inspiration exist, and which assets—people, institutions, networks, and practices—can be leveraged or scaled. We believe this approach does more than produce a better research report. We hypothesize that it actively enhances the conditions for change by:

• Building trust with community members and partners, which is essential for acting on findings, not just documenting them.
• Identifying opportunities that may be invisible in purely problem-focused inquiries, opening up new pathways for skills-first strategies grounded in local strengths.
• Creating momentum by demonstrating that communities are not starting from scratch, and each stakeholder has a meaningful role to play in shaping a skills-first ecosystem.

Through this project, we’ll watch to see whether asset-based, community-driven research contributes to stronger coalitions, more refined and detailed problem statements, and strategies that stakeholders are willing to champion over time.

Our hypothesis: If skills-first strategies are co-designed with workers, learners, employers, and community organizations using human-centered design principles, then the resulting practices will be more relevant, trusted, and likely to be implemented with fidelity.

Inquiry-to-Action draws on human-centered design principles and the Double Diamond approach to ensure solutions are shaped with, not just for, the people they intend to serve. This approach is more time and labor intensive than simply adopting what appears to be working well in other regions or what has been deemed a “best practice.” Our theory is that co-created solutions are more likely to stick because they align with lived experiences, are transparent, and better account for potential risks and unintended consequences.

In practice, that means:

• Inviting workers, learners, employers, and community organizations into the research and solution design process.
• Testing assumptions, challenging biases, and exploring dominant narratives that shape how talent is recognized and rewarded.
• Using qualitative insights—stories, experiences, and reflections—to uncover root causes and design more relevant interventions.

Throughout both the inquiry and action phases of this initiative, we’ll experiment with specific co-creation practices—such as participatory workshops, design sprints with employers and workers, and structured feedback loops—to understand which methods most directly contribute to regional customization, deeper buy-in and investment, and adoption of skills-first practices.

Our hypothesis: If we make inquiry and design work more accessible, predictable, and participatory for busy practitioners, it will be easier for intermediaries to meaningfully engage and carry this work forward as part of their ongoing practice rather than treating it as a one-time project.

Accessibility, in this context, isn’t just about who is at the table. It is also about how engagement is structured and conducted.

At the local level, JFF supports the cohort in developing outreach messaging and conversation guides that promote flexible, transparent, and collaborative conversations that underscore the importance of co-design, lived experience, and community-informed insights. We show the cohort how to develop an agile research approach that promotes participation from a variety of ecosystem players and how to conduct human-centered conversations that emphasize shared learning and support, vulnerability in times of struggle, and collaborative problem solving.

Our working assumption is that designing an experience that provides accessible, trusting, and varied engagement formats:

• Helps avoid passive participation by giving intermediaries multiple, low-barrier ways to ask questions and encourage action from their key stakeholders.
• Enables intermediaries to widen their aperture by reducing biases and making it easier for all stakeholder types to feel comfortable contributing to the conversation.
• Deepens relationships and normalizes vulnerability and shared learning across communities.

We are testing whether this combination of supports allows intermediaries to integrate inquiry, design, and reflection into their core work—making skills-first a mindset and way of working, not just a temporary initiative.

Our hypothesis: If communities can learn from one another in a trusting, structured, and supportive way, then collectively, we can accelerate progress, avoid common pitfalls, and create a more informed, more coherent field around how to build skills-first ecosystems across a variety of regional contexts.

While each region focuses on its own unique problem statement and nuances, the cohort is intentionally designed as a learning community connected by a shared experience. Participants see, in real time, how peers in different geographies and sectors apply inquiry concepts and adapt them to their own ecosystems.

For intermediaries, we believe this peer support:

• Reduces isolation and burnout that often accompany systems-change leadership roles.
• Accelerates learning by surfacing patterns, innovations, and pitfalls across contexts that communities believed might be unique to their circumstances.
• Builds a broader movement and shared language for building skills-first ecosystems that can inform policy, philanthropy, and practice beyond any single region.

In this project, we are experimenting with how best to structure peer learning through cross-site share-outs, problem-solving sprints, community showcases, and informal office hours. We are observing which formats most directly translate into forward progress, changes in practice, and shared value across regions.

Our hypothesis: If technology and AI are deployed thoughtfully to augment human judgment and capacity, then regions can make sense of complex qualitative data faster and devote more energy to relationship-building, strategy alignment, and action.

Finally, the project experiments with technology and AI-enabled tools to expedite the analysis of qualitative data and expand collective understanding. For example, using an AI-powered platform to support codification and synthesis of qualitative data from community conversations can help regions more quickly identify themes, ensure key quotes and ideas are not overlooked, and share insights back with stakeholders in compelling ways.

The goal is not to replace human judgment. Communities must still engage in a high degree of human verification and validation. Instead, we hypothesize these tools can:

• Optimize already-strained time and capacity so practitioners can spend more time in relationship-rich activities that machines cannot replicate.
• Improve transparency and thematic mapping by surfacing a wider range of voices and perspectives within the data, not just the loudest or most controversial.
• Create a catalog of shared artifacts, such as synthesized themes, visual summaries, and quote banks, which can help partners stay aligned as they move from insight to action.

Through this initiative, we are testing where AI-enabled tools truly add value, where they fall short or could compromise transparency efforts, and what supports intermediaries need to use them responsibly and effectively.