Connecting Data to Opportunity Across Birmingham’s Cradle-to-Career Pathways
Supporting collaboration among local partners to strengthen data systems, foster continuous learning, and improve educational and workforce outcomes for Birmingham youth.
At a Glance
Location: Birmingham, AL
Focus Areas: Education; Workforce
Community Partners: Birmingham Promise
Timeline: May 2026 – April 2027
Project Stage: Active implementation / Learning phase
Birmingham is strengthening pathways to opportunity for young people, from early learning through high school, college, careers, and adulthood. Community leaders, schools, employers, and nonprofit organizations are investing in a shared vision of workforce development and economic mobility, recognizing that long-term prosperity depends on helping more young people access educational opportunities, career preparation, and jobs that pay a living wage. Yet many students continue to face barriers that can make it difficult to navigate the transition from high school to college and the workforce.
With support from the AIR Opportunity Fund, AIR is partnering with Birmingham Promise, a local nonprofit that helps students in Birmingham City Schools prepare for college and careers through paid internship opportunities, full-tuition college scholarships, and college and career coaching. Since it launched in 2020, Birmingham Promise has supported thousands of students.
As an organization whose end goal is economic mobility for our students, we must meaningfully track our scholars' outcomes from K-12, through college, and beyond. AIR is providing us with the technical expertise we need to do exactly this, now and in the future. We are beyond grateful for this project and for the invaluable data and research we will be equipped to produce as a result.
Samantha Williams
Executive Director, Birmingham Promise
Together, AIR and Birmingham Promise are strengthening the organization's ability to collect, connect, and use data to understand student experiences and outcomes. The project will support the development of sustainable data systems, provide technical assistance on data management and use, and establish a forward-looking research agenda to understand participants’ college and career readiness and success. The collaborative work will build the capacity of Birmingham Promise staff to track program implementation and measure impact, and to strengthen their use of data to inform decision-making.
The partnership between AIR and Birmingham Promise is the first phase of a larger collaboration across Birmingham's broader cradle-to-career network to support Birmingham’s economic mobility efforts. Over time, the partnership aims to connect cradle-to-career organizations through shared data aligned with common goals, build the local capacity needed to use the data to track progress and drive continuous improvement, and generate practical evidence about what helps young people succeed in school, college, and the workforce. By transforming how community organizations collect, share, and use information, the project will create lasting infrastructure to strengthen opportunities for Birmingham youth.
Project Goals
- Strengthen Birmingham Promise's data systems so the organization can more effectively track student participation, experiences, and outcomes over time.
- Build local capacity for data-informed decision-making by providing training and technical assistance that support responsible data collection, use, and sharing.
- Generate evidence about what works by developing a research agenda and conducting analyses of Birmingham Promise's college and career readiness programs.
- Support stronger collaboration across Birmingham's cradle-to-career ecosystem by identifying opportunities for organizations to align data, learn from shared outcomes, and work toward common goals.
- Lay the foundation for long-term opportunity by helping Birmingham better understand how community investments support educational attainment, workforce success, and economic mobility for young people.
Supported by the AIR Opportunity Fund
The AIR Opportunity Fund invests in community-led efforts to expand opportunity and improve lives. Through Priority Places, it supports projects like this one with funding, research, and hands-on partnership—helping communities build on their strengths, strengthen what works, and inform future efforts in other places. Learn more.
