Career Pathways Expand for Northern New Mexico Youth Through New Collaborative Fund

Young peo­ple across north­ern New Mex­i­co are gain­ing greater access to career-focused edu­ca­tion and train­ing, thanks to a new col­lab­o­ra­tive invest­ment backed by pri­vate foun­da­tions, pub­lic agen­cies, trib­al nations and youth leaders.

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion is one of 13 phil­an­thropic part­ners and two state agen­cies sup­port­ing the North­ern New Mex­i­co Youth Fund. Togeth­er, these part­ners have com­mit­ted $1.4 mil­lion in 2025 to expand edu­ca­tion­al and career oppor­tu­ni­ties for youth and young adults ages 13 to 29 across the region.

Build­ing Oppor­tu­ni­ties Through Collaboration

Launched by the North­ern New Mex­i­co Strat­e­gy Table in 2021, this effort is root­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion and equi­ty. Its goal: to increase access to career path­ways for groups of young peo­ple who face sys­temic bar­ri­ers to well-pay­ing jobs, including:

• Native Amer­i­can youth and young adults;
• young par­ents rais­ing chil­dren from birth to age 3; and
• youth ages 16 to 24 who are not in school or employed.

In New Mex­i­co, 20% of young peo­ple in this age range fall into the third cat­e­go­ry — the high­est per­cent­age in the nation.

Cen­ter­ing Youth in Decision-Making

Young peo­ple have played a key role in shap­ing how the Youth Fund oper­ates. From set­ting fund­ing pri­or­i­ties to review­ing grant appli­ca­tions, youth voic­es have influ­enced every stage of the process.

“The Foun­da­tion is com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that youth and young adults have access to the skills, expe­ri­ences and con­nec­tions they need to thrive,” said Charles Rutheis­er, senior asso­ciate with the Casey Foun­da­tion. ​“Meet­ing these chal­lenges requires the col­lab­o­ra­tive and coor­di­nat­ed efforts of pub­lic, pri­vate and com­mu­ni­ty stake­hold­ers — and most impor­tant­ly, the young peo­ple themselves.”

How Career-Focused Edu­ca­tion Helps Youth Thrive

Career and tech­ni­cal edu­ca­tion and work-based learn­ing sup­port high school com­ple­tion and pre­pare young peo­ple for climb­ing the career lad­der and often include:

• indus­try-rec­og­nized credentials;
• work expe­ri­ence inte­grat­ed with class­room learn­ing; and
• oppor­tu­ni­ties to build real-world employ­ment skills.

Research shows that work expe­ri­ence increas­es the like­li­hood that young peo­ple from low-income back­grounds will land fam­i­ly-sus­tain­ing jobs lat­er in their lives.

Invest­ing in Local Innovation

The Fund is strength­en­ing local orga­ni­za­tions’ abil­i­ties to deliv­er career and tech­ni­cal edu­ca­tion and work-based learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to all young peo­ple in north­ern New Mex­i­co. The first round of Youth Fund grants sup­ports a vari­ety of pro­grams — from forestry and nat­ur­al resource man­age­ment to advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing and the arts. Grants range from $50,000 to $100,000 and may be renewed based on per­for­mance and fund­ing availability.

“The Youth Fund rep­re­sents a pow­er­ful exam­ple of what it looks like when com­mu­ni­ties, fun­ders and young peo­ple work togeth­er to dis­man­tle the bar­ri­ers stand­ing between youth and oppor­tu­ni­ty,” Rutheis­er said.

2025 Grantees

• Assis­tance Dogs of the West: Expand­ing its stu­dent train­er work-based learn­ing program.
• Col­lege and Career Plaza: Con­nect­ing high school stu­dents to paid, hands-on learn­ing experiences.
• For­est Stew­ards Guild: Sup­port­ing wild­land fire and forestry career train­ing through the For­est Stew­ards Youth Corps.
• Glob­al Cen­ter for Cul­tur­al Entre­pre­neur­ship: Launch­ing the New Mex­i­co Cli­mate Jus­tice Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment Pro­gram focused on Indige­nous youth.
• Mov­ing Arts Españo­la: Expand­ing Bowie’s Back­stage, a career launch­pad in culi­nary arts, agri­cul­ture and dig­i­tal media.
• North­ern Youth Project: Pro­vid­ing peer men­tor­ship and intern­ships root­ed in tra­di­tion­al agri­cul­ture and com­mu­ni­ty leadership.
• Peñas­co Inde­pen­dent Schools: Devel­op­ing a new on-site work-based learn­ing program.
• Pojoaque Val­ley School Dis­trict: Expand­ing CTE offer­ings in the con­struc­tion trades.
• Pueblo of San­ta Ana Tamaya Well­ness Cen­ter: Run­ning the Tamaya Elite Sports, Edu­ca­tion, and Lead­er­ship Pro­gram focused on esports, dig­i­tal media pro­duc­tion, cod­ing and per­son­al development.
• Riv­er Source: Deliv­er­ing green career train­ing focused on water­shed restora­tion and cli­mate resilience.
• Rocky Moun­tain Youth Corps: Con­nect­ing youth to careers in land man­age­ment and pub­lic service.
• San­ta Fe Dream­ers Project: Expand­ing a para­le­gal intern­ship pro­gram to broad­en access to immi­gra­tion legal services.
• San­to Domin­go Pueblo: Offer­ing cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant voca­tion­al train­ing in tra­di­tion­al arts through the Skills for Suc­cess program.
• Trees, Water & Peo­ple: Enhanc­ing land man­age­ment employ­ment skills for Native Amer­i­can youth.
• Youth­Works: Pro­vid­ing paid, hands-on job train­ing in con­struc­tion, culi­nary and oth­er fields for youth not cur­rent­ly in school or working.

In addi­tion, the Unit­ed Way of North­ern New Mex­i­co was select­ed as the region’s resource hub. It will pro­vide tech­ni­cal assis­tance, coor­di­nate shared learn­ing and deliv­er capac­i­ty-build­ing sup­port to grantees to help them imple­ment pro­grams effec­tive­ly and strength­en collaboration.

A Shared Invest­ment in Youth

The Youth Fund rep­re­sents region­al col­lab­o­ra­tion with youth lead­er­ship at the cen­ter. Along­side the Casey Foun­da­tion, fun­ders include:

• The Ancho­rum Health Foundation
• The Aspen Insti­tute Forum for Com­mu­ni­ty Solutions
• The Con­rad N. Hilton Foundation
• The Davis New Mex­i­co Scholarship
• The LANL Foundation
• The New Mex­i­co Depart­ment of Work­force Solutions
• The New Mex­i­co Pub­lic Edu­ca­tion Department
• The Taos Com­mu­ni­ty Foundation
• The Thorn­burg Foundation
• TRI­AD Nation­al Security
• Unit­ed Way of North Cen­tral New Mexico
• The W.K. Kel­logg Foundation

Casey’s His­to­ry in New Mexico

New Mex­i­co has housed a vari­ety of Casey ini­tia­tives, includ­ing a mul­ti­year part­ner­ship in Albu­querque as part of its Thrive by 25^® com­mit­ment to sup­port young peo­ple ages 14 to 24 in access­ing the resources, rela­tion­ships and oppor­tu­ni­ties they need to tran­si­tion suc­cess­ful­ly into adult­hood. Also, there’s JDAI^®, the Jim Casey Youth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Ini­tia­tive^®, Thriv­ing Fam­i­lies for Safer Chil­dren and Learn and Earn to Achieve Poten­tial (LEAP™), as well as the Albu­querque Jus­tice for Youth Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lab­o­ra­tive.

Relat­ed resources

https://​www​.aecf​.org/​b​l​o​g​/​m​a​k​i​n​g​-​w​o​r​k​-​b​a​s​e​d​-​l​e​a​r​n​i​n​g​-​h​appen

https://​www​.aecf​.org/​b​l​o​g​/​t​h​r​e​e​-​k​e​y​-​e​l​e​m​e​n​t​s​-​o​f​-​q​u​a​l​i​t​y​-​w​o​r​k​-​b​a​s​e​d​-​l​e​a​r​n​i​n​g​-​p​r​o​g​r​a​m​s​-​f​o​r​-​y​o​u​n​g​-​a​dults

https://​www​.aecf​.org/​b​l​o​g​/​w​h​o​-​a​r​e​-​o​p​p​o​r​t​u​n​i​t​y​-​youth