Corps to Careers: Building the Bridge Between Service and Today’s Careers

Today’s young adults are nav­i­gat­ing a com­plex eco­nom­ic land­scape. Slow­er hir­ing and greater com­pe­ti­tion for entry-lev­el jobs is mak­ing it hard­er to gain the ear­ly work expe­ri­ence, skills and con­nec­tions that can lead to fam­i­ly-sus­tain­ing wages and career advance­ment. And the sys­tems meant to guide young peo­ple from the class­room to career — schools, work­force pro­grams and employ­ers — too often oper­ate in iso­la­tion from one anoth­er. 

Corps to Careers, a new ini­tia­tive from the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, is designed to pro­vide career onramps for young peo­ple who are build­ing skills and gain­ing work expe­ri­ence through ser­vice and con­ser­va­tion corps par­tic­i­pa­tion. Ser­vice corps are struc­tured pro­grams that engage young peo­ple in paid, ser­vice-learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties that blend tech­ni­cal train­ing, skill build­ing, work expe­ri­ence and robust wrap around supports. 

How Corps to Careers Con­nects Young Adults to Infra­struc­ture Jobs

Launched in July 2026, Corps to Careers is a five-year ini­tia­tive that strength­ens the capac­i­ty of corps pro­grams to con­nect young adults to jobs focused on build­ing and main­tain­ing the phys­i­cal envi­ron­ment. These fields face an urgent need for work­ers, includ­ing con­struc­tion; nat­ur­al resource and habi­tat man­age­ment; water man­age­ment; ener­gy effi­cien­cy; and dis­as­ter response and pre­pared­ness. Accord­ing to Brook­ings, an esti­mat­ed 1.7 mil­lion infra­struc­ture work­ers will need to be replaced annu­al­ly over the next decade as the work­force ages out and cli­mate-dri­ven chal­lenges from floods to wild­fires con­tin­ue to grow. 

To meet that demand while expand­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for young peo­ple, the ini­tia­tive focus­es on three goals:

1. Young peo­ple are con­nect­ed to well-pay­ing jobs that sup­port oppor­tu­ni­ties for advancement. 
2. Employ­ers are con­nect­ed to young adult tal­ent pipelines and meet crit­i­cal and grow­ing work­force needs.
3. Com­mu­ni­ties are ulti­mate­ly strength­ened by improved local infrastructure.

For this ini­tia­tive, Casey engaged 11 corps pro­grams from across the coun­try that rep­re­sent a diverse set of com­mu­ni­ties — urban, rur­al and trib­al — where there are entry-lev­el job oppor­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple in infra­struc­ture sec­tors, such as con­struc­tion, water, clean ener­gy and land and nat­ur­al resource con­ser­va­tion. Through their par­tic­i­pa­tion in Corps to Career, corps part­ners will advance their efforts to launch, strength­en or grow ser­vice to career path­ways. In the first year, corps part­ners will receive strate­gic plan­ning grants and hands-on help from The Corps Net­work, JFF and Pow­er­Corp­sPHL.

Corps Pro­grams Expand­ing Career Opportunities

Corps to Careers’ inau­gur­al ser­vice and con­ser­va­tion corps pro­gram part­ners include:

• Amer­i­can Youth Works (Texas)
• Civic Works (Mary­land)
• green | spaces (Ten­nessee)
• Heart of Ore­gon Corps (Ore­gon)
• Los Ange­les Con­ser­va­tion Corps (Cal­i­for­nia)
• Louisiana Green Corps (Louisiana) 
• Maine Con­ser­va­tion Corps (Maine)
• Mile High Youth Corps (Col­orado)
• Oper­a­tion Fresh Start (Wis­con­sin)
• Rocky Moun­tain Youth Corps (New Mexico)
• The Ser­vice Col­lab­o­ra­tive of West­ern New York, Inc. (New York)

Part­ners will use a frame­work devel­oped by The Corps Net­work and Jobs for the Future (JFF) to deep­en employ­er part­ner­ships, strength­en youth voice and lead­er­ship, enhance ser­vice deliv­ery and expand post-ser­vice employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. In addi­tion to the Casey Foun­da­tion, The Bren­dan & Helen Bech­tel Foun­da­tion, the Con­rad N. Hilton Foun­da­tion and the MetLife Foun­da­tion are co-investors of Corps to Careers.

“A strong start in the labor mar­ket has long last­ing ben­e­fits for young adults, includ­ing high­er wages to sup­port them and their fam­i­lies and less time spent unem­ployed over their life­times,” says Rani­ta Jain, senior asso­ciate with the Casey Foundation’s Cen­ter for Eco­nom­ic Oppor­tu­ni­ty. ​“Corps to Careers rep­re­sents an excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to iden­ti­fy, sup­port and scale promis­ing approach­es that cre­ate new path­ways to oppor­tu­ni­ty and improve out­comes for young peo­ple. Young peo­ple will have expand­ed access to work and edu­ca­tion while play­ing a crit­i­cal role in strength­en­ing the com­mu­ni­ties they live in.”

How Ser­vice and Con­ser­va­tion Corps Pre­pare Young Adults for Careers

In a recent study, the Urban Insti­tute exam­ined how ser­vice and con­ser­va­tion corps pro­grams across the coun­try have evolved beyond com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, adding work­force devel­op­ment pro­gram­ming that helps young adults — includ­ing those dis­con­nect­ed from school or work, or at risk of dis­con­nec­tion — build the skills and rela­tion­ships need­ed to pur­sue a career. 

The study found demand for these pro­grams out­paces sup­ply. Pro­grams already com­bine struc­tured ser­vice with men­tor­ship, skill-build­ing and sup­port, help­ing young peo­ple make informed choic­es about their next steps. Corps to Careers builds on that foun­da­tion of men­tor­ship and skill-build­ing. It con­nects young adults to well-pay­ing jobs with oppor­tu­ni­ties for career advance­ment. The ini­tia­tive draws on this research, along with oth­er stud­ies Casey has sup­port­ed in the ser­vice-to-career field, to con­nect ser­vice pro­grams, employ­ers and train­ing providers so young adults move direct­ly from ser­vice into jobs. 

Research on Ser­vice Corps and Career Pathways

• “Corps to careers: Expand­ing career oppor­tu­ni­ties for young adults involved in ser­vice and con­ser­va­tion pro­grams” (Brook­ings)
• “The Corps Net­work Joins Jobs for the Future to Release New Report – Strength­en­ing Ser­vice-to-Career Path­ways: Ampli­fy­ing Suc­cess­ful Prac­tices From The Corps Net­work” (The Corps Network)
• “Ser­vice Corps Pro­grams That Con­nect Oppor­tu­ni­ty Youth to Infra­struc­ture Jobs Poten­tial­ly Yield High Returns on Invest­ment” (Urban Institute)