Case Study: Financing Delaware Pathways

Over the past decade, Delaware Pathways has grown from a small pilot serving a handful of students into one of the nation’s most comprehensive career pathways systems. Today, more than 30,000 students participate in career pathways across 24 programs of study supported by hundreds of employers and a broad coalition of public and private partners.

This growth was not the result of a single grant, funding source, or legislative appropriation. Instead, it was driven by a deliberate strategy to align vision, partnerships, funding, and implementation around a common set of goals.

The Delaware experience demonstrates many of the principles outlined throughout this financing playbook. Funding was treated as a tool to advance a broader vision, not as the starting point. Existing resources were aligned before new dollars were sought. A broad coalition of partners shared responsibility for implementation and resource development. Most importantly, funding decisions were intentionally connected to specific goals and outcomes.

1. Start with a Shared Vision and Clear Goals

The Delaware Pathways effort began with a simple but ambitious vision: to create the most comprehensive career pathways system in the nation.

Delaware leaders envisioned a system in which young people had access to rigorous career pathways, meaningful work experiences, supportive services, and clear connections to postsecondary education and employment opportunities. Through this system, employers become co-owners of talent development, and the state serves as a national model for connecting education and workforce systems.

To move from vision to action, Delaware partners developed a strategic plan organized around five priority areas:

Building a career preparation system aligned to state and regional economies – led by the Delaware Department of Education;
Scaling meaningful work-based learning opportunities – led by Delaware Technical & Community College;
Coordinating financial support across sectors – led by Rodel and the United Way of Delaware;
Engaging employers, educators, and service providers – led by the Delaware Workforce Development Board; and
Integrating education and workforce development efforts – led by the Delaware Department of Labor.

This strategic plan became the foundation for all future funding decisions. Rather than pursuing isolated grants, partners first agreed on what they were trying to build and how success would be measured.

2. Establish Clear Roles, Responsibilities, and Partnership Structures

Successful implementation requires clarity regarding who is responsible for delivering different components of the work.

Delaware established a cross-sector partnership that included the Delaware Department of Education, Delaware Technical Community College, Delaware Department of Labor, Delaware Workforce Development Board, United Way of Delaware, Rodel Foundation of Delaware, employers, and numerous local education and workforce partners. Each organization brought different expertise, authority, relationships, and resources to the effort.

Importantly, Delaware assigned ownership for coordinating financial support to Rodel and the United Way of Delaware. While state agencies focused on implementation, policy, and program delivery, Rodel served as an intermediary organization responsible for helping coordinate strategy, facilitate partnerships, support fundraising, engage philanthropy, and align investments across the broader system.

This intermediary role proved essential. Because Rodel was not responsible for administering federal programs or operating pathway programs directly, it could focus on connecting partners, identifying opportunities, coordinating resource development efforts, and ensuring that investments aligned with the overall strategy rather than individual organizational interests.

3. Understand Existing Resources Before Seeking New Funding

One of the most important lessons from Delaware Pathways is that sustainability planning began with understanding existing resources.

Rather than immediately seeking new grants, partners first examined the assets already available across the system. This included federal funding streams, state appropriations, employer investments, staff capacity, facilities, and existing programs. Questions included:

What federal funds are already supporting career and technical education and early college programs?
What workforce development resources are available?
What state investments can be aligned to pathway goals?
What employer contributions already exist?
What infrastructure and staffing are already in place?

This process revealed significant opportunities to leverage existing investments before pursuing new resources. Delaware already had Perkins funding, workforce funding, state CTE investments, postsecondary scholarship and state promise programs, employer partnerships, and educational infrastructure that could align around a common vision.

The lesson for local leaders is clear: the first financing strategy should often be resource alignment rather than fundraising.

4. Braid Existing Funding Before Creating New Funding

After identifying existing resources, Delaware focused on braiding those resources together around shared priorities.

Federal and state funding streams often have different requirements, allowable uses, timelines, and reporting structures. Rather than treating each funding source independently, Delaware partners worked to align them around common goals. Examples included:

Perkins Formula and Reserve funds supporting pathway development and expansion
State education and CTE funding supporting instructional delivery
WIOA resources supporting workforce development activities and support services for youth
State scholarship and state promise programs supporting postsecondary transitions
Apprenticeship and workforce training resources supporting employer engagement and work-based learning

The objective was not to combine funds into a single account, but to coordinate investments so multiple funding streams contributed to a common strategy. This approach allowed Delaware to maximize existing resources while reducing duplication and creating a stronger foundation for future growth.

5. Create Development Plans for Strategic Gaps

While existing funding supported many aspects of Delaware Pathways, important gaps remained.

Some priorities did not align neatly with traditional education or workforce funding streams. Examples included:

Career awareness activities
Workforce intermediary functions
Career navigation supports
Equity and innovation initiatives
Communications and public engagement
Data, evaluation, and evidence-building activities
Youth apprenticeship expansion

For these areas, Delaware developed targeted fundraising strategies.

Rather than pursuing funding opportunistically, partners identified the specific priorities that required new investment and developed plans to secure resources accordingly. This led to successful investments from organizations such as the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Labor, JPMorgan Chase, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Walton Family Foundation, Britebound, corporate partners, and others.

The key lesson is that development planning should begin with the identification of strategic gaps — not reacting to different funding opportunities.

6. Align Funding to Strategy Rather Than Individual Programs

Perhaps the most important feature of the Delaware Pathways financing strategy was its focus on aligning funding to strategic priorities rather than individual programs.

Delaware developed a funding matrix that mapped investments against major components of the pathways system, including:

Middle grades career exploration
High school redesign and career pathways expansion
Postsecondary affordability and student success
Work-based learning implementation
Youth and registered apprenticeship expansion
Workforce intermediary functions
Data and evidence
Strategy and communications

Multiple funding streams supported each priority area. For example:

Career pathways leveraged Perkins, ARPA, state CTE funding, Bloomberg, JPMorgan Chase, and Walton Family Foundation investments.
Youth apprenticeship leveraged Bloomberg Philanthropies, U.S. Department of Labor grants, apprenticeship scholarships, ESSER funds, and state investments.
Data and evidence efforts drew support from federal grants, Perkins leadership funds, and philanthropic investments.
Career navigation combined federal, state, philanthropic, and workforce resources.

This strategy reduced dependence on any single funding source and created a more resilient system capable of adapting as funding landscapes changed.

7. Maintain Implementation Discipline

Securing funding is only part of the challenge. Sustaining a large-scale initiative requires disciplined implementation.

Delaware partners established regular structures for coordination, communication, and decision-making. Funding opportunities were evaluated collectively. Partners coordinated advocacy efforts. Development activities were aligned to strategic priorities. Shared metrics and outcomes helped ensure that multiple funding sources could support a common vision.

Equally important, Delaware matched funding opportunities to the partner best positioned to pursue them. In some cases, state agencies served as applicants. In other cases, Rodel, United Way, Delaware Technical Community College, employers, or other partners took the lead.

The objective was not to maximize funding for any individual organization, but rather to maximize investment in the overall Delaware Pathways system. Delaware accomplished this through a distributed financing model in which multiple partners managed different funding streams based on their roles, strengths, and grant/investment eligibility. Common performance metrics, data-sharing agreements, and a shared implementation plan ensured that investments from multiple sources remained aligned to a single vision and common set of outcomes.

This implementation discipline helped ensure that funding decisions reinforced the broader strategy rather than creating disconnected initiatives.

Results and Lessons Learned

Delaware demonstrates that sustainable financing is less about finding more money than about coordinating existing resources around a shared strategy. The Delaware Pathways financing strategy helped transform a small pilot effort into a statewide system. Between 2015 and 2024:

Student participation grew from approximately 27 students in a single pathway to more than 30,000 students annually across 24 career pathways, with every Delaware local education agency participating in the initiative.
Student participation in middle grades career exploration grew from a pilot initiative to supporting more than 10,000 students annually across 10 partnering local education agencies.
Student participation in youth apprenticeship programs, which connect high school career pathways to registered apprenticeship opportunities, grew from a pilot initiative to supporting more than 1,000 students annually across three partnering local education agencies.
Student success on key college and career readiness indicators, including dual enrollment, work-based learning, and attainment of industry-recognized credentials, increased by more than 40%. During the same period, graduation rates, academic achievement, and postsecondary placement rates also improved significantly.
Employer engagement expanded from roughly 50 employers to more than 1,000 employers.
State partners were able to braid together more than $20 million in federal and state resources annually to support pathway implementation.
State and philanthropic partners generated more than $30 million in additional federal, philanthropic, and private investments to support pathway growth and expansion.
Delaware partners translated pathway success into lasting policy and funding changes, securing new state investments in work-based learning, workforce intermediary capacity, apprenticeship expansion, and expansion of the SEED+ (Delaware Technical & Community College) and Inspire (Delaware State University) state promise programs. These investments helped move critical pathway functions from grant-funded initiatives to sustainable components of Delaware’s education and workforce system.

More importantly, Delaware built a financing model capable of sustaining growth while improving student outcomes.

A 2026 outcomes study conducted by Rodel and RTI International (link opens in new tab) followed more than 6,000 Delaware career pathway graduates across three graduating cohorts for up to 18 months after high school. The study found that:

74% of pathway graduates enrolled in postsecondary education within six months of graduation, with approximately 45% enrolling in a major aligned to their pathway.
55% of pathway graduates were employed within six months of graduation, many while simultaneously enrolled in postsecondary education. By 18 months after graduation, 69% of pathway graduates were employed, and the percentage of students who were both working and enrolled in postsecondary education increased from 35% to 48%.
Approximately 6% of graduates were neither employed nor enrolled within six months of graduation, declining to roughly 2% by 18 months.
Nearly 46% of pathway students participated in immersive work-based learning experiences, and those students were significantly more likely to report a clear connection between their high school experiences and future career goals.
Pathways in healthcare, education, and skilled trades demonstrated particularly strong alignment between secondary and postsecondary education. Within 18 months of graduation, 58% of healthcare pathway students enrolled in aligned postsecondary majors, compared with 44% in education and 31% in skilled trades.

The healthcare pathway results are particularly noteworthy because they demonstrate that students are not simply enrolling in college—they are pursuing education aligned to workforce demand. Healthcare pathway graduates enrolled in postsecondary education at a rate of 81% within six months of graduation, compared to 74% statewide and 63% nationally. More importantly, 58% enrolled in healthcare-related majors, strengthening Delaware’s pipeline into high-demand fields such as nursing, allied health, behavioral health, healthcare administration, and other critical healthcare professions.

Summary

These outcomes reinforce a central lesson from Delaware’s experience: sustainable financing is not simply about securing more funding. It is about aligning investments around a shared vision, coordinating resources across partners, and maintaining a disciplined focus on implementation and outcomes.

Several key lessons emerged:

Start with a shared vision before pursuing funding.
Establish clear roles and responsibilities across partners, including which organization(s) can help to support strategic financing.
Inventory and align existing resources before seeking new dollars.
Braid federal, state, philanthropic, corporate, and in-kind resources around common goals.
Develop targeted funding strategies for gaps that existing resources cannot address.
Align funding to strategic priorities rather than individual projects.
Maintain implementation discipline and shared accountability across partners.
Use common metrics, shared data, and coordinated reporting to connect multiple funding streams to a single set of outcomes.
Invest in evidence generation and continuous improvement so that outcomes can be used to strengthen future funding, policy, and sustainability efforts.

For local leaders seeking to build sustainable pathway systems, Delaware’s experience demonstrates that financing is most effective when it is treated as a strategic function of system design rather than a collection of fundraising activities.

Vision drives strategy, strategy drives investment, and investment drives outcomes.