BlackRock Foundation announced $13 million in grants Thursday to 15 inaugural winners of its Future Builders program, funding that will help prepare more than 5,400 people across 26 states for careers in electrical work, construction, HVAC, welding, plumbing, pipefitting and heavy equipment operation. The winners range from a trio of California electrical training groups to a Louisiana reentry nonprofit helping formerly incarcerated people find trade careers.
The grants, announced Thursday, mark the first distribution under a broader $100 million, five-year philanthropic commitment by The BlackRock Foundation aimed at training and supporting 50,000 American tradespeople nationwide, according to Axios. BlackRock chairman and CEO Larry Fink said the goal is to turn opportunity into careers that last. “America has enormous demand for skilled trades workers who can build and maintain what the country depends on, and these can be great jobs for millions of Americans,” Fink said, adding that Future Builders “invests in organizations that turn skilled-trades opportunity into lasting careers.”
Fink delivered that message in person Wednesday at Ford's Accelerate Summit in Detroit, and he has also carried it to Heartland Forward's Heartland Summit in Bentonville, Arkansas. The winning organizations include union training centers, union-affiliated groups, chambers of commerce, colleges and universities, workforce intermediaries and community-based nonprofits — several of which specifically serve women, veterans, formerly incarcerated individuals and tribal communities.
Who Made the Inaugural List
California landed one of the larger awards, with the Sacramento Area Electrical JATC, Alameda County Electrical JATC and San Joaquin Electrical Training Institute winning as a group, alongside National Veterans Transition Services and its Reboot initiative. New York's winners include the University at Buffalo Business & Entrepreneur Partnerships and Nontraditional Employment for Women. New Mexico's Regional Development Corporation and North Carolina's Business Committee for Education, partnering with Careers Electric, round out the geographic spread.
Other winners include the Canton Electrical JATC in Ohio, Goodwill Arkansas, Goodwill of Middle Georgia and the CSRA, the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce Foundation in Florida, and South Dakota's Mitchell Technical College Foundation, which serves a surrounding multi-state region. Texas's Iron Workers International and the Louisiana Parole Project also made the inaugural cohort, as did two nationwide organizations: Heavy Metal Summer Experience and Helmets to Hardhats.
A Six-Week Scramble for Far More Money Than Was Available
The scale of demand behind these 15 awards is striking. BlackRock's first national Future Builders Request for Proposals drew more than 1,000 applications from organizations in all 50 states, Washington D.C. and U.S. territories, requesting over $900 million in total funding during a six-week window in June and July, according to BlackRock. That competition offered two-year awards ranging between $500,000 and $1 million, meaning the $13 million distributed this week represents a small fraction of what grassroots trade groups say they need.
Jobs for the Future, a national workforce development nonprofit, administered the review and selection process on the foundation's behalf, evaluating proposals on completion support, trade credentials and long-term economic mobility. Before the national competition launched, BlackRock tested the model with a $30 million Texas Future Builders pilot in May, aimed at training 12,000 workers for electrical careers over three years in partnership with Texas State Technical College. The foundation has since expanded internationally too, committing CAD$15 million over three years in Canada to train nearly 3,000 trade workers starting with unionized ironworkers, as Ontario is projected to need 100,000 new skilled tradespeople over the next decade.
A Shrinking Labor Pool Behind a Major Infrastructure Push
The grants land against a backdrop of industry alarm over how few new workers are entering the trades. A national benchmark report released by the Alliance for America's Skilled Trades in September found that U.S. training programs currently produce only 55 skilled trade workers for every 100 needed, facing an estimated 1.7 million annual job openings through 2035. BlackRock recently joined Carhartt, Ford Motor Company and Google to launch the alliance, which expanded this week to include 14 additional corporate partners including Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA and DEWALT.
Home Builders Institute CEO Ed Brady noted in September that a nationwide shortage of roughly 300,000 skilled trade workers is being intensified by massive AI data center construction pulling specialized electrical and HVAC talent away from residential home building, according to Fox Business. Even so, employers appear to be holding onto the workers they have: construction industry layoffs fell to 99,000 in August, the lowest monthly level recorded since federal JOLTS record-keeping began in December 2000, as contractors retained existing staff, per Construction Dive. Construction job openings still stood at 251,000 at the end of August.
BlackRock has said up to $2 trillion is needed to modernize aging infrastructure. Modernizing that infrastructure also requires trained workers to build it.
Part of a Wider Push Into Trade Classrooms
The Future Builders grants follow a string of related corporate and local investments in trade training. Ford recently funded six labs at Kentucky high schools to expand trade training pipelines, while Indiana's Noblesville hosted a TradeUp Fest pairing a trades showcase with a ticketed concert to draw young people into the field. Maryland's Carroll Community College separately won $850,000 earlier this year for a trades center covering plumbing, welding and electrical skills — smaller, localized efforts that echo the same workforce gap BlackRock's grants are now targeting on a national scale.
