Driving Communities Forward: Insights from Cross-Sector Leaders Closing the Opportunity Gap

The pandemic continues to widen the opportunity gap and adversely impact students and job-seekers, especially those who already faced systemic barriers to career success. We need innovative, collaborative, community-driven solutions to ensure that communities that have been disproportionately affected can have equal access to economic mobility.  Those solutions can often feel amorphous or unattainable, but – if you look closely at the work of local organizations – there are powerful collaborations that are meaningfully building equity every day.

Recognizing this, Common Impact and Cruise, a global zero-emission autonomous vehicle company, recently partnered with San Francisco-based nonprofits and civic organizations Bayview Hunters Point YMCA, SF New Deal, Humanmade, and TechSF for its second annual “Driving Communities Forward,” a discussion on how cross-sector partnerships and thoughtful, holistic workforce development programs can create more equitable pathways to opportunity. (Read about the solutions shared at the inaugural Driving Communities Forward.)

The conversation was part of FutureWorks, a Cruise social impact program designed to bring together employees and community members to exchange ideas, open networks, and support students and workers from underrepresented backgrounds. This year’s FutureWorks Week convened more than 230 individuals for three virtual events. FutureWorks represents Cruise’s ongoing commitments to creating a more equitable future and to actively supporting local nonprofits that are developing talent pipelines for those historically underrepresented in the emerging tech and transportation fields.

Keep reading to access the insights shared during Driving Communities Forward.