Five Insights on Impact: What 2025 Taught Us About Advancing Career-Connected Learning
Catalyze was created to jumpstart innovation in career-connected learning (CCL), grounded in the belief that philanthropy can deepen impact through intentional and iterative collaboration. Over the past five years, we’ve worked alongside grantees, employers, educators, and communities to help more than 60,000 learners ages 11–22 explore interests, build skills, and engage in meaningful career-connected experiences.
“2025 has been a pivotal year for us as we welcomed a fourth cohort of national grantees and a second cohort of regional grantees […] We have big plans for 2026 as we reflect on the first five years of Catalyze and build on that foundation through a new national challenge and an expanded regional footprint.”
Our 2025 Impact Report shares the ambitions and outcomes of our grantees, as well as learnings from the first five years of Catalyze. While we encourage you to read the full report, here’s five things you should know:
1. Early career exploration builds more than awareness, it builds agency.
With support from Catalyze, 13,761 learners participated in career exploration opportunities, with a 94% completion rate. Learners shared that these experiences helped them clarify their interests, reaffirm their passions, and better understand their strengths. In some instances, these programs also helped redirect learners if they determined a pathway was not the right fit. Our research suggests these types of outcomes are not detours, but instead demonstrate exciting and critical evidence of learners developing agency, self-awareness, and confidence to make informed decisions about their futures.
Impact by the numbers:
98% completion rate among learners in work-based learning
94% completion rate among learners in training and learning opportunities
94% completion rate among learners in career exploration
2. When learning is connected to real work, learners stay engaged.
Across the CCL continuum, we found completion rates were remarkably and consistently high. The highest completion rates were where learning was most closely tied to real-world experience. These stats exceeded expectations and remind us that intentional program design and engagement can make all the difference.
3. Investing in early stage career-connected learning has multiplier effects.
Catalyze seeded new and early stage CCL innovations, increasing access to the CCL initiatives funded by Catalyze by 300%. Not only did 9,152 learners earn industry-recognized credentials, college credits, and/or degrees, they also gained confidence, a stronger sense of purpose and skills to navigate an ever-evolving labor market.
4. Sustainable partnerships are the backbone of effective career-connected learning.
A consistent theme across our programs is that effective career-connected learning depends on deep, collaborative partnerships supported by a dynamic, shared infrastructure. Strong employer engagement, collaboration with formal and informal educators, and trusted community partnerships are essential to designing experiences that are relevant, accessible, and long-lasting. When we work together everyone wins: employers expand their talent pipelines, educators have new and relevant ways to support their students, and learners engage with their communities to give back. Partnerships and partnership-centered investments continue to help narrow the gap between education and employment in ways that last beyond a single program or grant cycle.
Grantee group photo at SXSW EDU
5. The future of career-connected learning is here.
As we reflect on five years of learning and impact, the 2025 Impact Report is an important reminder of the progress we've made and an opportunity to envision what comes next. We're less than two months into 2026 and we've already launched a new national challenge (get your applications in before February 27!). We've also convened a future-focused Community of Practice with organizations across the country, and are continuing to collaborate with employers, learners and innovators to challenge ourselves, learn together and advance what's possible in career-connected learning for the next generation and beyond.
For more about what we’re learning and stories from our grantees, explore the full Catalyze 2025 Impact Report and join us in building a learner-centered career-connected ecosystem that prepares young people for success.
