Year Up is branching out
Year Up is ready to ramp up its Career Accelerator program, thanks in part to a $3 million donation from private equity giant Blackstone.
The Boston nonprofit offers job training and internships for students to enter the professional workforce. Through the Career Accelerator program, Year Up provides curricula and other support to community colleges and other intermediaries that work with students, enabling Year Up to reach a bigger audience.
Career Accelerator pilots have been launched in Los Angeles, Boston, Charlotte, N.C., and Dallas metro areas, with Austin, Texas, opening next month, and Detroit and New York expected next year.
“It means we don’t have to do all the training ourselves,” said Gerald Chertavian, chief executive of Year Up. “We can sit between the company who has the need and does the hiring and the community of folks that do the training. . . . If we want to have a systemic impact, we can’t be serving [just] 4,000 young adults a year. It’s got to be exponentially larger. Thankfully, Blackstone’s belief in that, their strategic partnership and insight, helped us take it to the next level.”