The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Equitable Futures portfolio aims to increase access and participation in multiple high-quality local pathways that improve credential completion and drive positive labor market outcomes for black, Latino, and low-income youth.

To reach this goal, the Foundation is investing in the development, validation, and codification of exemplar models of place-based intermediaries that connect K–12 schools, postsecondary institutions, and employers, supporting alignment of education courses of study and integrated work-based learning and the associated funding streams and operational practices.

Equal Measure is designing and implementing a formative evaluation focused on one part of the Equitable Futures portfolio: Building Equitable Pathways, to help the Foundation more deeply understand and support intermediary-led pathway models.

The aim of the Building Equitable Pathways evaluation is to develop evidence around a set of hypotheses on the organizational elements of these models—both the elements that drive learner outcomes of various kinds and the enabling structures deployed by the intermediary to deliver those elements.

Equal Measure will have a special focus on understanding the strategies that intermediaries use to create ecosystems that result in more Black, Latino, and low-income learners completing education and career pathways.