Made Right Here is a nonprofit organization that grew out of a $3 million U.S. Department of Labor Workforce Innovation Fund grant (“The New App for Making it in America”) awarded in June of 2012 and completed October 31, 2015. Our successes have now included hundreds of lives changed, transformed, or reenergized through a series of events, workshops, and trainings that led to employment outcomes for individuals while meeting employer need.

To date, we have trained over 230 unemployed, underemployed, and dislocated workers on a range of digital tools to prepare them with 21st century skills valuable to both hardware startup companies as well as mature manufacturers. We have successfully placed 85% completing the program into employment, developing their own firms, obtaining contractor work or continuing their training. Of this group, 28% were minority and 26% female. Most often, we have placed the first minority or female into a startup firm as part of our focus is on diversity and inclusion.

Following the end of the US DOL grant period in October 2015, new contracts were awarded to provide our program services to adults in the Career Link system, as well as various other youth organizations, as a registered apprentice as an approved Training Provider. Since the end of the grant period, we are also managing 115 youth and adults in the Maker Professional program. We have capacity, and a working framework to manage more than double the current size program.