Workers and communities know very well what good jobs – or bad jobs – look like, because they live this reality every day. Yet our labor market and policies are often designed without the input or leadership of workers or the communities they live in. As a result, even well-intentioned efforts to create better working conditions and a more equitable economy can fall short for similar reasons. So what does it look like to have workers and their communities at the helm of job quality strategy and advocacy?

This event — hosted on March 5, 2026, by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program — is the second in its four-part event series on Fixing Work in the South. Drawing on the work of EOP’s Job Quality Fellows, this conversation explores what kind of progress is possible when we lean on the expertise of workers and communities to inform strategy and empower them to shape a labor market that works for everyone.

Our speakers include Cecilia Behgam (Texas Climate Jobs Project), Kelly Brooks (Civic Works), Maya Ragsdale (Beyond the Bars), Ben Wilkins (Union of Southern Service Workers), and moderator Amanda Fins (The Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program).

For more information about this event, including a transcript, speaker bios, and additional resources, visit our website.

For highlights from this discussion, subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Or subscribe to our podcast to listen on the go.
This event is part of our Job Quality in Practice series.

For decades, economic and workforce development systems have measured success primarily through job creation — the number of positions filled, the businesses recruited, the unemployment rate reduced. Yet for many workers, especially those in low-wage industries and economically distressed communities, job creation alone has not translated into economic security or mobility. More economic and workforce development leaders have begun to reckon with this gap, recognizing that traditional approaches are falling short — not for lack of effort, but because the systems were never fully designed with job quality as a goal.

In response, a growing number of practitioners are experimenting with strategies that go beyond placement and retention to ask a more fundamental question: what makes a job worth having? Job quality strategies — which address wages, benefits, scheduling, worker voice, and pathways to advancement — are increasingly finding their way into the toolkits of a range of organizations.

In this conversation, hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program on April 1, 2026, we hear how the Institute’s Job Quality Fellows are embedding job quality into their work across a range of contexts and strategies — from employee ownership models that give workers a direct financial stake in their company's success, to apprenticeship programs that create structured pathways to higher-wage careers, to worker advisory committees that bring employee voice into business decision-making.

Our speakers include Job Quality Fellows Kim Eckert (Craft Education / Western Governors University), Colby Hall (Craft Philanthropy), Daniel Marshall (Alabama Center for Employee Ownership / Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc.), Laurie Mays (Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Foundation), and moderator Matt Helmer (The Aspen Institute).

For more information about this event, including a transcript, speaker bios, and additional resources, visit our website.

For highlights from this discussion, subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Or subscribe to our podcast to listen on the go.

This event is part of our Job Quality in Practice series.

While the benefits of internships for students are well known, this webinar — which took place on March 18, 2026 — dives into a first-of-its-kind study from Strada Education Foundation and UpSkill America at the Aspen Institute to explore how internship programs drive tangible business value.

Based on the newly released report, “Maximizing the Value of Internships: Advice from Employers,” we share insights from 40 diverse organizations on how they leverage internships to solve persistent talent and operational challenges. Our panel of experts discuss how leading companies define and measure the effectiveness of their programs to ensure a meaningful return on investment. Finally, we provide actionable strategies for creating the internal conditions necessary to build sustainable, high-impact internship programs that benefit both your organization and the next generation of talent.

Our speakers include Devina Fernandez (Workforce Development Partner, Endress+Hauser), Bradley Leon (Executive Director, BlueSky Tennessee Institute, BlueCross BlueShield of TN), Kevin Grubb (Vice President, Work Based Learning, Strada Education Foundation), and Haley Glover (Senior Director, UpSkill America, The Aspen Institute).

For more information about this event, including a transcript and additional resources, visit our website.

For highlights from this discussion, subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Or subscribe to our podcast to listen on the go.

The small business economy, and the capital that fuels it, are changing in dramatic ways. Innovations in financing, new patterns of entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence, and shifting market and policy dynamics are reshaping what it means to own, operate, and grow a small business in the United States. What is the future of the small business economy and access to capital during this time of profound change?

This discussion is one of several that took place as part of “The New Era of Small Business Finance: Access, AI, and Accountability,” a forum hosted by the Aspen Institute’s Business Ownership Initiative and the Responsible Business Lending Coalition on March 5, 2026. The event featured panels with policymakers, small business owners, advocates, lenders, and technologists on solutions to support responsible innovation and sustainable small business prosperity. Panels include:

• The Changing Role of Small Business Ownership

• Innovations Driving Small Business Lending Forward: It’s Not All About AI

• Main Street Challenges and Policy Solutions

For more information, including a transcript, photos, speaker bios, and additional resources, visit our website.

For highlights from this discussion, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or subscribe to our podcast to listen on the go.

This second-annual event builds on our March 2025 forum, “Advancing Innovation and Fairness in Small Business Finance.”

The small business economy, and the capital that fuels it, are changing in dramatic ways. Innovations in financing, new patterns of entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence, and shifting market and policy dynamics are reshaping what it means to own, operate, and grow a small business in the United States. What is the future of the small business economy and access to capital during this time of profound change?

This discussion is one of several that took place as part of “The New Era of Small Business Finance: Access, AI, and Accountability,” a forum hosted by the Aspen Institute’s Business Ownership Initiative and the Responsible Business Lending Coalition on March 5, 2026. The event featured panels with policymakers, small business owners, advocates, lenders, and technologists on solutions to support responsible innovation and sustainable small business prosperity. Panels include:

• The Changing Role of Small Business Ownership

• Innovations Driving Small Business Lending Forward: It’s Not All About AI

• Main Street Challenges and Policy Solutions

For more information, including a transcript, photos, speaker bios, and additional resources, visit our website.

For highlights from this discussion, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or subscribe to our podcast to listen on the go.

This second-annual event builds on our March 2025 forum, “Advancing Innovation and Fairness in Small Business Finance.”

The small business economy, and the capital that fuels it, are changing in dramatic ways. Innovations in financing, new patterns of entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence, and shifting market and policy dynamics are reshaping what it means to own, operate, and grow a small business in the United States. What is the future of the small business economy and access to capital during this time of profound change?

This discussion is one of several that took place as part of “The New Era of Small Business Finance: Access, AI, and Accountability,” a forum hosted by the Aspen Institute’s Business Ownership Initiative and the Responsible Business Lending Coalition on March 5, 2026. The event featured panels with policymakers, small business owners, advocates, lenders, and technologists on solutions to support responsible innovation and sustainable small business prosperity. Panels include:

• The Changing Role of Small Business Ownership

• Innovations Driving Small Business Lending Forward: It’s Not All About AI

• Main Street Challenges and Policy Solutions

For more information, including a transcript, photos, speaker bios, and additional resources, visit our website.

For highlights from this discussion, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or subscribe to our podcast to listen on the go.

This second-annual event builds on our March 2025 forum, “Advancing Innovation and Fairness in Small Business Finance.”

Narratives about work in the American South have often centered on attracting business through lower labor costs, restrictions on unionization, and deregulation. The Southern economic development model, as this approach has come to be known, promised broad growth and prosperity. That prosperity has not materialized for most. Many workers and communities in the South have been left behind, with some regions experiencing poverty rates well above the national average.

Narratives shape public perception, policy, and practice. They can also be challenged and changed. Across the South today, workers, business owners, and communities are advancing a new vision, reframing what opportunity and good work look like and who gets to share in economic success.

This event — hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program on February 19, 2026 — is the first of four conversations with members of the Aspen Institute’s Job Quality Fellowship who are working in the South. In it, we examine narrative challenges around work and opportunity, highlight strategies for change, and explore how to amplify approaches rooted in worker dignity, quality jobs, and community wealth-building.

Our speakers include Shuh-Marraka Johnson (Principal Consultant, Deep South Strategies, LLC), Dom Kelly (Founder, President, and CEO, New Disabled South), Rachel Merfalen (Interim Executive Director, Tennessee State Center of Employee Ownership; Founder, Good Future), Alexis Tsoukalis (Senior Policy Analyst, Florida Policy Institute), and moderator Matt Helmer (Director, Job Quality and Worker Well-Being, Economic Opportunities Program, The Aspen Institute).

For more information about this event, including a transcript, speaker bios, and additional resources, visit our website.

For highlights from this discussion, subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Or subscribe to our podcast to listen on the go.

This event is part of our Job Quality in Practice series.

In this conversation, Haley Glover — senior director of UpSkill America at the Aspen Institute — speaks with Molly Dodge and Jennifer Gasiorek — leaders from Ivy Tech Community College — about RAND's recent report on the college's Achieve Your Degree (AYD) program. They discuss the importance of employer-supported education, the motivation behind the AYD, what RAND's evaluation tells us about the impact of this work.

For more information on the RAND report, check out, "Employers as Partners in the Success of Working Adult Learners: The Achieve Your Degree Program": https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3681-1.html

To learn more about Ivy Tech, visit: https://www.ivytech.edu/

For more from UpSkill America, visit: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/upskill-america/