Resources
Access helpful guidance and resources to strengthen your application.
The Building the Future Workforce Challenge team has compiled a variety of resources for participants to utilize as they prepare their applications. Applicants are strongly encouraged to review the following definitions of key terms, tools, and other guidance and information to help strengthen your proposed solution for the Building the Future Workforce Challenge.
Timeline for testing phase
Awards are expected to be announced in early 2027 and the earliest start date for the two-year project period that applicants may use for planning purposes is March 2027. All dates are subject to change.
Illustrative timeline for the maximum two-year project period may include:
Note: On the application form, teams must demonstrate they will meet all staffing, funding, and other resource requirements necessary to begin the two-year project period in March 2027. Applicants will have opportunity to explain financial plans and other funding sources on the application under Contingency & Financial Sustainability and Other Project Financing.
Why we’re launching this challenge
Problem statement: Manufacturing and technical industries face growing challenges when attracting new talent, retaining workers and keeping skills current amid rapid technological change. Training and career paths are often fragmented, slow to adapt, or hard to scale—limiting efforts to engage new workers, support current employees, and meet employer needs. The industry needs adaptive, scalable solutions that make these careers more visible and appealing, prepare workers for immediate and long-term success, and expand successful models.
Additional background on the problem statements includes:
Solution categories
A core requirement of every solution is its ability to stay relevant as technology evolves—ensuring breakthrough innovation and human potential rise together. All proposals must align with one or more of the following solution categories of the Building the Future Workforce Challenge.
Solution Locations
Applicants will have the opportunity to pilot and implement their proposed solution at one or more Caterpillar facilities or communities in the U.S., Brazil, India, or Mexico. While applicants may be located anywhere in the world, teams will be required to describe how and why they are ready and equipped to test their solution at the location selected.
Note: While cross‑country replicability is preferred, the Building the Future Workforce Challenge team recognizes this may not always be feasible due to differences in policy, culture, and other factors. Transformative solutions will not be penalized for scalability (see below and scoring rubric) if they can only be replicated within one country.
Scalability
Scalability is one of four criteria further defined on our scoring rubric. Winners of the Building the Future Workforce Challenge will have the opportunity to pilot their proposed solutions in a Caterpillar facility or community, with further potential to scale depending on results.
Proposed solutions should have strong potential to be replicated and/or to generate learnings that are relevant within or beyond the local workforce ecosystem. Applicants are encouraged to identify the key factors and principles that make their solution successful in a pilot environment, and what resources are required for success in other contexts and workplaces.
Note: While cross‑country replicability is preferred, the Building the Future Workforce Challenge team recognizes this may not always be feasible due to differences in policy, culture, and other factors. Transformative solutions will not be penalized for scalability (see scoring rubric) if they can only be replicated within one country.
Solution stage & evidence of effectiveness
All applicants must provide clear data and evidence that the approach has delivered the proposed results and impact. Eligible solutions will be at one of the following project stages:
Note: On the application form, teams must demonstrate they will meet all staffing, funding, and other resource requirements necessary to begin the two-year project period in March 2027 (dates subject to change). Applicants will have opportunity to explain financial plans and other funding sources on the application under Contingency & Financial Sustainability and Other Project Financing.
Private benefit
The Internal Revenue Code expressly prohibits the use of an organization’s assets or earnings in a manner that would give rise to “private inurement” to any insider of the organization. A derivative of the private inurement doctrine is the private benefit doctrine. The private benefit doctrine requires that any private benefit arising from charitable activities be “incidental” compared to the public benefit from such activities. Any private benefit must be both qualitatively and quantitatively incidental to the public benefits to be achieved.
A private benefit is qualitatively incidental if it is “a necessary concomitant of the activity which benefits the public” in the sense that the “benefit to the public cannot be achieved without necessarily benefiting certain private individuals. The IRS has determined that benefits are qualitatively incidental to the public benefit where it would be impossible for an organization to accomplish its exempt purposes without providing the private benefits.
Private benefit will be quantitatively incidental if it is insubstantial when compared with the public benefit conferred. An acceptable amount of the private benefit will vary in each case “in direct relation to the degree of public benefit derived.” To the extent that there is more private benefit, it must be outweighed by more substantial public benefit.
Common examples of private benefit include:
- A scholarship fund exclusively for children of staff members for the organization
- A program that exclusively helps a small, select group of people rather than the community as a whole
- A contract that benefits the for-profit business partner and not the nonprofit organization/charitable purpose