Every apprenticeship program has an employer who sponsors it, a provider who delivers the related technical instruction, and a funder who helps pay for it. Those three roles get named constantly. The fourth one, the organization that often does the work of connecting all three, rarely gets mentioned at all.
That's the intermediary — workforce boards matching candidates to openings, community-based organizations supporting apprentices through their first year, industry and labor groups building shared curriculum across employers too small to do it alone, and the nonprofits and agencies turning "we want to start an apprenticeship" into a funded, compliant program. Intermediaries hold much of the field together, and they've never been the subject of a national survey — until now.
The Cost of Going Uncounted
Without visibility into intermediary funding, capacity, and outcomes, it's harder to secure dedicated funding for the role instead of programs alone, harder for intermediaries to benchmark against peers doing similar work in other states or sectors, and harder for the field to plan for growth. That data would help state agencies weighing where to direct funding, researchers building the next evaluation, and intermediaries themselves making the case for what they do. Right now, that case mostly gets made anecdotally — one conference panel or one grant application at a time.
The First National Survey of Its Kind
Apprenticeships for America (AFA) and Education Northwest are running the first national survey of apprenticeship intermediaries to help close that gap. The survey covers:
- Your organization's role in apprenticeship
- Services you provide
- Funding and capacity
- Outcomes
- Challenges
- Priorities going forward
Responses will shape the inaugural Apprenticeship Intermediaries Field Report, informing future research, policy, and practice across the field.
Eligible organizations include workforce boards, community-based organizations, education or training providers, industry or labor groups, nonprofits, for-profits, government agencies, apprenticeship sponsors, and other organizations that support apprenticeship.
Why Participate
The survey takes about 10 minutes, and responses are confidential and reported only in aggregate.
As a thank you for participating, you will receive a $50 discount code toward an AFA membership. You may also choose to enter a raffle to win one of five free registrations to the 2027 AFA Summit.
Take the survey — deadline September 4.
.webp)