EDUCATION-TO-CAREER ECOSYSTEM CONSULTING
Your problem isn’t programs.
It’s the ecosystem around them.
THE BULLS ACADEMY • DURHAM, NC
BUILT WITH, AND HIRING FROM, PARTNERS WHO MAKE IT WORK:
SOUND FAMILIAR?
You've invested in programs, but the results haven’t followed.
They start motivated and disappear by week six. Without coaching built around real barriers, life wins every time—and no one can tell you exactly where it broke.
Seats you’re not filling.
Training capacity exists, but there is no community infrastructure to find and warm-hand the people it was built for. Empty seats. Or the wrong ones filled.
Students who aren’t finishing.
Figuring this out alone costs three to five years of trial and error—and the cohorts that pass through while you're learning don't get a second chance.
Graduates who haven’t landed.
A credential is only worth the employer relationships you built before you handed it out. Transactional partnerships produce placements that don't stick.
Years you won’t get back.
WE BUILT SOMETHING INTENTIONAL IN DURHAM.
We didn't repurpose a model. We built one, broke it, and then rebuilt it.
The BULLS Life Sciences Academy launched in 2020 as a partnership between Made in Durham, Durham Technical Community College, and the NC Biotechnology Center.
It recruits 18-to-25-year-olds from communities traditional programs never reach, moves them through a 17-week credential, and places them with life sciences employers.
Our first cohorts graduated 55 percent. Our recent cohorts graduate 96. Everything between those two numbers is what we teach.
Recognized by the NC Biotechnology Center as the community engagement model within the Accelerate NC coalition.
THE THREE PILLARS WE TEACH:
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Paid CBO ambassadors, commitment barriers, and warm handoffs that fill every seat with the right person.
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A 12:1 success coaching model, wraparound supports, and a stipend structure that rewards commitment without buying it.
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A two-customer model that serves the graduate and the employer at once—at both the HR and the floor-manager level.
THE LEARNING CURVE, COMPLETED FOR YOU.
It took us five years to move this line. You don't have that long.
COHORTS 1 - 5 | 2020 - 2023
Finding out what didn’t work.
COHORTS 6 - 8 | 2023 - 2024
The coaching model takes hold.
COHORTS 9 - 12 | 2024 - 2026
The full ecosystem is working.
HOW WE WORK:
Start where you are.
Take only what you need.
You may not need all the ingredients — you may need two. We'll tell you honestly which parts of the model your community actually needs, and which you can build later on your own.
01 - Understand
Assessing from the balcony
We come to you, learn your community, and map what you already have against what an ecosystem requires. You leave with a clear picture and a plan you can act on — whether or not you work with us again.
Includes
Ecosystem overview sessions
Landscape assessment
Task force facilitation
Goal setting & funding roadmap
02 - Build
Moving onto the dance floor
We work alongside your team to install the parts you need. Every workshop is grounded in the BULLS Playbook — the documented, tested version of what we run in Durham, not a theoretical framework.
Includes
Community & youth recruitment
Success coaching model training
Alumni & employer engagement
Org structure & staffing design
03 - Sustain
Evolution and transition
Ecosystems change. We help you manage institutional transitions, shift ownership between partners, and build the accountability structures that hold quality as the program grows past its founders.
Includes
Program evaluation support
Strategy & roadmap facilitation
Implementation coaching
Data & measurement frameworks
HOW WE WORK:
Comprehensive services.
Pick the ones that fit.
Our catalog is a menu, not a package. Most engagements combine two or three offerings across categories.
6 OFFERINGS
Hands-on workshops: recruitment, coaching, employer engagement, org design, and coach learning communities.
Deployment
Support
Evaluation
& Strategy
3 OFFERINGS
Program evaluation, strategy facilitation, and ongoing implementation coaching. Standalone or bundled.
4 OFFERINGS
Landscape assessments, task force facilitation, funding roadmaps, and evaluation framework design.
Ecosystem
Overview
4 OFFERINGS
Presentations, series, written briefings, and conference keynotes for teams still deciding whether this applies to them.
Assessment
& Planning
PERSPECTIVE“The Academy is a partnership model with very clear process and outcome goals and targets. Developed locally, the model draws from best practices nationally.”
—David Dotson, Board Member, Made in Durham · President Emeritus, MDC
WHO WE WORK WITH
If any of these is you, we should talk.
We work with communities building something new and with organizations trying to fix a program that already exists. Both are the same work.
Economic development organizations building a regional talent strategy that employers will actually back
Community colleges with training capacity that isn't reaching the population it was funded to serve
Chambers and workforce boards connecting employers to a pipeline that doesn't yet exist
Employers who have invested in training partnerships and still can't hire or retain from them
Funders and intermediaries who want their workforce investments to produce measurable mobility
These are the questions we get asked first.
Straight answers. If yours isn’t here, use the form below.
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Yes, and most clients do. If you need recruitment help, we will not walk in and lecture you about the whole ecosystem. Tell us the specific gap, and we will scope only that. Our catalog is built to be taken apart.
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Answer TBD.
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Answer TBD.
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Answer TBD.
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Answer TBD.
START HERE.
One conversation. No pitch deck.
Tell us what you're working on. We'll tell you what we see, what it would take, and whether we're the right partner for it. If we're not, we'll say so and point you somewhere better.
Prefer to reach out directly?
Rasheed Bellamy
Chief Operations Officer
rbellamy@madeindurham.org