Too many efforts to support the workforce development needs of workers and jobseekers are siloed either within organizations or state agencies. The lack of opportunity to work across boundaries with peers often leads staff to search for solutions to common problems that other entities may have already solved and leads to conventional practices rather than continual improvement of worker support and services.

By creating a learning community among three related efforts in different states serving diverse populations, the D4AD initiative supported shared learning, problem solving, and networking that helped all initiatives improve their tools and processes. Rather than encouraging each effort to look the same, this allowed diverse projects to share and take different approaches and aspects from other experiences to develop their own unique products and services informed and strengthened by others in the learning community. 

In developing and introducing new training tools, services, and systems for workforce development, such learning communities built across department and agency boundaries and involved expert outsiders. This collaborative work can be key to identifying better solutions to serve the most marginalized people and communities.