Raise Us: Gina Raimondo launches $1 billion retraining fund

Gina Raimondo has launched Raise Us, a bipartisan nonprofit that aims to raise $1 billion to retrain American workers for an AI-driven economy. Raimondo will serve as CEO, and the initiative already counts major tech firms and financial institutions among its backers.

What is Raise Us and who is backing it?

Raise Us is a nonprofit created to prepare workers for AI-related labor shifts, with a stated fundraising goal of $1 billion and $500 million already locked in, according to The New York Times. Backers named in the launch include Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft, and the OpenAI Foundation; Bank of America is the lead sponsor and will fund an apprenticeship program for advanced manufacturing. Other corporate supporters listed include ADP, AMD, Autodesk, Blackstone, Cisco, Cognizant, Deloitte, Eli Lilly, General Motors, IBM, Mastercard, ServiceNow, UPS, and Workday. Philanthropic backers include the Rockefeller Foundation, Arnold Ventures, the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, and the Stephen A. Schwarzman Foundation.

What programs will Raise Us run and where do pilots start?

Raise Us is launching pilots in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland, and Utah that focus on helping people identify in-demand roles, acquire needed skills, and move into stable employment. In Arkansas the group is supporting Arkansas LAUNCH, an AI-powered career navigation platform that links personalized learning paths with employer career tracks. In Maryland the state's Service Year program will expand into sectors like healthcare, and the organization plans a competitive fund for career-transition models plus an accelerator for displaced workers to start businesses. The initiative also plans to pilot ideas such as "wage insurance" to support workers who take lower-paying jobs during transitions.

How will Raise Us structure its work?

Raise Us is organized into four pillars: State Partnerships will align education and workforce programs with employer demand and tie public funding more to job outcomes than enrollment; Employer Coalition will bring companies using AI together to develop retraining and retention pilots; Education and Training will scale AI-powered training models that combine hands-on experience with credentials; and a Policy Lab will develop and test policy approaches and is explicitly not funded by corporate money. Raimondo framed the mission sharply: "America has a technology strategy for leading the global AI competition. It does not yet have a people strategy," she said at the launch, adding that without a people strategy "we won’t have won anything; we’ll have automated our own decline." Microsoft Vice Chair Brad Smith described one existing corporate model: the company trains entry-level legal staff across departments and teaches them AI skills so they can shift into new roles, saying, "You can think of doing that with almost any job we have."

Why it matters

Raise Us brings together companies that are both driving AI adoption and funding workforce transition efforts, creating an unusually direct link between the firms creating disruption and the programs meant to address it. The launch arrives as major tech firms are spending heavily on AI: Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta plan to spend a combined $725 billion on AI this year, a scale that frames the stakes for worker displacement and reskilling. Retraining has a mixed record in the United States; Congress has cut funding for the main workforce development law since 1973, and past efforts have been called "ineffective," according to coverage cited at the launch. That history makes demonstrable outcomes—whether workers land and keep stable, well-paying jobs—the central test for Raise Us.

What to watch

Watch whether Raise Us converts pledges into multi-year programs with measurable placement and retention outcomes in its four pilot states, and whether corporate backers participate as employers in employer-linked career tracks rather than only as funders. The clearest signal of success will be published metrics showing job placements and retention tied to the pilots' credentials and apprenticeships.