SkillUp Coalition
Project Overview
SkillUp Coalition — a national nonprofit backed by 170 partners — helps individuals secure high-opportunity employment through non-degree career pathways. When SkillUp engaged SINA in 2024, the organization was racing toward an ambitious milestone: 100,000 job placements via their platform by the end of 2025. SINA was brought on to elevate SkillUp's B2B positioning and visibility, strengthen its partnership ecosystem, and firmly cement its position as a tech-forward thought leader in workforce development.
In July 2025, SkillUp reached its job placement goal and set an even bolder vision to serve 10 million users by 2030. SINA's strategic communications work positions SkillUp to achieve that scale through monthly data-driven content, executive thought leadership, and targeted narrative development that translates SkillUp's platform capabilities and partnership model into compelling stories for funders, partners, and the broader workforce development ecosystem.
What We Do
Narrative Strategy and High-level Messaging Framework Development
Media Relations and Outreach
Thought Leadership Positioning
Monthly B2B-focused Content
The Challenge
SkillUp built a powerful career navigation platform, assembled an impressive coalition of partners and saw incredible success in reaching their target audience, but their external narrative was not capturing that success succinctly. The organization was known within workforce development circles for its programmatic impact, yet had even more potential to be recognized as a tech-forward thought leader capable of attracting funders, partners and employers at scale. The organization’s leaders also had valuable insights about AI, workforce development and skills-based hiring, but needed executive content support to elevate their visibility as leading voices in these conversations.
The organization also faced a translation challenge.
How do you communicate complex technological capabilities, rigorous quality standards and data insights to multiple B2B audiences — including philanthropic funders, corporate partners, tech investors and workforce ecosystem stakeholders — without losing either the technical credibility or the human impact? SkillUp needed a strategic communications partner who could operate fluently across workforce development, technology innovation and policy, and who could build a sustainable content engine that would scale alongside the organization's ambitious vision.
The Solution
Building narrative infrastructure
SINA began with foundational work to develop a comprehensive messaging framework that positioned SkillUp at the intersection of innovation and workforce equity. We established distinct narrative threads for different audiences — funders hear about measurable impact and scalability, tech partners hear about quality standards and platform architecture, workforce ecosystem partners hear about collaboration and collective impact. This infrastructure compounds over time, with each piece of content reinforcing SkillUp's position as both a tech-forward innovator and a worker-first collaborator.
Translating technical innovation into human-centered stories
SkillUp's worker-serving platform and quality evaluation frameworks are significant achievements that need to be communicated in ways that resonate with non-technical audiences. SINA's approach centers on pairing technical credibility with worker-centered narratives. When we write about AI, we emphasize human-centered coaching and practical applications rather than abstract automation. When we highlight partnerships, we ground the narrative in what these mean for people navigating training and career pathways.
Executive positioning and ecosystem amplification
SkillUp’s CEO has the expertise to be a thought leader in AI-enabled workforce development, but recognized a need early on for strategic support to build a more regular presence. SINA collaborates on his LinkedIn strategy, drafting content that positions him at timely intersections — AI and economic mobility, skills-based hiring and equity, partnership models and scale.
SINA's strategic communications work delivered measurable growth across visibility, thought leadership and ecosystem engagement.
The CEO's LinkedIn following grew by more than 100% in 2025, positioning him as a trusted authority in AI-enabled workforce development with insightful content and commentary.
SkillUp’s newly-launched LinkedIn Pulse newsletter broke 5,000 subscribers in December 2025.
SINA-supported webinars see exceptional engagement, with above industry standard attendance-to-registration rates.
Beyond metrics, SINA's work elevates SkillUp's strategic positioning, with the organization regularly included in closed-door convenings with workforce innovators, tech funders and industry leaders, becoming a sought-after voice for organizations looking to integrate AI and career navigation at scale. And as SkillUp works toward its 2030 vision of serving 10 million users, the content infrastructure SINA built is a key tool for partnership recruitment, funder engagement and ecosystem credibility.
Hear from Our Client
“The entire SINA crew seamlessly operates as a virtual extension of our SkillUp Coalition marketing team, bringing not only deep industry expertise, but also project execution excellence. What truly sets them apart is their depth of workforce development subject matter expertise. They bring a nuanced understanding of our industry, audience and market landscape, which shows up in the quality of their insights, messaging and strategic recommendations. Their genuine passion for our organizational success makes them not only brilliant communication partners, but some of my favorite humans.”
Desiree Jewell, Chief Marketing Officer
