The Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) tapped into an array of corporate partnerships as part of a fundraising initiative called the Pioneering Pittsburgh’s New Workforce Campaign, which blew past its original $65 million goal to reach $90 million in contributions, nearly 20% of which came from the business sector.
Aimed primarily at bolstering the college’s facilities and programming in the emerging technologies that fall under the Industry 4.0 label — referring to the growing universe of internet-connected devices and related technologies like robotics and mechatronics — the campaign brought in several six- and seven-figure donations, and helped lead to two additional $1 million corporate partnerships after it ended last year.
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College President Quintin Bullock and Jamie McMahon, CEO of the Educational Foundation at the Community College of Allegheny County, will detail how they and their teams accomplished these successes during a session titled “Leveraging Corporate Partnerships Before and After a Campaign,” at AACC 2025 in April.
“Throughout this campaign, we found that the most successful relationships with business and industry partners were realized when we focused efforts on finding ways to align the college mission and strategic priorities with an organization’s philanthropic objectives, as well as their corporate recruitment goals,” Bullock says. “The result has had a more meaningful and long-term impact on our students, the college and our partner employers across the region.”
Surveying the land
The campaign’s focus arose from several comprehensive studies that the college and Allegheny County did about the workforce needs of western Pennsylvania during the next decade or two, recognizing that the region and its economy will continue to change, McMahon says. The college partnered with local government leaders to determine what its most germane roles would be in furthering the region’s economic evolution.
They concluded that while the college already had robust programs in certain key areas like nursing and allied health, the region’s workforce had a pronounced skills gap in emerging technologies, McMahon says.
“There seemed to be a good opportunity for the college to jump in,” he says. “The college had not done a major fundraising campaign in about a decade, so the timing was good.”
Determining the deliverables
During the pre-campaign phase, the college learned that, alongside changes in the economy and the labor markets, corporate philanthropy has grown more focused on ensuring a tangible return on investment to make significant corporate gifts — a number of large, six- to seven-figure contributions, McMahon says.
“That’s unusual. The corporate community in general has not always provided that level of significant support,” he says.
Community colleges, as workforce partners, are better positioned than a lot of other nonprofits to attain that level of engagement, McMahon notes.
“Nevertheless, we had to listen to what every potential partner needed, so they could justify [their contribution], whether to their CEO, board, shareholders or the public at large,” he says. “Any time a company makes a larger charitable investment that’s public, they have to justify it from a business standpoint. We needed to make sure that what we provided in terms of deliverables would help them make the case.”
Most prominent among those deliverables — costing about half of the $90 million — was construction of a three-story building called the Center for Education, Innovation & Training, which primarily focuses on Industry 4.0 programming, McMahon says. The top floor houses facilities and programming for information technology and cybersecurity; the middle floor focuses on advanced manufacturing and robotics, mechatronics and 3-D printing; and less relatedly, the bottom floor contains the college’s Institute of Culinary Arts, he says.
Another $12 million has gone toward renovating an existing building to create a new Center for Teaching and Learning, aimed at providing resources for professional development that will spark classroom innovation for all faculty, not just those who teach emerging technologies, McMahons says. Another $10 million is funding new scholarships for students, and other funds have underwritten capital projects on the college’s three other campuses, he says.
In addition, a couple of other line items have created “more programmatic partnerships with local companies,” McMahon says. “Some corporate partners were willing to make unrestricted gifts. Others wanted to support more specific types of programming engagement with the college.”
Aligning potential partners
To triage where to aim their efforts, the college and its foundation started with lists of companies that either supported the college in the past or were based around industries Allegheny County hoped to target. Leaders including college trustees and campaign co-chairs started meeting with companies “and making the case for why both this campaign overall and the new building specifically was key to the region,” McMahon says. “As with any campaign, there were early wins and early challenges. But as established corporations bought in, that made it easier to win over others.”
Internal partnerships were also key to the success of the campaign. While the foundation serves as the vehicle through which corporate partnerships and other charitable gifts flow, “We are not necessarily the content experts,” McMahon notes. A team consisting of himself, Bullock and cabinet members in areas like workforce development, academic affairs and (to a somewhat lesser degree) student services examined the possibilities and looked for the best fits.
“The building itself was the easiest fit,” he says. “But we wanted to make sure we would help companies reach their goals. For more programmatic aspects, we had to work very specifically with the vice presidents in particular program areas to put together a proposal and the budget behind it, and to go back and forth and meet with potential partners.”
Faculty and administrative staff provided input on specific facilities needs or course curricula to ensure the devil was not in the details.
“Many of these are multiyear commitments and still ongoing,” McMahon says. “At the foundation, we are needing to report back to funders on a regular basis. We have regular check-ins and conversations with our colleagues to make sure things are continuing to move forward.”
A better understanding
Going forward, the campaign has deepened the college’s ties with area companies and the region’s stakeholders, in general, who certainly would have known the college existed beforehand but might not have known many specifics about it, McMahon says.
“Details about the size, scope and impact of the college’s work were not something that was broadly known,” he says. That changed as he, Bullock and other leaders had conversations with more than 100 local corporations and their CEOs, board members and vice presidents.
“Here’s a little bit more about the work that the community college does in Pittsburgh,” McMahon says, describing the pitch. “Here’s how many students we have. Almost 90% of our graduates stay in the region. We are literally providing the workforce you need. This campaign is going to allow us to do it.”
CCAC will continue to build those relationships.
“That was the primary outcome, broadening the scope of folks in the community who know about us, know what we do, and also trust us as a good destination for building impact,” he says. “They need to see the outcome on their end, for their workforce needs. We’ve been able to significantly raise the perception of how the college is seen in the region.”
