The WORC Initiative
The Workforce Opportunity for Rural Communities (WORC) Initiative is a partnership between the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and three regional commissions—the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Lower Mississippi Delta Authority, and the Northern Border Regional Commission. The WORC Initiative was created specifically to support community-led grant projects that address identified workforce and economic development challenges—faced by residents, industry, and communities—across the Appalachian, Lower Mississippi Delta, and Northern Border regions (collectively, the WORC Region), which represent areas of the country that have been hard-hit by economic distress and have experienced slow recovery.
The WORC Initiative supports innovative grant projects that are designed to create, enhance, or expand activities that:
- Help identify, and address, the workforce needs of regional employers to enable them to better compete economically, and
- Enable residents of the WORC Region to obtain or retain family-sustaining employment opportunities so they can remain and thrive in their communities.
WORC grants allow successful applicants to carry out activities such as:
- Recruiting eligible participants
- Designing and delivering essential workforce training and other related services
- Providing critical supportive services to enable participants to successfully complete their programs and enter, or retain, family-sustaining employment, and
- Establishing or expanding partnerships to ensure project designs align with community priorities and continue to provide benefits to the community beyond the life cycle of the grant award.
In 2019, ETA awarded the first round of WORC grants to 18 recipients throughout the Appalachian and Delta regions. In 2023, the fifth round of WORC grants expanded to include the Northern Border region. To date, ETA has funded six rounds of WORC grants.
WORC Initiative Grant Awards
The table below includes the number of grants and total funding awarded in each WORC round. For more information on awarded grant projects, see the project summaries through the link for each round.
| WORC Round (Regions Included) | Total Grants Awarded | Total Funding Awarded |
WORC 6 (2024) (Appalachian, Delta, Northern Border) | 32 | $44,677,794 |
(Appalachian, Delta, Northern Border) | 32 | $44,035,000
|
(Appalachian, Delta) | 26 | $34,375,000 |
(Appalachian, Delta) | 23 | $28,201,291 |
(Appalachian, Delta) | 27 | $29,175,000 |
(Appalachian, Delta) | 18 | $29,175,000 |
| TOTAL Investment | 158 | $209,639,085 |
Grantee Materials
Organizations interested in learning more about upcoming funding opportunities for the WORC Initiative (or other ETA funding opportunities) should visit the Funding Opportunity page or register to receive notifications from grants.gov.