Grant Sustainability Action Guide

The Sustainability Action Guide provides workforce training grantees with a practical framework for determining which effective elements of their work should continue, adapt, or grow beyond the grant period. Designed to support both early planning and existing sustainability efforts, the guide emphasizes preserving high-value program elements rather than attempting to maintain every component of a grant-funded project.

The guide addresses five interconnected areas of sustainability: programs and practices, staffing, partnerships, financial resources, and storytelling. It helps grantees inventory and prioritize successful program assets, protect knowledge and essential functions through staff transitions, assess and strengthen key partnerships, explore braiding and leveraging resources, and communicate impact to funders, partners, employers, policymakers, and other stakeholders.

Practical tools are integrated throughout the guide to help grantees turn planning into action. These include a program inventory tool, funding crosswalk, partnership mapping and alignment tool, success story template, and press release template. Grantees can use the tools individually or together to identify sustainability priorities, clarify ownership and resource needs, document decisions, and build support for continuing the elements that provide the greatest value to workers, employers, partners, and communities.

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2026
• Posted by: Damon Jones
• Posted in: ETA Grant Products