Workforce development nonprofit Slingshot is leveraging a $120,000 grant from Spokane-based Innovia Foundation’s LaunchNW initiative to help connect Spokane County students to businesses.

Slingshot has funded a new student opportunity coordinator role to work with the nonprofit with the funds. The new position is designed to connect regional businesses to schools and their site coordinators, who set up experiences such as tours and job shadowing for high school and college students interested in learning more about a particular career or industry.

The Spokane-based professional training organization works to guide young adults to careers and industries they’re passionate about through private coaching and school curriculum, according to Slingshot’s website.

“It’s still in the beginning stages,” says Amari Troutt, student opportunity coordinator at Slingshot. “We’re still figuring out a lot. The biggest population of students that we serve are in high school, but we also have some partners at the colleges that we’re trying to service.”

Troutt joined the nonprofit in March as the organization's first student opportunity coordinator. The contract position has a tentative expiration expected in June 2027, unless additional funding is made available to extend the role.

Through LaunchNW's Mpower Mentoring Program, which operates at 13 public schools, site coordinators submit student requests to Troutt, who then helps make connections with applicable companies. Once a connection is made, students will have opportunities to participate in activities such as informational interviews, job shadowing, job site tours, and learn about apprenticeships in industries they’re interested in, she says. 

“We’re trying to keep it as local as possible, but we do know that there may be a need where we have to outsource,” Troutt says of the business connections for students. “The pipeline between school and work is a lot better when (the company is) here.”

Student experiences are expected to begin in the coming months, she adds.

Slingshot's stated goal as part of the grant directive is to facilitate at least 200 student experiences by June 2027, but Tyler Lafferty, executive director and founder, says the nonprofit's internal goal is 500 experiences.

“Slingshot is here to serve the community, and we do that mostly here in Spokane,” says Lafferty, who also is co-founder of Spokane tech companies Seven2, a digital creative agency, and 14Four, an advertising services company. “We have dreams of being nationwide and want to serve a broader community, just because we believe the impact is real and worthwhile and necessary, and as much as we love doing the work in Spokane, we'd love to keep growing.”

Slingshot was founded in 2021 and has four full-time employees, Lafferty says. The nonprofit’s latest annual budget of $375,000 is comprised of funding made available through grants and private donors.

In addition to the student-business connections, Slingshot also offers paid coaching, which also contributes to the nonprofit's budget, he adds.

In the future, Lafferty says he hopes to secure additional funding to retain the student opportunity coordinator role and Troutt, as well as hire additional coordinators to develop student opportunities past 2027.

“Our goal is to be so effective in creating these opportunities for young people that we find more funding in the future, whether that’s through these grants or through the workforce supporting something like this,” he says. “Getting young people to start to understand the importance and value of meeting people in the industry that can help them down this path is a big part of the work we do.”