Braiding Education, Workforce, & Community

We design, implement, and sustain education-to-employment systems with higher education, employers, workforce boards, state agencies, K-12, and philanthropy.

From Rural to Urban,

Indiana to International

Vision Corner Learning Center

Randolph County, Indiana

CEMETS Education Systems Reform Lab

ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Heading 6

Inter/National Center for the Apprenticeship Degree

Champion Convening

Oxford, UK

From strategy to implementation

Braided Futures is a systems design and strategy firm. In most communities, the will and the good programs are already there; what's often missing is the coherence and alignment to help them work together. We braid education, workforce, and community development into durable systems, so young people have real opportunity, employers have the talent they need, and communities can keep and grow their people.

We don't stop at strategy. Our work starts by listening and mapping what partners are already proud of. From there, we build the relationships, policy, funding, and governance that turn one-off programs into lasting infrastructure, and we stay alongside partners through implementation.

What We Do

We partner with higher education, K-12 systems, employers, chambers of commerce, workforce boards, state agencies, and philanthropy to design and build education-to-employment systems that last. Whether a region is just starting to bring partners to the table or scaling a proven model statewide, we meet partners where they are and help them move forward together.

Our work spans four connected areas, and most engagements braid several of them together.

Strategy & Design

Work-learn-earn pathways, plus the partnerships, funding models, and governance structures that hold them together.

Implementation & Partnerships

Cross-sector collaboration centered on growing assets, capacity, and impact.

Research & Evaluation

Applied, community-engaged research, comparative skills systems insight, and labor market analyses.

Funding, Facilitation, & Leadership

Fundraising, leadership coaching, and convenings that build shared conviction and action.

Meet our Founder.

Dr. Lauren Hall (Riggins)
Founder & Principal

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Dr. Lauren Hall Riggins is a scholar-practitioner who builds education-to-employment systems as civic and economic infrastructure. She began her career as a classroom teacher, convinced that education is one of the most powerful tools for economic and social mobility, and quickly saw that schools can't do that work alone. Early on, she co-founded VOICES, where young people's policy advocacy won two permanent voting youth seats on an Indiana state commission. For the past 15 years, she has brought schools, colleges, employers, and communities together, centering young people furthest from opportunity.

Her work reaches from rural main streets to statewide policy. She co-created Indiana's first pathway for high school students to graduate as Licensed Practical Nurses, partnering with Ivy Tech Community College and Reid Health to secure a change in State Board of Nursing requirements. She launched Indiana's first Employer-Provided Innovation Challenge with Beacon Health System and led the state's delegation to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation's national convening in Washington, D.C. She leads Indiana's LAUNCH team, led a top-scoring national Learning Landscapes Challenge submission, and has helped mobilize more than $13 million for education-to-employment systems across her career.

Her perspective is global. She is one of 30 inaugural U.S. Champions with the Inter/National Center for the Apprenticeship Degree and led a 13-person U.S. delegation to the CEMETS Education Systems Reform Lab at ETH Zurich. She holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from Indiana University Indianapolis, where she serves as a Community Scholar, and her doctoral research produced the High-Quality Intermediary Framework, which defines what regional partnerships need to become durable public infrastructure. She is a 2026 Fellow in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation's Digital Transformation Cohort.

EDUCATION

Ph.D., American Studies, minor in Sociology, Indiana University Indianapolis
M.P.A. and M.A., Arts Administration, Indiana University O'Neill School of Public & Environmental Affairs
M.A.T., Marian University
B.A., Psychology and English, Marist University