Design from
the middle
We drive innovation in work in learn communities by harnessing the power of participation
Clients and Collaborators
Co-Design
Engage communities, educators, and workforce practitioners in the participatory design of strategic plans, programs, services, and policies to ensure they reflect real needs and lived experiences.
Compassionate Research
Conduct in-depth, empathy-based research to gain a profound understanding of challenges and barriers facing our students and job seekers.
Project-Focused Learning Models
Develop and implement human-centered, challenge-based learning models that help students build real-world skills while solving meaningful problems in their communities.
Why Work & Learn Communities?
We focus on workforce and education communities because they hold the greatest potential to drive systemic change in California. These are the institutions that shape how people grow, work, and contribute—and right now, they’re ready for transformation.
Workforce Development Boards
We support boards in making their systems more human-centered, from co-designing service delivery models with customers and staff to improving internal processes like procurement, intake, and coaching. Our work helps align vision with lived experience—so programs are not just compliant, but impactful.
Education
We partner with educators to create project-based learning models rooted in real-world relevance and civic connection. Through Human-Centered Project Learning (HCPL), we help faculty reframe curriculum to engage students more deeply and build bridges between classroom learning and career pathways.
CBOs
We collaborate with CBOs as trusted community anchors—helping them surface local knowledge, co-create outreach and engagement strategies, and ensure community voice informs institutional decisions. Our role is to elevate and connect their insights to broader systems.
What they say about us
Testimonials from partners in our work and learn communities of California
An educator's dream
The MiddleState team were incredible partners in helping bring our Linked Learning First Year Experience cohort to life; a model that connected community college level Political Science, English, and Statistics courses together.
Fresno Community College
A pleasure to work with
Middlestate's contributions to the FYE program and the students' learning experience have been invaluable.
Fresno City College Advisor
Equitable engagement
CivicMakers and Middlestate took great care in understanding the human needs and cultural components of technology requirements across the Berkeley Public Library system. They leveraged thoughtful organizational change strategy and equitable engagement techniques to produce a product that will guide technology decisions through the next 5 years.
Case Studies
We focus on workforce and education communities because they hold the greatest potential to drive
