Scaling Government Partnerships @ FreeWorld
Unlocking Growth Through Public–Private Partnerships
Challenge
FreeWorld had no public funding strategy or infrastructure to support sustainable growth. To scale nationally and reduce program costs, we needed a way to systematically access and integrate public workforce funds into our model—without disrupting core operations.
Action
Kara is building FreeWorld's public funding strategy and infrastructure from the ground up. This has meant immersing herself in the U.S. workforce system, mapping our program to funding requirements, and designing a scalable approach. Using a pilot–learn–iterate–automate–integrate cycle, Kara has partnered with FreeWorld's Product Engineering function to embed public funding access directly into FreeWorld's tech stack, and created sales and customer success functions to run and expand the model. She's leading cross-org change management throughout, aligning teams as the work reshapes our core product and workflows.
Result
Launched a fully operational public funding strategy that has become a new, sustainable revenue stream—cutting cost-per-student by 50% where funding is available, securing partnerships with 17 public systems, and creating a repeatable model for national scale. Work continues to expand and optimize the system across additional markets and funding sources.
