Turning Vision into Impact
We are delighted to share the SHRM Foundation’s 2025 Impact Report – a testament to what is possible when purpose meets partnership. In a world defined by rapid change, our commitment to mobilizing and equipping HR as a catalyst for positive social change, so all workers prosper and thrive, has never been more vital. Elevating and empowering HR as a force for social good guides everything we do. Our vision remains both bold and urgent: a world of work that truly works for all.
This year, our collective efforts have translated vision into meaningful impact:
- Widening Pathways to Work: Through the launch of the Center for a Skills First Future, we have opened doors for opportunity youth and championed skills-first training initiatives in Arkansas and Georgia. These programs are unlocking new career pathways and empowering individuals who have historically been overlooked.
- Fostering Future Leaders: By strengthening the HR field with the HR Tomorrow mentorship program and awarding substantial scholarships and grants, we are nurturing the next generation of HR leaders - especially those from underrepresented groups - ensuring our profession reflects the diversity of the world we serve.
- Supporting Well-being and Community: Our work to address the fundamental stressors facing workers, along with our renewed focus on supporting caregivers, underscores our belief that well-being at work ripples outward, benefiting families and entire communities.
These achievements are only possible because of the trust, investment, and collaboration of our partners and supporters – and by our exceptional team whose dedication and expertise drive this work forward every day.
We could not lead positive social change without you. Thank you for standing with us on this journey. Together we are not just responding to change – we are shaping it, creating workplaces that uplift individuals and strengthen society as a whole. Because when people thrive at work, communities and the world thrive, too.
Sincerely,
Wendi Safstrom, President, SHRM Foundation
Camille Chang Gilmore, Chair, SHRM Foundation Board of Directors
Wendi Safstrom
President, SHRM Foundation
Camille Chang Gilmore
Chair, SHRM Foundation Board of Directors
2025 Impact at a Glance
The SHRM Foundation’s Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures how likely grantees, funders, donors, and beneficiaries are to recommend the Foundation was 71 in 2025.
87% of the people who engaged with one of the SHRM Foundation’s programs or services in 2025 expressed a degree of satisfaction.
Key Impact Highlights
600K
$600,000 in scholarships and grants distributed
15K
Over 15,000 employers impacted in more than 40 states
15
Local activation programs launched
10
New research reports published
SHRM Foundation, Fiscal 2025
REVENUE
EXPENSES
Advancing Our Mission Together
We are grateful to our investors, Board of Directors, and state councils and local chapters whose support makes it possible to advance opportunity and build a world of work that works for all.
The Top Fundraising list honors SHRM state councils that have the highest total annual contributions each year. These totals comprise all gifts made by and on behalf of the state council, including individual gifts and corporate gifts.
- Michigan SHRM State Council
- SHRM Florida
- SHRM Virginia and DC
- Kentucky SHRM State Council
- Wisconsin SHRM State Council
- Ohio SHRM State Council
- Iowa SHRM State Council
- North Carolina SHRM State Council
- SHRM Mississippi
- SHRM New Jersey
With more than 500 SHRM chapters, the Top 25 Fundraising Chapters represent the top five percent of all SHRM chapters. These chapters have the highest yearly contributions, including gifts from the chapter plus recognition credits donated by individuals or companies on behalf of the chapter.
- HR Houston
- SHRM Jacksonville
- Green Bay SHRM
- SHRM Greater Ocala
- Greater Orlando SHRM
- Greater Baton Rouge SHRM
- DC SHRM and Oklahoma City HR Society (TIED)
- Austin SHRM
- Salt Lake SHRM
- Bahamas SHRM
- Northern Virginia SHRM
- Tennessee Valley HR Assn
- Palm Beach County SHRM
- Association for Human Resource Management
- Brazos Valley SHRM
- Mid-Florida SHRM
- Southern New Mexico SHRM
- Kern County SHRM
- Central Savannah River Area SHRM
- Rogue Valley SHRM
- Central Oregon SHRM
- Texas Bay Area SHRM
- Human Resources Association of Southeast Michigan
- Southeastern Pennsylvania SHR
- Tri-State Human Resources Management Association
Our Focus
To expand access to work and help workers and workplaces thrive, SHRM Foundation focuses on three interconnected pools of work.
Widening Pathways to Work
Through our Widening Pathways to Work portfolio, the SHRM Foundation is meeting the moment by mobilizing HR professionals to embrace untapped talent and a skills‑first mindset. We support HR leaders with the tools and research needed to open more pathways to opportunity — driving shared success for workers, employers, and communities.
More than three-quarters of HR professionals (77%) have reported difficulty filling full-time positions. Meanwhile, more than half of job descriptions still require a four-year degree, even though 2 in 3 working-age adults in the U.S. do not have one. As the labor market evolves, hiring and retention policies must evolve with it.
To meet the moment, the SHRM Foundation in June 2025 launched the Center for a Skills First Future, the U.S.’s most comprehensive online hub for advancing skills-first talent strategies. Created in collaboration with partners including Walmart, Charles Koch Foundation, and Workday, the center offers:
A Skilled Credentials Action Planner to help organizations evaluate current practices and receive tailored guidance to implement effective skills-first strategies.
A Skills First Future Resource Library with more than 500 tools to help employers and HR professionals adopt and scale skills-first employment practices.
A Skills First Specialty Credential for HR professionals that, for the first time, creates a unified curriculum for skills-first hiring and advancement practices.
A Skills First Future Vendor Database of more than 500 technology solutions and partners that can offer support.
The SHRM Foundation and its partners brought the center to life at SHRM25 through the Skills First Marketplace, an interactive Expo Hall experience where HR professionals explored resources, solutions, and live demonstrations of the Skills First Specialty Credential and Skills Action Planner. The center was also featured in multiple breakout sessions, including a roundtable highlighting how skills‑first strategies expand access to untapped talent. HR Quarterly featured the center in its Summer 2025 issue.
“A skills-first future is not a trend — it’s the direction the workforce is already moving,” said Wendi Safstrom, president of the SHRM Foundation. “We built the center to help companies confidently take action, lead change, and create a future of work that works for everyone.”
SHRM leadership Johnny C. Taylor Jr., Emily Dickens, and Wendi Safstrom and SHRM Foundation team at the Skills First Future booth, SHRM Annual
Across the U.S., more than 4 million people ages 16 to 24 are neither working nor in school. These “opportunity youth” — along with veterans, people with disabilities, people with criminal histories, and older workers — represent a large and often overlooked source of talent. Strategies that connect these people to training and employment can help expand economic opportunities while helping employers meet workforce needs.
With a $1.5 million grant from Sam’s Club, the SHRM Foundation in 2025 launched an initiative to help HR professionals build pathways into the workforce for opportunity youth as a model for engaging untapped talent more broadly. The effort focused on increasing employer awareness of overlooked talent as a solution to workforce shortages; strengthening alignment between workforce needs and youth-serving systems such as schools and community-based organizations; and equipping HR professionals with practical tools to support recruitment, onboarding, and long-term retention.
As part of this work, the SHRM Foundation:
- Provided employers with examples of successful skills-first strategies and easy-to implement engagement toolkits.
- Developed an employee readiness framework to better align training with employer needs.
- Launched an opportunity youth certificate program to teach HR professionals how best to recruit, support, and retain young workers.
- Created structured onboarding frameworks and partnership models to improve early employee success and retention.
- Launched multisite pilot programs to put these strategies into action through local initiatives in North Carolina.
Together, these efforts equipped HR leaders with practical ways to connect with opportunity youth while developing scalable approaches that can be applied to additional untapped talent pools.
Isaac Agbeshie-Noye, Program Director of Widening Pathways for SHRM Foundation, leads a skills-first training expanding access to opportunity in Bentonville, Arkansas.
In 2025, the SHRM Foundation advanced several state‑based pilot programs designed to widen pathways to work.
In partnership with SHRM and with funding from the Urban Institute’s WorkRise project, the Foundation developed an education and assistance program to help employers adopt skills‑first hiring practices at three levels: low touch (unassisted), medium touch (technology-assisted), and high touch (fully assisted). We piloted the program with Georgia employers to identify the most effective strategies and resources and released the findings in a March 2025 report.
With support from a U.S. Department of Labor Workforce Opportunity for Rural Communities (WORC) grant, we partner with five Arkansas counties on the Keeping It Local: Employers Driving Quality Jobs in Arkansas initiative. In September 2025, 18 employers and community leaders from Union County and Craighead County convened in Jonesboro, Ark., to kick off a pilot program to explore quality jobs, social drivers of health, and skills‑first practices. “We’re pretty much all in the same boat,” said convening participant Sonya Sanders of local employer Engines Inc. “We are struggling to find qualified employees. We are struggling to make sure that our employees have those soft skills [also known as power skills] that are needed.” Participants are now developing local action plans to continue this work.
Impact Metrics for Widening Pathways to Work
Strengthening HR
The SHRM Foundation advances the field of HR — supporting students and professionals at every stage in their careers, especially those underrepresented in the field. Through our Strengthening HR portfolio, we provide training, mentorship, and professional support to help HR leaders meet the moment, advancing their careers and their workplaces.
Cultivating the Next Generation of HR Leaders
An average of about 82,000 job openings for HR professionals are projected each year through 2034 in the U.S., and nearly two-thirds of HR departments are recruiting from more diverse and underutilized talent pools. To meet this moment, the SHRM Foundation established the HR Tomorrow Leadership Program for emerging professionals underrepresented in the field. The program provides focused educational programming, networking opportunities, and mentorship to help people build leadership skills and advance their careers.
The first cohort of 10 HR Tomorrow fellows completed the program in 2025.
“I cannot overstate how impactful the cohort experience has been, nor how grateful I am to have connected with HR professionals and leaders from across the country,” said Dalton Johnson, CHRO, Montana Food Bank Network, who was one of the 10 original fellows. “Those relationships and shared learning experiences have strengthened both my practice and my commitment to this profession.”
The SHRM Foundation covers the costs for fellows to attend SHRM events together and take the SHRM-CP certification exam. All 10 original fellows are now SHRM-certified, a milestone celebrated by Riniya Countiss, HR manager at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, who was another member of the first cohort: “To Big 10: I’m so proud of every one of you and so thankful to have you in my corner. I wouldn’t have wanted to go on this journey with anyone else! Keep doing amazing things!”
HR Tomorrow continues to grow. The SHRM Foundation received 35 applicants for the 10 spots in the 2025-2026 cohort — another diverse group of rising HR leaders.
Building on the spirit of the program, Johnson is now giving back to the profession, teaching a SHRM certification study session through his SHRM local chapter. “I sincerely hope the Foundation’s programs continue and remain accessible to future HR leaders. HR professionals build relationships, support people through uncertainty, and strengthen workplaces and communities. The Foundation plays a critical role in sustaining that work,” Johnson said.
“I cannot overstate how impactful the cohort experience has been, nor how grateful I am to have connected with HR professionals and leaders from across the country.”
Dalton Johnson
CHRO for the Montana Food Bank Network and one of the 10 original fellows
Supporting and Celebrating Our Field
Scholarships and grants are two of the many ways we support and celebrate the people in our field — from students to emerging professionals to seasoned leaders. Each year, the SHRM Foundation provides more than $400,000 in scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students studying the field of HR and more than $200,000 in grants to emerging and established HR professionals seeking to advance their existing careers in HR.
Since 2015, we have partnered with the National Academy of Human Resources (NAHR) Foundation to fund the NAHR/SHRM Graduate Student Scholarships. In 2025, we awarded 11 scholarships totaling $83,500. Selection is based on academic achievement, leadership, service, financial need, and SHRM student chapter involvement, and scholarship recipients must be enrolled in a master’s degree program with an emphasis on HR or HR-related fields.
“I was honored to announce this year’s NAHR/SHRM Graduate Student Scholarship recipients — an impressive group of emerging HR leaders,” said Clayton Lord, senior program director at the SHRM Foundation. “We are deeply grateful for our 11‑year partnership with NAHR, working together to advance the field and support the next generation of HR talent.”
Clayton Lord, Senior Program Director with the NAHR/SHRM Graduate Student Scholarship recipients at the awards dinner.
Impact Metrics for Strengthening HR
Thriving Together
Meeting the moment means fostering mentally healthy workplaces. With 92% of U.S. workers saying it is important to work for an organization that prioritizes their emotional and psychological well-being, the need is clear. Through its Thriving Together portfolio, the SHRM Foundation equips HR leaders with tools and resources to address root causes of stress such as strengthening quality jobs, supporting working caregivers, addressing social drivers of health, and building power skills like communication, teamwork, and resilience — so they can create cultures of care, resilience, and performance.
Prioritizing Mental Health at Work
Fostering mentally healthy workplaces is not a perk — it is a performance driver. Organizations that are very successful at creating workplaces that support employee mental health are more likely to be competitive with peer organizations (92%), be competitive in today’s job market (86%), achieve retention goals (70%), and exceed business goals (49%), compared to organizations that are not successful at supporting employee mental health (79%, 52%, 54%, and 16%, respectively.
To highlight innovative approaches that support workforce mental health, the SHRM Foundation partnered with SHRM, Business Roundtable, and Stand Together to develop four case studies showcasing how Delta Air Lines, Hilton, International Paper, and Kiewit are building mentally healthier workplaces — each offering practical guidance for other employers.
Kiewit, a construction and engineering company, and International Paper, a packaging and manufacturing company, both embed safety deeply into their cultures — and that commitment extends to their approach to mental health. Delta Air Lines has stationed therapists in employee lounges for flight staff and customer service agents, providing accessible, onsite support. Hilton used focus groups to understand what supports their employees needed, leading the company to introduce a third-party caregiving concierge service that helps team members navigate caregiving logistics.
International Paper Chairman and CEO Andy Silvernail highlighted the importance of leadership from the top: “Above all else, we care about people, and as leaders, it’s critical that we create a safe environment where our team members feel comfortable sharing and asking for the support they need to ensure both their physical and psychological safety.”
These companies know that mentally healthy workplaces are thriving workplaces.
Hilton Case Study
Kiewit Case Study
International Paper Case Study
Delta Air Lines Case Study
Supporting Working Caregivers Summit
More than 100 million U.S. adults provide unpaid care to an adult relative or friend with a health or functional need, and caregiving responsibilities increasingly shape employees’ work, well-being, and career paths. “Every career intersects with care,” Safstrom said.
With this reality in mind, the SHRM Foundation and the Elizabeth Dole Foundation have partnered to lead a national effort to strengthen workplace support for caregivers.
On Oct. 30, 2025, the organizations convened more than 250 executives, HR professionals, nonprofit and government leaders, and caregivers for a full-day summit on advancing caregiver-supportive workplaces. Participants noted that many employers already have strong foundations such as flexible work options, well-being resources, employee resource groups, and values-driven cultures and expressed interest in building on these efforts.
Caregiver support is increasingly recognized as a strategic workforce priority, tied to retention, culture, and performance. “Caregivers are not a subset of our workforce. Caregivers are the workforce,” said Steve Schwab.
The summit highlighted three pillars to guide this effort: communication that builds trust and clarity, adaptability that enables flexibility, and supportive workplace structures that translate values into daily practice.
Going forward, the SHRM Foundation and the Elizabeth Dole Foundation will convene stakeholders, develop tools, and spotlight best practices to help organizations turn these pillars into action and foster workplaces where care and careers thrive.
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Impact Metrics for Thriving Together
Looking Ahead: 2026
In 2026, the SHRM Foundation will focus on five emerging trends shaping the future of work:
- Next-generation employment narratives and workplace design.
- Intergenerational dynamics, power skills, and workplace civility.
- Uneven adoption of untapped and skills-first talent strategies.
- Caregiving, stability, and well-being as core workforce infrastructure.
- The crucial “HI” beside AI - ensuring that human judgment, ethics, and creativity remain central in an AI-accelerating economy.
To address these trends, we will align national scale with localized action bringing together employers, educators, workforce systems, government, philanthropy, NGOs, and talent to operationalize skills-first hiring, second-chance pathways, and mobility-building career paths in real communities.
We will test and scale practical models to strengthen early-career engagement, equip supervisors to lead across generations, and embed power skills and civility into workplace systems.
Evidence-based frameworks will quantify the ROI of cultures of care; positioning caregiving supports and stability solutions as core productivity infrastructure. Employers will receive tools to redesign jobs, learning pathways, and advancement models for an AI-driven economy. Through regional and national convenings culminating in the 2026 Tharseo Summit & Awards, we will define and measure the characteristics of thriving organizations and establish actionable standards for cultures of care that deliver measurable, win-win-win outcomes for workers, workplaces, and communities.
Supporting Our Work
2025 was a year of turning vision into impact. We are grateful to everyone who helps us make a difference and invite you to support our work. Together, let’s make 2026 even better for workers, workplaces, and communities.