A New Strategic Plan
NSWERS developed the 2030 Strategic Plan at a pivotal moment for Nebraska’s education and workforce systems. Rapid changes in labor market demands, evolving education pathways, and increasing expectations for data-informed decision-making have heightened the need for a coordinated, statewide source of system intelligence. At the same time, NSWERS has matured as an organization, expanding its data infrastructure, partnerships, and analytic capabilities. This created an opportunity to clarify its long-term role and priorities.
By engaging stakeholders across the state and examining future uncertainties, the strategic planning process ensured that NSWERS’ next phase of work is aligned with the needs of educators, policymakers, workforce leaders, and communities. The plan establishes a clear direction through 2030, strengthening NSWERS’ capacity to sustain its data system, generate actionable insights, illuminate education-to-workforce pathways, and ensure that data and analysis are actively used to inform real decisions across Nebraska.
Our Strategic Priority
The priority of the NSWERS 2030 Strategic Plan is to strengthen Nebraska’s capacity to make informed decisions about education, workforce development, and economic opportunity. As the state’s most comprehensive education-to-workforce longitudinal data system, NSWERS is uniquely positioned to connect information across PK–12 education, postsecondary education, and the workforce to generate insights that no single partner can produce alone.
This strategic plan focuses on advancing NSWERS’ core mission—to integrate and organize Nebraska’s education and workforce data to inform decision making—while expanding the system’s ability to produce actionable intelligence, illuminate pathways of learning and earning, and support evidence-based policy and practice. Through this work, NSWERS aims to accelerate the development of a statewide data-informed decision culture that helps Nebraska’s people, businesses, and communities thrive.
Strategic Plan Development
The NSWERS 2030 Strategic Plan represents the culmination of an extensive, statewide engagement process to gather diverse perspectives on Nebraska’s education and workforce future. In November 2025, NSWERS conducted three regional community engagement workshops in Scottsbluff, Kearney, and Omaha, bringing together educators, workforce leaders, policymakers, and community members to share their perspectives on the forces shaping Nebraska’s future. These full-day sessions invited participants to explore trends, examine possible futures, and identify strategic imperatives for the state’s education and workforce systems.
Building on this community input, NSWERS convened a strategic planning workshop in Lincoln in December 2025 with members of the NSWERS Executive Council, partner organizations, philanthropic supporters, and staff. This session synthesized statewide themes, examined future uncertainty through scenario-based exercises, and identified expectations for NSWERS’ evolving role through 2030.
Following the engagement sessions, NSWERS staff conducted an intensive working session in January 2026, to translate the insights gathered across Nebraska into a comprehensive strategic framework. This working session refined the goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics presented in the plan, ensuring alignment with stakeholder priorities while maintaining operational feasibility.
The NSWERS Executive Council approved the goals and objectives on January 28, 2026. NSWERS staff finalized the detailed strategies and tactics for implementation beginning July 1, 2026.
Strategic Plan Organization
The NSWERS 2030 Strategic Plan is organized around four goals that define the organization’s mission and direction through 2030. Each goal contains multiple objectives that specify the outcomes NSWERS will pursue. The strategies and tactics for each objective provide the operational detail for achieving these outcomes.
OUR GOALS
Goal 1: Organizational Sustainability
Sustain NSWERS Capacity to Deliver Statewide System Intelligence
NSWERS’ ability to synthesize, connect, and activate statewide system intelligence depends on sustained organizational capacity, including stable funding, skilled staff, strong governance, and strategic partnerships. This foundation ensures NSWERS remains durable, responsive, and secure as education and workforce systems evolve rapidly. While not a standalone analytic goal, this capacity underpins and enables all objectives in this plan. Sustaining this foundation requires intentional stewardship, periodic reassessment, and alignment with evolving demands placed on the statewide data system.
Goal 2: System Intelligence
Produce Actionable Insights that Inform Policy, Practice, and Evaluation
NSWERS serves as Nebraska’s trusted, neutral source of system-level intelligence by synthesizing, analyzing, evaluating, and modeling data that span education and workforce systems. This includes original analysis, policy-relevant evaluation, predictive and early-warning analytics, and scenario-based modeling that no single partner can produce alone.
Goal 3: Pathway Visibility
Maintain a Trusted, High-Quality Education-to-Workforce Data System
This goal focuses on the data infrastructure and connective tissue that enable statewide understanding of education-to-workforce pathways. NSWERS expands and links high-quality data sources, maintains robust governance and quality, and ensures technical adaptability as systems evolve.
Goal 4: Activation and Use
Activate Data and Insights for Real Decisions
This goal focuses on turning statewide system intelligence and pathway visibility into practical use. NSWERS will expand access to governed tools and services, deliver actionable insights and consultative support, build statewide capacity for responsible data use, and reduce reporting burden through shared solutions while preserving privacy, neutrality, and role clarity.