Earlier this year, Birmingham was named the #1 U.S. metro for new college graduates. That’s a great headline. FuelAL is what happens when you decide to actually earn it.
This summer, the Birmingham Business Alliance partnered with the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce to lead FuelAL for the Greater Birmingham area. A season-long program designed to do one thing: give young talent a real reason to see this region as home, not just a summer stop. FuelAL is a statewide program made possible by the EDPA & Innovate Alabama
What FuelAL actually is
FuelAL is built around a simple idea: talent doesn’t stay somewhere because of a job offer alone. It stays because of the people it meets, the community it finds, and the sense that it belongs. The program was originally designed for college students spending their summer in internships across Greater Birmingham, but this year, the community broadened that definition on purpose. FuelAL welcomed any young adult working here, internship title or not, along with anyone eager to connect, learn, and grow in this city. If you were young, curious, and hungry to build something here, there was a place for you.
That expansion mattered. It meant the program wasn’t just serving a narrow slice of “official” interns – it was building belonging for the much bigger, much more varied group of young people already choosing to spend their summer in Greater Birmingham.
A remarkably diverse class of participants
154 enrolled. 93 different employers. 81 different colleges and universities. The diversity underneath those numbers is the real story:
- Geographic reach: Nearly a third of applicants came from outside Alabama – students from across the Southeast and beyond, including several who came in with real reservations about spending a summer in “Alabama.” More on that below.
- Academic diversity: Auburn, Alabama, and UAB anchor the list, but the tail is long – Morehouse, Georgia Tech, Purdue, UNC Chapel Hill, Alabama State, Miles College, and dozens more. This isn’t a program leaning on two or three feeder schools.
- Field diversity: Computer science, accounting, marketing, and mechanical engineering led the pack – a mix that mirrors Greater Birmingham’s actual economy, from finance and utilities to tech and advanced manufacturing, rather than skewing toward a single industry.
- Employer diversity: Major regional employers anchored the sponsor base, but the applicant list spans startups, healthcare, hospitality, nonprofits, and professional services – proof the program has reach across the full local economy, not just its biggest names.
- Pipeline diversity: Most participants aren’t graduating soon – the majority are still sophomores and juniors. FuelAL isn’t a one-summer transaction; it’s building a multi-year relationship with future Birmingham talent before they’ve even decided where to live.
Changing minds about “Alabama”
For a meaningful share of this year’s participants – especially those coming from out of state and abroad – the reaction to landing in Birmingham started with hesitation. “Alabama” carries a perception problem, and plenty of participants arrived expecting a summer to simply get through.
That’s exactly the gap FuelAL is built to close. Across two months of professional development events, social and networking nights, community service projects, and mentorship opportunities, participants got to experience Greater Birmingham the way people who live here actually do – its restaurants and breweries, its civic and business leaders, its neighborhoods, its arts and entertainment scene, its genuine warmth. Again and again, the story coming out of this program was surprise: people who expected little left impressed, and in many cases, actively reconsidering Birmingham as a place to build a career and a life.
That shift in perception – from reluctance to genuine enthusiasm – is the outcome no ranking alone can produce. It only happens through lived experience, and that’s what FuelAL delivered.
Connection, at every turn
Rather than a single flagship event, FuelAL’s strength this year was its range. Over the course of the summer, participants had a steady rhythm of ways to plug in – professional development conversations with regional leaders and innovators, social and networking nights throughout the Birmingham region, hands-on community service alongside local nonprofits, and even statewide summits connecting them with FuelAL cohorts from other Alabama cities. Whatever someone was looking for – a career conversation, a new friend group, a way to give back, or simply a reason to explore the city on a weeknight – there was an on-ramp built for it.
Mentorship: the number that should shape 2027
If there’s one stat that should change how the program grows next year, it’s this one: 79% of applicants — 122 of 154 — opted in for a mentor match.
That’s the majority of this year’s participants actively asking for a deeper relationship with the community, not just an event on a calendar. Local mentors stepped up to meet that demand, and mentorship quickly became one of the season’s most distinctive threads. Demand at this scale is a strong signal that mentorship deserves a bigger seat at the table for what employers offer their talent and creating the capacity to support it. Programs within companies that enable professional development and upward mobility are the key to retaining and attracting talent.
The bigger picture
By expanding the program’s reach and collaborating with the Hoover Area Chamber, Birmingham didn’t just win a ranking this year – The FuelAL program gives the ranking greater value. 154 participants from 81 schools and 93 employers spent their summer building real relationships with this region, many of them arriving skeptical and leaving as genuine advocates for the city.
That’s the retention story every regional talent strategy is chasing. FuelAL proved it’s buildable in the Birmingham region – and the appetite for more, especially for mentorship, tells us exactly where to grow next.