AI Strategy and Skill-Building Cohort

Bellwether’s learning and action network to help organizations increase AI proficiency, build responsible AI Plans, and pilot practical use cases that advance their mission

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how organizations serve young people and their communities. For school, nonprofit, and youth-serving organizational leaders, AI brings both promise and risk. It can streamline operations, expand capacity, and enhance the quality of services, but it also requires careful planning, thoughtful change management, and clear guardrails for responsible use.

To support leaders navigating this challenge, Bellwether is launching its 2027 AI Strategy and Skill-Building Cohort (AI Cohort). Now entering its third year, the AI Cohort builds on strong participant feedback and continued demand from leaders across the country who want practical, responsible support as they move from AI experimentation to strategy, skill-building, and implementation.

Since launching the AI Cohort, Bellwether has supported more than 30 nonprofit organizations in developing organization-level AI Plans and launching practical pilots. The 2026 AI Cohort earned an average participant satisfaction rating of 4.7 out of 5.

The AI Cohort’s Goals and Structure

Priority Areas and More

Who Should Apply

The AI Cohort’s Goals and Structure

Bellwether’s AI Cohort has several objectives:

Build leader capacity to understand, evaluate, and responsibly use AI tools.
Pilot AI tools and workflows that align with organizational goals.
Learn from peers navigating shared opportunities and challenges.
Access expert guidance on AI strategy, policy, and implementation.
Develop actionable AI Plans that articulate a vision, guiding principles, priority use cases, and implementation steps.

Participating organizations will identify a planning team of two to five cross-functional leaders who will take part in the AI Cohort over approximately six months and bring the work back to their broader organization.

Throughout the AI Cohort, participants will receive:

Six 60-minute skill-building sessions focused on practical AI use, including effective prompting, workflow design, privacy and memory management, and research and analysis applications.
Seven 90-minute planning and piloting sessions that combine presentation, resource sharing, guided work time, and peer discussion.
Monthly office hours with Bellwether experts for tailored support, one-on-one advising, and co-creation of materials.
Access to a peer learning community to share lessons, troubleshoot challenges, and amplify promising practices.
Guest speakers and networking, offering insights on strategy, implementation, and policy.
Curated resources and templates, including sample AI policies, surveys, strategic frameworks, and prompt examples to support practical adoption.

Priority Areas and More

What types of priority areas, use cases, and pilots might participating organizations explore through the cohort? The cohort will help teams identify and prioritize AI use cases that advance their mission. These use cases typically fall into three broad areas:

Direct Service and Learning: Using AI to strengthen or extend the experience of students, participants, families, or other communities served. Examples include personalized practice and feedback, advising or coaching support, and AI tools that answer common questions or expand access to information.
Staff Practice and Support: Using AI to help staff deliver stronger instruction, services, or support. Examples include preparing lessons or interventions, synthesizing participant or case data, drafting follow-up plans, and tailoring communications for different stakeholder groups.
Administrative Capacity and Efficiency: Using AI to improve internal workflows, knowledge management, and decision-making. Examples include streamlining onboarding, grant reporting, finance, and compliance work, as well as creating reusable internal tools and summaries for leaders.

The AI Cohort will support teams in exploring priorities across all three areas. The right mix of priorities for each participant will depend on their organization’s goals, context, capacity, and the needs of the communities it serves.

Who Should Apply

Organizations that will benefit most from the cohort include nonprofit, school and network, and youth-serving organizational leaders committed to exploring AI as a strategic lever for impact. Ideal participants are those who:

Have leadership commitment from the executive director, CEO, head of school, network, or key academic or operations leaders who are ready to champion and invest time and resources in AI adoption.
Are ready to move beyond AI experimentation toward clearer priorities, shared norms, and responsible implementation.
Are eager to connect with peers navigating similar opportunities and challenges.

Participants commit to:

Attend monthly cohort sessions and actively engage in discussion.
Allocate two to five hours per month for pre-work, applied homework, and/or piloting AI practices.
Share learnings openly within the AI Cohort and contribute to the peer community.
Bring insights and tools back to their organization to solicit input on strategy and drive organizational change.

Apply Now for the 2027 AI Cohort

Are you interested in elevating your organization’s AI work in the year ahead?

The cost to participate in Bellwether’s 2027 AI Cohort is $9,000 per organization. This includes all planning sessions, skill-building sessions, monthly office hours, tailored advisory support, and ongoing access to cohort resources and templates. (Note: This total does not include fees for subscribing to AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini. Participating organizations should invest in subscriptions to at least one platform to get the most out of the cohort experience.)

Applying to Bellwether’s 2027 AI Cohort is easy.

Complete a brief application by Oct. 30, 2026.
Attend a webinar hosted by Bellwether’s AI experts and cohort facilitators for additional information. Details coming soon.
Bookmark this webpage or contact Nick Allen at nick.allen@bellwether.org with questions.

Participants will be notified by the end of November 2026, and Bellwether’s upcoming AI Cohort will begin in January 2027.

Learn More About Our AI Work

AI has a wide range of potential applications in education and comes with plenty of risks. At Bellwether, we bring deep research, viewpoint diversity, and pragmatism to help practitioners, policymakers, and funders make sense of this rapidly changing technology.

We evaluate how AI is reshaping the education sector by doing what we do best: digging into the nuances, identifying patterns, and distinguishing signal from noise.

The Leading Indicator newsletter delivers timely insights on what’s new in AI in education, straight to your inbox from Bellwether’s experts.

Explore lessons from our previous cohorts through our starter guide for building an AI plan for your school or nonprofit and three lessons learned from 30+ projects.