Support the work
Get Involved
Fund the learning. Grow the talent. Strengthen the community. Every one of those depends on people deciding to help with something specific — here is what that looks like.
Start with something concrete
We would rather you help with one real thing than sign up for a vague good intention. A seat paid for. A room offered. An hour a month with a person who needs it. A first project handed to a graduate who has never had one.
Some of the paths below are running today. Others are still being lined up, and we will tell you which is which when we talk instead of leaving you to guess.Training should lead somewhere. Most of the ways to help on this page exist to make that sentence true for somebody.
Nine ways to help
Pick the one that fits what you have
Money, time, space, work, or a door you can open. All five are useful, and the detail for each one is further down this page.
Sponsor a learner
Cover the cost of a training seat for one person who cannot pay for it out of pocket.
Sponsor a cohort
Fund a whole group going through a program together, which is usually the cheaper way to reach more people.
Sponsor a workshop
Pay for a short, plain-language session held at a library, church, school, or community room.
Become a mentor
Give a few hours a month to someone who has the skills and needs a person to talk them through the rest.
Volunteer
Help at a workshop, review capstone work, drive the coffee, or take a piece of the administrative load.
Host a learning location
Offer a room with chairs and reliable internet in a place people already know how to reach.
Offer a project or opportunity
Hand a graduate real work with a deadline — a project, an internship, a contract, or a first job.
Become a community partner
Work alongside us so the people you already serve can get to this training.
Support technology access
Help with the devices and connectivity that decide whether someone can take part at all.
Fund the learning
Paying for access
Cost is the most common reason a person never starts. These are the ways somebody else's money takes that reason off the table.
Sponsor a learner
One person, one training seat. You cover the price of a LifeQuest AI learning program for an adult who has told us they want it and cannot pay for it. We tell you what the seat costs before you agree to anything, and we tell you when it has been used. You will not be handed a stock photo and a thank-you card — you will hear what the person set out to do.
If the person is willing to have their story told, we may ask them later, in writing, whether we can share it. If they say no, that is the end of it.
Sponsor a cohort
A cohort is a group going through a program on the same schedule. It is usually the better value per person, and it works better for the learners too, because nobody is doing it alone. A cohort sponsorship can be tied to a place — a neighborhood, a congregation, a workforce program, a group of parents — so the people in the room already know each other.
Cohorts take planning and a host location, so these get arranged well ahead of time. Come talk to us early if this is what interests you.
Sponsor a community workshop
A workshop is an hour or two of practical, plain-language teaching at a place people already go. No prerequisites, nothing to install ahead of time, and nobody made to feel slow. Sponsoring one covers the instruction, the materials, and whatever the host location needs so it costs the hosting organization nothing.
This is the smallest useful piece of the whole operation, and it is often where people are most comfortable starting.
Support technology access
A free seat is worth nothing to a person with no working computer and no reliable internet. That comes up more often than most people expect. Support here means helping with devices for learners who need one, connectivity for people who are borrowing library hours, or equipment for a host location that has the room but not the hardware.
If you are thinking about donated equipment rather than funding, talk to us first. Old machines that cannot run current software create work rather than removing it, and we would rather say so up front than take something we cannot use.
Grow the talent
Giving your time
The part of this work that cannot be bought. Skills can be taught in a course; confidence usually comes from a person.
Become a mentor
Mentoring here is deliberately small. A conversation or two a month with one learner, for a few months, about the questions they would not ask in a room full of people. What do I put on a resume when the work was unpaid? Is this project good enough to show somebody? How do I talk about what I can do without overselling it?
You do not need to be an AI expert. You need to be a few steps further along than the person in front of you and willing to be honest about how you got there. People who have changed careers late, run something small, or hired somebody are all useful in ways they tend to underestimate.
Volunteer
Workshops need people who are not teaching: someone to greet, to check names off a list, to sit beside the person whose laptop will not cooperate, to set out chairs and put them away. Capstone review needs people who can look at a piece of work and say what is strong and what is not. And the administrative pile — scheduling, follow-up, keeping records straight — is real work that keeps everything else moving.
Tell us roughly how much time you have and what you are actually good at. We would rather match you to something you will keep doing than sign you up for the first open slot.
Strengthen the community
Working alongside us
Space, real work, and organizations that already have the trust of the people we are trying to reach.
Host a learning location
What a workshop needs is unglamorous: a room with chairs and tables, internet that holds up with a dozen people on it, a screen or a wall to project on, and somebody who can unlock the door. Libraries, churches, schools, community centers, workforce offices, and business meeting rooms all work.
The reason this matters more than it sounds is distance and nerve. People will walk into a building they already know on a Saturday morning. They will not drive across town to a place they have never been to learn something they are worried they will be bad at.
Offer a project or opportunity
This is the piece most training programs treat as somebody else's problem. A graduate who has finished a capstone can do useful work, and what they are missing is somebody willing to hand them a first real assignment. That might be a defined project with a deadline, an internship, a contract piece, a volunteer assignment for your organization, or an actual job opening.
It does not have to be big. It has to be real, with a person on your side who will give feedback. That single item on a resume, and one person who can vouch for the work, changes the next conversation entirely.
Become a community partner
Some organizations are not sponsoring and not hosting — they simply already know the people who need this. Nonprofits, congregations, schools, workforce boards, veterans' groups, senior programs, and neighborhood associations reach adults we would never find on our own.
A partnership can be as light as telling the people you serve that a workshop is happening, or as involved as building a cohort together around a group you already work with. If you serve people and your team is stretched thin, see also For Nonprofits & Community Groups, which covers training for your own staff and volunteers.
Join the newsletter
If you are not ready to commit to anything, this is the honest place to start. One email with what is actually happening — a workshop coming up, an opportunity somebody could take, a story once there is a real one to tell. It is also how most volunteer and sponsorship openings get announced.
Questions supporters ask
Why can I not just donate on this page?
Because we are not set up for it, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. The governance and legal work that has to come before online giving is still underway. Until it is finished, support is arranged by talking with us directly so you know exactly what your money is paying for and what it is not.
How do I know where my sponsorship goes?
You ask, and we tell you in writing before you commit anything. A sponsorship is tied to something specific — a seat, a cohort, a workshop, a device — and we will tell you when it happened and what came of it. If we cannot use it the way we described, we will come back to you rather than quietly move it.
I only have an hour or two a month. Is that useful?
Yes. Most of what a person starting out needs is not a hundred hours of instruction. It is one honest conversation with somebody who has done the thing they are trying to do. An hour a month, kept reliably, is worth more than a big commitment that fades in March.
Do I need to know anything about AI to help?
Not for most of this. Hosting a room, setting out chairs, checking people in, giving somebody a ride, or talking through a resume are all jobs that need a steady person, not a technologist. If you do know the tools, mentoring and capstone review are where that goes furthest.
What happens after I get in touch?
A real person reads it and replies. We are a small operation, so give us a few days. The first reply is usually a short conversation to work out what you actually want to do and whether we are in a position to make good use of it yet.
One conversation is all this takes to start
Tell us what you have — money, hours, a room, or a piece of work — and we will tell you straight whether we can put it to use yet. Or email hello@igrowthfoundation.org.