Applications for the 2026-27 cohort are due August 14, 2026
Build Future-Ready Institutions
As an administrator with the Alliance of Future Makers, you will step into a peer-driven experience built for sitting leaders at the executive director, vice chancellor, and cabinet level. Bring your foresight, governance, and future-forward outlook to collaborate with your peers at the strategic level and help prepare your senior leadership with guidance and support for meaningful change.
Administrator Track
For administrators advancing future readiness.
Real-World Implementation
- Lead institution-wide foresight and innovation strategy, not just projects.
- Build a toolkit for scenario planning and organizational future-readiness.
- Connect directly with a national network of peers and innovators.
- Attend the in-person Spring Summit alongside your Fellows and administrators.
- Cultivate the conditions for innovation to take hold across your institution.
Who Should Join
Cabinet members, executive directors, associate vice chancellors/presidents, vice chancellors/presidents, and executive vice chancellors/presidents responsible for strategy, executive, and impact.
Benefits & Key Takeaways
As a member of the Fellows Cohort, you will focus on a clear set of learning objectives, including:
- Establish a Shared Language: Develop a common framework for forward futures thinking and strategic foresight.
- Sponsor Institutional Horizon Scanning: Build the organizational capacity and structures to bring forward emerging trends shaping your institution and its ecosystem.
- Lead Scenario-Informed Planning: Use 2-3 plausible scenarios as direct inputs into institutional strategy, budget, and risk decisions, and game out solutions.
- From Insight to Innovation: Translate trends and scenarios into actionable product or service concepts.
- Cultivate a Culture of Innovation: Establish the incentives, permissions, and psychological safety that let innovation take hold across your institution.
- Govern for Institutional Readiness: Assess and strengthen the governance, policy, and resource structures that enable or block future-readiness.
- Champion Revenue and Business Model Innovation: Sponsor and protect space for your institution to test new, sustainable models for growth and impact.
- Build a Peer Network for Collective Action: Join a community of presidents, CEOs, and senior leaders planning collaboratively for shared challenges across the sector.
- Model Forward-Looking Leadership: Communicate a credible future-facing narrative to boards, faculty, and the public that sustains and legitimizes innovation work.
Expectations and Commitment
- Attend monthly sessions (80% attendance required).
- Join monthly working sessions with a national peer cohort.
- All meetings are approximately 3 hours (available in-person and virtually).
- Members will complete an innovation project to present at the Summit of Future Makers in Austin, TX, April 2027.
Meeting Details
Virtual
2:00 – 3:30pm
Kickoff Meeting
Meeting Details
Virtual
2:00 – 3:30pm
Meeting Details
Virtual
2:00 – 3:30pm
Meeting Details
Virtual
2:00 – 3:30pm
Meeting Details
Virtual
2:00 – 3:30pm
Meeting Details
Virtual
2:00 – 3:30pm
Meeting Details
Virtual
2:00 – 3:30pm
Meeting Details
In-person
2-Day Summit of Future Makers
Get Started
By completing the application, you’ll help us understand your interests, expertise, and goals as we chart the best path forward.
The application deadline for the 2026-27 cohort is August 14, 2026.
Your application should include the following:
- Letter of Commitment form from you, affirming your commitment to meeting the schedule and full participation in the AFM experience
- Application form
- Letter of support from your supervisor, affirming institutional backing for your participation in AFM
