KMSG Research Fellowship
Where talent has always been.
Most leadership pipelines in social impact still draw from a narrow set of coastal hubs and elite schools. The advisory field built on those pipelines is too often disconnected from the communities it’s paid to serve. We started the KMSG Research Fellowship to put that pattern under pressure.
Fellows spend an academic year embedded in live KMSG client work, with the kind of mentorship most people only encounter five or ten years into a career. The program is hosted with two anchor institutions: the University of Alabama’s College of Communication and Information Sciences, and Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy. The regions matter as much as the institutions; Central Alabama, Appalachia, and Western Pennsylvania have powered national progress for decades while being told to wait their turn for the resources to lead it. We are not asking them to wait.
Talent is everywhere. Investment isn’t.
Public investment in leadership development has been shrinking for years; the communities most likely to need it have been on the wrong end of that math the longest. We designed this program with those facts as the starting point, not as something to mention politely on slide twelve.
Fellows work on real engagements with real stakes, alongside KMSG strategists who have run these functions in-house at organizations like the ACLU, USAID, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the Robin Hood Foundation. They get the kind of senior coaching most early-career professionals never get. They also get treated as colleagues, not interns. Their work shapes deliverables that go to clients. Their names go on the work.
The point of the fellowship is not to build a feeder for KMSG. It is to build a generation of strategists, communicators, and policy leads who can go anywhere in the field and bring with them a sharper sense of who that field is supposed to serve.
Three positions the program is built around.
The geography problem.
The American South, Appalachia, and the post-industrial Midwest hold some of the country’s most promising young talent and some of its most under-resourced institutions. Public universities in these regions train serious researchers, communicators, and analysts every year. Most of them never get the kind of applied, client-facing experience that opens doors in philanthropy, advocacy, and policy. The fellowship exists in part to correct that imbalance.
The pipeline problem.
Philanthropy and nonprofit advisory work has long drawn its leadership from a narrow band of coastal hubs and elite schools. The result is a field whose internal culture often feels several steps removed from the communities it claims to serve. Expanding who is trained, and where, is not a courtesy. It is the only way the field gets better at its actual job.
The applied learning problem.
Classroom instruction in strategy, communications, and policy is rarely paired with live, accountable client work. Fellows in this program are not running simulations. They sit in real meetings, draft real memos, contribute to real campaigns, and see what it looks like when an institution has to make a decision under pressure. That kind of training compounds over a career, and it is what early-stage talent in this field is most often denied.
Small by design. Senior by structure.
Every fellow is paired with senior KMSG staff and embedded in live client work for the entire academic year.
An academic year embedded in live client work.
Fellows are placed inside KMSG project teams from day one. They contribute to client deliverables for nonprofits, foundations, advocacy groups, and impact campaigns. They sit in client calls. They learn how a strategy memo gets built, how a press list gets prioritized, how a fundraising appeal gets sharpened, and how a campaign plan survives contact with a real news cycle.
Mentorship is structured. Every fellow is paired with senior KMSG staff for one-on-one coaching, and receives direct support on professional development; CV preparation, interview practice, networking introductions, and thought leadership coaching all sit inside the program. KMSG leaders deliver guest lectures and seminars on narrative power, systems consulting, and the practice of impact strategy throughout the year.
Each fellow concludes the year with a public showcase or capstone presentation, with audiences drawn from KMSG’s client and partner network. Strong work travels.
Anchored at two public-spirited institutions.
The inaugural fellowship is hosted in partnership with two universities chosen for their academic depth, their regional roots, and their commitment to training students who go on to lead in public-interest fields.
The University of Alabama
Founded in 1973, C&IS enrolls more than 3,500 students across three academic departments and one school, with six bachelor’s degrees, five master’s degrees, and a multidisciplinary doctoral program. The College leverages communication and information research to address societal challenges and develop leaders prepared for a more connected world.
KMSG founder Kindred Motes serves as Visiting Instructor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, delivering lectures and seminars, mentoring students, and supporting program design as an executive in residence.
Visit C&IS at UA →Carnegie Mellon University
Heinz College is home to two internationally recognized graduate institutions: the School of Information Systems and Management and the School of Public Policy and Management. The college’s combination of analytics expertise and public-policy depth has set it apart in cybersecurity, health care, the future of work, smart cities, and arts and entertainment. INFORMS named Heinz College the number-one academic program for analytics education in 2016.
At Heinz, Kindred serves as a guest lecturer and advisor throughout the 2025–2026 academic year, contributing to student learning and supporting cross-sector connections across the college community.
Visit Heinz College →From the launch announcement.
The KMSG Research Fellowship launched in partnership with the University of Alabama and Carnegie Mellon University, with backing from leaders at both institutions.
We’re expanding the program. We’re looking for the right institutions.
We invite colleges and universities in the Deep South, Appalachia, and U.S. territories to join us in building durable leadership pipelines for the next generation of strategists, communicators, and policy leads.
If you lead an academic program that trains the kind of students this work needs, we’d like to talk.
Help us grow the bench.
If you’re a student, an academic partner, or a funder who believes the leadership of this field should reflect the communities it serves, use the form below to express interest.