The last months of a fellowship are the worst time to figure out what it meant. You're finishing the work, thinking about what's next, and the years blur into "I learned a lot." Meanwhile the people around you (your coach, your manager, another fellow, someone you worked alongside, a mentor) each watched one piece of how you grew. None of them has the whole picture. Neither do you.
Fellowship Wayfinder asks each of them a short set of questions about what they saw. It puts the answers next to your own. And it comes back as something you can use: what you're known for now, in their words; where you do your best work; and the sentences for the headline, the cover letter, and the "so what do you do?" moment.
The question it answers isn't "was I good at this." It's what you're carrying out of these years, and how to say it plainly enough that the next door opens. That door might be staying in the work and going deeper, a leadership role, or somewhere else entirely.
If you've done a 360 that came back as scores and a list of comments, this isn't that. No scores, no quotes, and it starts with where you want to go.
Where do you want to go?
Before anyone else answers a question, you check a box. Everything that comes back is written for the direction you picked: the report reads your growth against where you're headed, and the positioning memo gives you language for that next application, not a generic one.
"Not sure yet" is a real answer. If you check it, the report helps you narrow.
Before anyone else answers a question, each fellow checks a box. Everything that comes back is written for the direction they picked. A fellow aiming at a leadership role gets language for that application. One staying in the field gets language for a conversation about going deeper, not a resignation letter.
The list is yours to set. Match it to your alumni strategy: if your program runs a leadership pipeline and a retention track, those are boxes. What fellows check maps to the paths you're actually building. And across a cohort, the boxes themselves tell you where people are headed.
Example list. Each program sets its own options.
Example. Your program may offer different options.
Four steps, start to finish.
You go first. About 25 minutes.
Check the box for where you want to go, then answer the self-assessment: the same questions your reviewers will get, from your side. This is the biggest ask in the whole process, and it's yours, not theirs.
You pick your panel.
5–8 people who watched you work: your coach or manager, another fellow, a colleague, someone you worked alongside, a mentor, a friend or family member. At least three kinds of relationship. One who'll say the hard thing.
They answer what they actually saw. Five minutes each.
Short surveys, different by relationship: a coach is asked different questions than a peer. Five minutes is why they finish.
You get three things back, and use them the same week.
A personal report, a memo for your coach, and a positioning memo, all written for the box you checked. Your coach walks you through it in a session already on the calendar. Then the application, the résumé, the conversation about next year.
Nothing anyone writes is quoted. Every answer is read alongside the others and written back as what people see, not what they said. Your coach's answers are read as a coach's; a peer's as a peer's.
Reviewers aren't signing up for their own review. They answer five minutes of questions about you and they're done.
You own the report. Your program never sees it unless you share it. The coach memo goes to your coach only when you send it.
Three documents, each written for where you're headed.
Same evidence, three readers: you, your coach, and whoever's on the other side of the next door.
The personal report
An overview written for your transition; the leader you want to be next to how others see you; what you are not; where the gap is; results across Awareness, Alliance, Action, and Endurance; and reflections. No scores. Built to be read in ten minutes or an hour.
Download the sample report
A mid-career fellowship example, names changed.
The coach memo
Your report is for you; this is what you hand to the person who coaches you. One page, in your own words: where you've landed, what you're working on next, what you've decided not to chase, and a short list of things to push you on. It arrives as a Word document you edit and choose how to share. Your next coaching conversation starts an hour in instead of at "how's it going."
Download the sample coach memo
A mid-career fellowship example.
Plugs into the coaching your coaches already do, and saves them writing the summary themselves. No new meeting, a better one.
The positioning memo
One to two pages, tailored to the box you checked. "How I describe myself now." "What I'm known for." "In their words." "Where I do my best work." And ready-to-use lines: the LinkedIn headline, the About opener, the answer when someone asks what you do.
Download the sample positioning memo
A mid-career fellowship example.
You should finish it able to describe your fellowship years the way the people who watched you would, with the evidence to prove it.
What your program gets, without adding to your team’s plate.
Your fellows get a clear read on how they’re growing and where they want to go next, from the people who see them work. Your program gets evidence of that growth across the whole cohort. Here’s what that looks like in practice.
Proof of growth you don't have today.
Every fellow finishes with a structured account of what they learned, how they grew, and where they're headed, from 5–8 people who watched them work. Across a cohort, that's evidence of alumni trajectory you can put in front of funders, partners, and skeptics instead of asserting it.
Built around your alumni strategy.
You set the "where do you want to go" options, so they match the paths you actually offer: a leadership pipeline, a retention track, policy work. Staying and rising in the field is a first-class answer, not a consolation.
Better coaching, not more of it.
The coach memo lands in the coaching conversations already on the calendar. Your coaches get a page written by the fellow (what they're working on, what to push on) instead of reconstructing it from a check-in.
Something to promise at recruitment.
"Here's what you leave with" is a concrete answer to the candidate who's weighing a fellowship against a job offer. It's also something to put in front of the alumni your program already claims.
Live in an afternoon.
Add your fellows' names, or upload a list, and the invitations go out, from a person, not a no-reply address. Reviewers get a five-minute survey and nothing else to sign up for. Your coaches run the debrief with the memo in hand; Elevate runs everything else.
What you see, and don't.
Each fellow owns their report; you never see it. What you do see: which boxes a cohort checked, who completed
Wayfinder is the parent product Fellowship Wayfinder is built on.
Fellowship Wayfinder has run with fellows from IEDC's Economic Recovery Corps. Program testimonials land here as cohorts finish.
Fellowship Wayfinder has run with fellows from a national economic-development fellowship. Program testimonials land here as cohorts finish.
I've spent most of my career watching capable people get stuck in a place they couldn't see.
Early on, I worked closely with two leaders who had built an organization with people who'd known them for years. One had a hard time connecting with the people around him. The other cared so much he never noticed how his reactions landed on everyone else. It worked while the team was small and everyone was a friend. Then they hired people who weren't, and had deadlines to hit, and the organization nearly collapsed.
I coached both of them. I talked to the people around them. And I couldn't close the gap, because the only way to show them what everyone saw was to break the confidence of the people who'd told me. That problem stuck with me for years.
I later ran performance management at Teach For All and set up 360 assessments at Marriott, for leaders from mid-level up through the future C-suite. Good tools, expensive tools, and they all failed in the same three places. Everyone could tell who said what, so the brain rejected anything it didn't want to hear. The scores turned into an argument about the number instead of a conversation about the behavior. And the report was so hard to read that people left uncomfortable and with no idea what to do next.
At Teach For All I also watched what happens at the end of a fellowship. People who had grown enormously left with a line on a résumé and no words for the rest of it. The growth was real; the language for it wasn't there. That's the gap this closes.
I built the version I wanted: one that tells you what's working, what you're carrying forward, and how to say it, without leaving you wondering whether you're a good person.
Fellowship Wayfinder is built on the framework from Uncharted Leadership: Navigating Disruption Without a Map — Katie's book on leading when the old playbooks don't apply.
How much time does it take a fellow? Their reviewers?+
About 25 minutes for the self-assessment, plus ten minutes picking a panel. Reviewers are done in about five minutes each. The debrief happens with your own coach.
I'm finishing a fellowship. Is this for me, or for people further along?+
Both. Mid-fellowship, finishing, or a year or two out: the questions are about what people saw you do, and the report is written for the transition you're in and the box you checked.
Can I do this if I'm staying in the field?+
Yes. Check that box and the report is written for it. The positioning memo works for a leadership application or a conversation about going deeper as well as for anything outside your field.
Who sees my report?+
You. Your program never does unless you share it. The coach memo is yours to hand over, or not.
Is it anonymous?+
Nothing anyone writes is quoted. Every answer is read alongside the others and written back as what people see, not what they said. Your coach's answers are read as a coach's, a peer's as a peer's, so you know what kind of view you're reading, never whose words.
What does it cost?+
It’s priced on a sliding scale, so it works for a small fellowship as well as a well-funded one. We’ll scope it together on a short call. If your fellows have a professional-development stipend, it can often cover this.
See what the fellowship changed.
A 30-minute call to scope a first cohort. Pilot pricing for the first program.