Background
Dignitas is a leading education development organization, using an innovative training and coaching approach to empower schools and educators in marginalized communities to transform studentsâ opportunities. Their training and coaching partnerships strengthen leadership and improve instructional quality, and, in some cases, provide infrastructural support to help schools create an environment where all children fulfill their potential.
Summary of Team4Tech Contributions and Collaborations
- Partnership began in 2020
- 8 projects with 47 pro bono consultants
- 1,090+ pro bono hours committed
- $229,000+ value of pro bono consulting
- $97,500+ in grant support
Partnership Objectives
Dignitas partners with Team4Tech to leverage technology and training to enable broader and deeper impactâreaching more educators and offering a wider variety of learning and engagement opportunities to those already in reach, with the desired outcome of positively impacting the learning outcomes of more children.
Grant Budget Analysis
Dignitas puts their grant budget toward:
- making improvements to their LeadNow application
- creating coaching videos, animations, and how-to guides for their application to advance their remote coaching tool
- building out their Digital Skills Trainerâs Manual
- holding Digital Skilling for Educators Design Workshops with key EdTech partners
- participating in dissemination forums to engage more partners in their work
Skilled Volunteering Projects
Spring 2020: Virtual Volunteering Project (drop down for more)
Developed a distribution network of 60 learning leaders scaling to 300.
Designed âlearning packetsâ that include video, online and workbooks to support learners and parents.
Summer 2020: Virtual Strategic Pro Bono with University Volunteers (drop down for more)
Volunteers from Middlebury College, Dartmouth, and UC Davis:
- Researched best practices for user understanding assessments on their online learning platform.
- Recommended improvements for user tracking and incentivization on their online learning platform.
December 2021: Design for Impact Workshop with Cadence (drop down for more)
9 volunteers from Cadence Design Systems collaborated virtually in a fast-paced 6-hour workshop to tackle the following design question: How might we craft unique user experiences to recruit and retain new teachers and schools?
April 2022: Skills for Impact with Salesforce (drop down for more)
5 Salesforce volunteers collaborated virtually for 6 weeks to support Dignitas in:
- User research and testing on their current LMS system, mapping out user journeys, identifying pain points and improve overall user experience
- Developing a marketing strategy for their different program offerings to create an earned revenue stream from the platform
May 2023: Virtual Strategic Pro Bono with ServiceNow (drop down for more)
8 volunteers from ServiceNow collaborated virtually to provide an optimized process for Dignitas to connect with their Champions (educators who have graduated from their programs), provide an effective way for Champions to access Dignitasâ content repository, enable continuous knowledge exchange and professional development, and include performance analytics so Dignitas can track their alumni engagement.
Volunteers delivered a recommendation for Dignitas implementing a proprietary solution with out-of-the-box functionality that included the Community plug-in and integration with Dignitas’s LeadNow platform.
May 2025: Consulting Call with Logitech (drop down for more)
1:1 coaching with a Logitech volunteer to leverage more predictive analytics and AI as tools to boost more real-time engagement with Dignitas’ LeadNow platform. The volunteer provided advice, live demonstration, and suggestions for where to start while keeping costs low.
January 2026: Consulting Call with Team4Tech (drop down for more)
1:1 coaching with Team4Tech Fundraising staff to support Donor Research and outreach strategy.
February 2026: Consulting Call with Team4Tech (drop down for more)
At Dignitas’ request, Team4Tech arranged a follow-up call with our Fundraising staff to provide additional strategy and advice on Dignitas’s Donor-facing processes, materials, and pipeline management.
Cohort Participation
Dignitas has participated in 3 peer learning cohorts:
- AI in Education Training for Daara Academy NGOs (2026)
- Dignitas participated in six 90-minute interactive virtual training sessions, self-paced coursework, and an in-person learning retreat around strategic AI integration topics (including AI quality, safety, and evidence generation).
- Accelerating Your Work on AI in Education (2026)
- “[This cohort] provided deeper insights into how to scale AI solutions effectively, particularly within government systems. It strengthened our thinking around adoption pathways, partnerships, and sustainable implementation at scale.”
- Implementing Generative AI in Education (2025)
- “Through the Generative AI course, we developed and tested a practical use case within our context. We conducted a field-based case study that enabled us to validate our hypothesis on how AI could support instructional decision-making. Based on this proof of concept, we began progressing toward AI integration within the LeadNow platform.”
Partnership Impact
âď¸ Team4Tech has played a critical role in strengthening Dignitasâ capacity to integrate AI within their LeadNow platform through a combination of capacity building, technical support, and ecosystem engagement.
A key contribution has been in building their internal AI capacity. Peer learning cohorts have helped drive a notable shift in adoption from less than 50% of staff previously using AI to approximately 90% currently. This strengthened capacity has enabled Dignitas to optimize their work and build an AI prototype use case in LeadNow,
âď¸ Team4Tech volunteers have supported Dignitas in:
- coaching on AI integration for the LeadNow platformâclarifying potential use cases, strategizing implementation pathways, and helping Dignitas make more informed decisions on moving from concept to practical application.
- strengthening Dignitas’ fundraising and partnership strategy, providing expertise to support organizational sustainability and growth.
- digitizing training materials for 1,000+ teachers in 186 schools and creating animated learning videos reaching more than 50,000 students.
- making improvements to Dignitas’ user experiences in order to more effectively recruit and retain new teachers and schools.
- crafting a customized technology solution for the tracking of Dignitas alumni and thus laid the foundation for the initiation of the Alumni Community Platform.
