Put Kolab in your proposal.

Sessions for [PROGRAM NAME] will be delivered on Kolab, a facilitation environment built for multi-session cohort programs rather than a general purpose video conferencing tool. Participants join each session through a single link with no account creation or software installation required.

Each cohort is assigned a persistent workspace that combines live video, moderated small group discussion, and a shared interactive canvas in one place. Facilitators build the session agenda in advance, so activities, prompts, and materials load for participants at the right moment rather than being screen shared or distributed by email. Small group discussion happens inside the same space through audio zones, which allows facilitators to move between groups, listen in, and bring the full cohort back together without the transitions and lobby waits that interrupt momentum in conventional video platforms.

Because the workspace persists between the [NUMBER] scheduled sessions, participant contributions accumulate visibly over the life of the program. Participants can return to work produced in session one during session eight, which supports the iterative design of [PROGRAM NAME] and reduces the time spent re-establishing context at the start of each convening.

Attrition in virtual cohort programs is rarely a content problem. It is a participation problem. When participants spend sessions watching a shared screen and typing into a chat window, engagement declines predictably after the first few convenings.

Kolab is structured around active contribution. Participants work directly on a shared canvas, move between small group conversations, respond to live prompts, and see their own contributions become part of the cohort's visible record. Facilitators can form and reform small groups in seconds, which makes rotating discussion formats practical rather than logistically expensive. For [PROGRAM NAME], this supports the peer learning objectives described above by giving each of the [NUMBER] participants repeated, structured opportunities to speak and contribute in every session.

Engagement is also sustained between convenings. Each completed session generates a recap that program staff review and release to the cohort, including key points, decisions, and agreed next steps, along with a visual summary of the session's work. This addresses the loss of continuity that occurs when participants leave a session and retain little of it by the following month.

The persistent workspace reinforces cohort identity over the [DURATION] program period. Participants return to a space holding their own prior work and their peers' work, which supports the retention target of [TARGET].

Virtual program reporting often relies on attendance counts and post-session surveys, which tell a funder who showed up and how they felt but very little about what happened in the room. Delivering [PROGRAM NAME] on Kolab produces a structured session record as a by-product of delivery rather than as an additional data collection task.

Each completed session generates a full transcript and an automated summary that captures key points, decisions reached, and action items agreed, exportable in Markdown or Word format. Sessions can be recorded, and a central dashboard holds recordings, transcripts, and summaries across all cohorts, so the MEL team can work across the [NUMBER] sessions of the program rather than reconstructing each convening separately.

The platform also reports per-speaker talk time. For [PROGRAM NAME] this provides direct evidence on equity of participation, showing whether contribution is distributed across the cohort or concentrated among a few participants, and allowing facilitators to adjust session design in response. This supports reporting against [INDICATOR] with observed data rather than self-reported perception.

Alongside these records, the work produced on the shared canvas remains available as a durable qualitative artifact. Because all of this is produced in the course of normal delivery, it imposes no additional response burden on participants, which matters for cohorts already completing [NUMBER] program surveys.

Participation barriers in virtual programming are often practical rather than technical. Participants are asked to create an account on a platform their institution has not approved, install software on a device they do not administer, or wait for a license to be provisioned before they can join.

Kolab removes those steps. Participants join [PROGRAM NAME] sessions by opening a link in a browser and entering a name. There is no account to create, nothing to install, and no per participant license to assign, which matters for a cohort drawn from [NUMBER] countries and [NUMBER] institutions with differing IT policies.

Connectivity. Video quality adapts to available bandwidth. Participants on constrained connections can also individually stop receiving incoming video to conserve bandwidth, without affecting what anyone else sees and without being required to turn off their own camera. This allows a participant on a limited connection to remain a visible, contributing member of the session rather than dropping to audio only or leaving entirely.

Language and accessibility. Live captions are available during sessions, color coded by speaker, and continue to function during small group discussion as well as full cohort plenary. This supports participants with hearing differences and participants working in a second language, both relevant for a cohort spanning [NUMBER] countries. Session transcripts are available afterward for participants who wish to review content at their own pace.

[ORGANIZATION] will run a technical orientation before session one and provide a connectivity fallback as described in the risk section.

Alumni engagement usually fails for structural reasons rather than a lack of intent. The program ends, the meeting links expire, the shared documents scatter across drives, and the cohort loses the place where it met.

Kolab spaces persist. At the close of [PROGRAM NAME], the cohort workspace remains available and becomes the alumni home for that group, holding the materials, frameworks, session recaps, and outputs the cohort produced together. [ORGANIZATION] will use this space to host [FREQUENCY] alumni convenings, to introduce successive cohorts to prior participants, and to keep alumni reachable for follow-on opportunities.

This also strengthens the sustainability case. Because the platform is licensed by program rather than by participant, alumni can be convened without adding license cost per person, and successive cohorts inherit a working environment and a library of session designs already built during this award. The marginal cost of running each subsequent cohort is materially lower than the first, and external facilitation support declines accordingly as described in the staffing section.

A delivery environment is only as good as the sessions designed inside it. [ORGANIZATION] will therefore budget facilitation and delivery support alongside the platform license, in three defined scopes:

Program build. Kolab specialists translate the existing [PROGRAM NAME] curriculum into built session environments, including agendas, activities, and canvas layouts, so that program staff begin from working sessions rather than a blank space. Scoped per cohort, covering up to [NUMBER] sessions.

Facilitator enablement. Program staff receive structured training on running sessions, managing small group discussion, and adapting session designs, together with a written facilitation guide specific to [PROGRAM NAME]. Delivery capacity therefore sits inside [ORGANIZATION] rather than with an external vendor.

Co-delivered sessions. For high-stakes convenings, including the opening session, the [EVENT NAME] convening, and the closing session, an experienced facilitator co-delivers alongside program staff. Each co-delivered session includes design review, a technical dry run, live delivery, and a debrief.

Support is weighted toward the first year and declines thereafter as internal capability builds, from [AMOUNT] in year one to [AMOUNT] in the final year. This structure is deliberate: it treats external facilitation as a capacity building investment with a declining cost curve rather than a permanent dependency, which reinforces the sustainability position described above.

[PROGRAM NAME] delivers to approximately [NUMBER] participants per cohort across [NUMBER] concurrent pods, with [FREQUENCY] live sessions and [NUMBER] cohorts across the period of performance. At that scale, delivery does not rest on a small number of program staff, and the support model is built accordingly.

Facilitator corps model. Rather than co-delivering routine sessions, Kolab trains and equips the pod facilitators who deliver them. Each cohort begins with a facilitator training intensive, a supervised practice run, and a written facilitation guide covering every session in the cohort sequence. This builds delivery capacity at the pod level, where the sessions actually happen.

Training recurs by design. Pod facilitator rosters change between cohorts, so [ORGANIZATION] budgets facilitator training once per cohort rather than only in year one. Session designs, canvas layouts, and facilitation guides are reused across cohorts, so the cost per cohort declines even though training recurs. This is a more accurate reflection of how a multi-cohort program at this scale sustains quality than a support line that tapers to zero.

Live support during delivery weeks. During active session weeks, Kolab provides scheduled office hours for pod facilitators, so that questions arising in delivery are resolved between sessions rather than escalating into program risk.

Co-delivery reserved for signature convenings. Full facilitated delivery is budgeted only for the [NUMBER] [EVENT NAME] events at up to [NUMBER] attendees, plus the opening and closing sessions of each cohort. These are the convenings where scale, visibility, and stakeholder attendance justify an experienced facilitator leading the room.

Facilitation and delivery support is budgeted at [RATE] per hour against the following level of effort for [PROGRAM NAME]:

Program build, [NUMBER] hours per cohort, covering session environments, agendas, activities and canvas layouts for up to [NUMBER] sessions. Facilitator training and enablement, [NUMBER] hours per cohort, covering the training intensive, a supervised practice run, and a written facilitation guide. Co-delivered sessions, [NUMBER] hours per session, covering design review, technical dry run, live delivery and debrief. Advisory and office hours support, [NUMBER] hours across the period of performance.

Total level of effort is [NUMBER] hours at [RATE] per hour, for a total of [AMOUNT] across the [NUMBER] month period of performance. This is budgeted under professional services and is separate from the platform license described in the budget narrative.

Platform license. [AMOUNT] per year, requested as a direct cost and pro-rated across the [NUMBER] month period of performance. This covers delivery of [NUMBER] cohorts of approximately [NUMBER] participants each, comprising [NUMBER] sessions per cohort, session recording, transcription and summary generation, and continued alumni access as described in the sustainability section.

Cost reasonableness. Kolab is licensed by program rather than by participant. Across the award the platform cost is approximately [AMOUNT] per [DENOMINATOR]. Delivering the same program on separately licensed tools would require a video conferencing subscription, a collaborative whiteboard subscription, and a live polling subscription. Because those tools are licensed per host rather than per participant, the comparison is drawn on the [NUMBER] facilitator and program staff licenses that would be required, at a combined cost of [AMOUNT] across the period of performance. The consolidated license is lower in direct cost, and it also removes the participation ceiling that per-host licensing imposes, since participants join without a license being provisioned, tracked, or reclaimed.

Facilitation support. Budgeted under professional services at [AMOUNT] in year one and [AMOUNT] thereafter. Year one includes the program build for [NUMBER] cohorts, facilitator enablement, and [NUMBER] co-delivered sessions, as detailed in the staffing section.

Escalation and period of performance. Where the period of performance extends beyond twelve months, the license is budgeted pro-rata for partial years. Subsequent full years carry a [PERCENT] escalation consistent with the escalation applied elsewhere in this budget.

Cost treatment. The platform license is a direct cost of program delivery, not general administrative overhead, and is budgeted accordingly. [ORGANIZATION] will apply its negotiated indirect cost rate consistent with [POLICY].

Platform license. [AMOUNT] per year as a direct cost, pro-rated across the [NUMBER] month period of performance, covering [NUMBER] cohorts, approximately [NUMBER] participants in total, and approximately [NUMBER] live sessions.

Cost reasonableness. At this scale the platform license represents approximately [PERCENT] of the total program budget and approximately [AMOUNT] per live session delivered. Licensing is per program rather than per participant, so the cost does not vary with cohort size, and the program can scale participation without a corresponding increase in platform cost. Delivering the same program on separately licensed tools would require video conferencing, collaborative whiteboard, and live polling subscriptions for the [NUMBER] facilitators and program staff running sessions, at a combined cost of [AMOUNT] across the period of performance, and would additionally cap concurrent session capacity at the number of host licenses purchased.

Subrecipient treatment. As [ORGANIZATION] is a subrecipient under [PRIME], the platform license is budgeted within [ORGANIZATION]'s direct costs for program delivery and treated under its negotiated indirect cost rate consistent with [POLICY].

Facilitation support. Budgeted separately under professional services at [AMOUNT] across the period of performance, reflecting the facilitator corps model described in the staffing section, in which facilitator training recurs once per cohort while session designs are reused.

Participant connectivity. Video quality adapts to available bandwidth, and participants can individually reduce incoming video to conserve their connection. Participants who cannot sustain a stable connection will be supported through a documented fallback, including audio-only participation and access to the session recording, transcript and outputs afterward. A technical orientation will be held before session one to surface issues in advance rather than during a live convening.

Facilitator availability. At least two trained facilitators will be available for each session, so that no convening depends on a single individual. Session designs are stored in the program workspace and can be run by any trained facilitator.

Participant absence. Sessions produce a recording, transcript and written summary, so a participant who misses a convening for travel, connectivity or time zone reasons can recover the content without requiring a separate catch-up session.

Access control. Cohort spaces can be password protected, so that a session link circulated beyond the intended participant list does not grant access. This is relevant for sessions involving [SENSITIVE CONTEXT].

Data and record continuity. Recordings, transcripts, summaries and participant-produced materials will be exported after each convening and retained in [ORGANIZATION] systems, so that program records do not depend on continued platform access.

Vendor continuity. Kolab is developed by TechChange, which has delivered technology-enabled learning programs for exchange, international development, and global health organizations for over a decade. Should the platform become unavailable during the award, sessions can be delivered on conventional video conferencing using materials drawn from the exported records described above, with reduced participant interactivity but no interruption to the program calendar.

Cohort programs rarely consist only of live convenings. Between sessions, participants complete reading, watch recorded content, submit work, and build toward a certification requirement, and funders typically expect participation and completion to be documented at the individual level.

[ORGANIZATION] will therefore deliver [PROGRAM NAME] across two platforms provided by the same partner: Kolab as the live facilitation environment, and the TechChange learning management system for asynchronous content and participant records.

Asynchronous content. Session materials, recorded content, reading, and between-session assignments are hosted in a structured course environment organized to the [NUMBER] session program sequence, so participants always know what is expected before the next convening.

Participation tracking. Individual progress against completion requirements is tracked at the participant level and exportable for reporting, which allows [ORGANIZATION] to report against [INDICATOR] with individual-level evidence rather than aggregate attendance.

Certification. Participants who meet the completion requirements for [PROGRAM NAME] receive a completion certificate issued through the platform, meeting the certification deliverable described in [SECTION].

Single partner. Because both platforms are provided under one agreement, [ORGANIZATION] manages a single vendor relationship, a single point of technical support, and a single data protection posture across live and asynchronous delivery.

Kolab is a facilitation environment purpose-built for cohort programs, fellowships and multi-session convenings. It combines live video, moderated small group discussion and a persistent shared canvas in a single browser-based space, with a library of structured facilitation formats that program teams adapt to their own curriculum, and automated session records including transcripts, summaries and recordings.

Kolab is developed by TechChange, which has spent over a decade designing and delivering technology-enabled learning programs for exchange, education, international development and global health organizations. That history informs the platform's design priorities, including participation from low bandwidth contexts, delivery by program staff rather than technical specialists, and program-based rather than per-seat licensing suited to grant funded work.

Kolab is currently used to deliver fellowship, exchange and capacity building programming by [REFERENCE ORGANIZATIONS]. References are available on request.

Kolab is a virtual facilitation environment purpose-built for cohort-based exchange programming: multi-session cohorts, fellowship programs, and virtual exchange between participants in different countries. It combines live video, moderated small group discussion and a persistent shared workspace in a single browser-based environment that participants join without creating an account.

Kolab is developed by TechChange, which has spent over a decade building and delivering virtual programming for educational and cultural exchange, youth leadership, and international education organizations. That experience shapes the platform's priorities for exchange programming specifically: participation from participants in low bandwidth environments, second-language accessibility through live captions and transcripts, cohort spaces that persist into alumni engagement, and licensing structured per program to fit grant-funded periods of performance.

Kolab is currently used to deliver virtual exchange, fellowship and alumni programming by [REFERENCE ORGANIZATIONS]. References are available on request.

[ORGANIZATION] assessed delivery platforms for [PROGRAM NAME] against the following requirements:

1. Participants join without creating accounts or installing software, given a cohort drawn from [NUMBER] institutions with differing IT policies. 2. Cohort workspaces persist between sessions so that participant work accumulates across the [NUMBER] session program. 3. Small group discussion, shared visual work and full group plenary occur within one environment rather than across separate tools. 4. Session transcripts, summaries and participation data are generated as part of delivery and exportable for MEL reporting. 5. Licensing is structured per program rather than per participant, consistent with grant budgeting and with a program that scales participation across cohorts.

Conventional video conferencing platforms meet requirement one but not requirements two or three. Collaborative whiteboard tools meet requirement two but require a separate video platform and are licensed per host, which caps concurrent session capacity. Kolab meets all five requirements in a single environment and satisfies the combined requirement set at the lowest total cost across the period of performance.

[ORGANIZATION] also considered [ALTERNATIVE] and [ALTERNATIVE], which were not selected for the reasons above.