CONGRATULATIONS
You are part of
2026
Build something so impactful that it will make your past achievements look like footnotes in your life.
Out of more than 1.2k applications for Kickstarting For Good this year from 113 countries, you have been offered a place in our K4G 2026 cohort. Only 2-3% of applicants get a place on the programme.
First, I want you to celebrate! It’s a real achievement and I hope it will prove to be a pivotal point in your impact journey. K4G alumni have gone on to build some of the most exciting and fast-growing organisations in our movement, making a real difference across different areas.
But soon, the real work will begin in building your impactful org. So this page aims to answer some of your immediate questions about being part of our 2026 cohort.
Prakrit Sachdeva
Programme Manager, Kickstarting For Good
What happens now?
Accept your place
If you haven't already responded to the congratulation email, please do so now confirming your acceptance to secure your place on the cohort.
Sign your contract
Once you have accepted, we will send you a link to sign your participant contract. We require this no later than 5 days after receipt.
Book your travel
Once your contract has been signed, you will receive a log-in to our booking platform to book your travel to Berlin at our expense.
Join the kick-off call
Meet your fellow cohort at the 2026 kick-off call on Monday 27 July at 16:30 CET (7:30 PT, 10:30 ET, 20:00 IST) for two hours. Invite to follow.
The 2026 programme timeline
A guide to the 2026 programme – note that some specific topics and timings may be subject to change.
Virtual 1
Starting with the 2026 cohort kick-off call on Monday 27 July at 16:30 CET, you will be expected to dedicate a minimum of 20 hours a week to the virtual stages of the programme. We begin with online tasks, reading, and exercises, driven by regular check-ins with your lead mentor and online group sessions. In this first phase you will learn the fundamentals of creating a successful high-impact initiative, while you begin to develop a relationship with your fellow change-makers.
Week 1: Onboarding to K4G, and revisiting the problem you’re aiming to solve
Week 2: A dive into market research and building your hypothesis, plus an introduction to building your nonprofit with AI
Week 3: The why and how of co-founders, continued market research, and preparing for validation and testing
Week 4: Cohort check-in, with a focus on thinking strategically about how you shape your organisation
Week 5: Strategic goal setting, Theory of Change, and OKRs
Week 6: Introduction to cost-effectiveness, and choosing the right intervention
In-person 1
The first intense in-person week in Berlin where you will attend daily sessions and workshops with experts from many different disciplines. Expect long and inspiring days where, alongside your cohort, you will be challenged to shape and mould your idea and prove the impact you aim to make.
The in-person week runs Thursday 10 – Wednesday 16 September, and along with travel and the optional CARE conference, takes up two weeks of the programme schedule.
Week 7: Across seven days, we’ll explore why nonprofits fail, how to find synergies with others in your cohort, personal development, and designing your mission and vision – along with fireside chats and plenty of fun activities. A detailed agenda with calendar invites will follow in the coming weeks.
Week 8: Optional – join us at the Conference on Animal Rights in Europe (CARE) on 17 – 20 September in Warsaw, Poland. Also the deadline to submit your Mission Readiness Review (MRR) pitch deck. We are also planning to stay in Warsaw for two days after CARE – Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 – for you to extend your stay and spend more time with the K4G team and your fellow cohort. We can book both your hotel and buy your ticket to the conference. You can also choose to take a flight or train back home from Warsaw instead of returning to Berlin.
Mission Readiness Review (MRR)
You will produce a Mission Readiness Review (MRR) pitch deck as your main deliverable for the first phase of the incubator. Each initiative will be fully evaluated and the ones with the most potential will progress to the second stage of the programme, returning to Berlin to work towards graduation. Those that do not pass the MRR are invited to still continue with virtual stage 2.
Week 9: The K4G team, external experts, funders, and stakeholders review your MRR.
Week 10: 1-2-1 online meetings with the K4G team. We talk through your MRR and make decisions on which initiatives have shown enough progression to continue onto the second half of the incubator.
Virtual 2
The work ramps-up during our second virtual phase which starts 5 October, where you will attend two online sessions a week to learn crucial new skills plus a weekly check-in with your lead mentor. During this time you will further develop your idea, building it into a fully-developed proposal and pitch for funding.
Week 11: Branding and positioning
Week 12: Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (MEL), planning, and a deeper dive into cost-effectiveness
Week 13: Building a strategic roadmap, and understanding baselines and KPIs
Week 14: The logistics of setting up an organisation
Week 15: Creating your fundraising strategy
In-person 2
Those initiatives that pass the MRR are invited back to Berlin for our second in-person stage and pitch day.
Week 16: (9 – 12 November – optional) Come to Berlin a week early before our final in-person week and pitch day. Use the incubator space to focus on your initiative and spend extra time working with the K4G team.
Week 17: (13 – 20 November) In our final week you will get one-on-one time with mentors and experts to finalise your idea and learn crucial new skills in fundraising and presenting. We will also coach you and help you rehearse your final presentation ready for pitch day.
K4G pitch day (21 November) Pitch day is the culmination of all your hard work. Present your initiative to our panel of mentors, funders, experts and special industry guests alongside your fellow cohort at the Plant Food System Summit in Berlin. A range of seed grants from the $1m+ K4G seed fund will be awarded both on the day by our panel and in the following weeks by the K4G team, with a minimum grant of $10k each.
Plant Food System Summit (21 – 22 November 2026) You are invited to join us for the full two-day Plant Food System Summit in Berlin. The gathering brings together the key actors from around the world driving real-world change towards a plant-forward future.
Post-programme
Week 18: After the programme completes, you will be asked to submit your final Impact Funding Pitch Deck. This deck will be used to decide the final grants and some will be selectively sent to funders who we believe align with your goals.
You will also be encouraged to use your new-found fundraising skills to apply for your own funding from sources we help identify, with our 2025 cohort collectively raising approximately $1.8m in follow-on funding across all initiatives.
All who reach graduation become part of our exclusive K4G alumni. You will be required to report your organisation’s KPIs for two years following graduation and to have a quarterly check-in with the K4G team so that we monitor how else we can support you. You will also report back on additional funding raised and revenue secured as your organisation grows.
We hold alumni meet-ups at major events around the world, and many of our alumni go on to become mentors to the programme or return to give talks and workshops. Some have even permanently joined the K4G team!
Planning our first in-person week together in Berlin
- Thursday 10 - Wednesday 16 September 2026
- 8:00am - 6:00pm each day
- The ProVeg Incubator, Genthiner Straße 48, 10785 Berlin, Germany
We can’t wait to see you in Berlin in September. This is the most intense and transformational part of the incubator, and you are expected to be present from 8:00am-6:00pm each day. You will undertake a scheduled programme of cohort activities, workshops, and 1-2-1 mentor sessions. Also expect opportunities for you to extend each day with extra networking and optional sessions or work time.
Once you have signed your contract, we will send you a login for our Perk travel platform so you can book your travel to Berlin through our account, meaning you will not need to cover the cost of travel yourself.
Please check your contract for what is and isn’t covered by us during your stay. We don’t pay for food or incidental travel whilst you are in Berlin, but we do provide breakfast each morning at the incubator, and you will have access to a commercial-grade kitchen if you want to prepare your own meals.
Your hotel
By default we will book you a room at the Lulu Guldsmeden Berlin, our eco-hotel partner just a couple of minutes’ walk from the incubator:
Check-in: 9 September
Check-out: 17 September
If you would rather find your own accommodation and don’t want us to book a room for you, please let us know as soon as possible. Note that we can only reimburse alternative accommodation costs up to the cost of staying at our chosen hotel.
Join us at CARE and extend your stay
You can also extend your in-person time by joining us at the Conference on Animal Rights in Europe (CARE) on 17 – 20 September in Warsaw, Poland. There is a direct train from Berlin to Warsaw and we usually travel as a group together the morning after the in-person week finishes. We can book your conference ticket and accommodation for those that can attend.
We are also planning to stay in Warsaw for two days after CARE – Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 – to spend more time with the K4G team and your fellow cohort. We can extend your hotel so that you check out Wednesday 23 morning. You can also choose to take a flight or train back home from Warsaw instead of returning to Berlin.
Being part of the K4G cohort means you are with the best of the best of the movement
- James Hoot, 2025 cohort
How else can I prepare?
We hit the ground running. You will need to dedicate at least 20 hours a week as a participant and you will receive your first exercises and tasks in the first week of the programme.
So we advise that you start blocking out time now for when you will work on your individual tasks because 18-weeks will soon fly by!
Recommended reading. Social Impact Navigator by Phineo is a comprehensive guide to impact measurement for nonprofits. It outlines a number of the concepts, frameworks, and exercises at the core of the K4G programme and includes some of the exercises you will be asked to complete in the first half of the programme.
Go behind the scenes. Before he joined the K4G team, David was part of our 2024 cohort with his initiative Vegan Business Tribe. David recorded a video diary documenting his journey – and although the programme has had many changes since David’s cohort, his video diary gives a crucial insight into what it’s like to a K4G participant.
And finally - it's not a bug, it's a feature...
We believe in bringing fast-moving, start-up thinking to the nonprofit sector. And when you join the cohort you will see that we practise what we preach.
Going through Kickstarting For Good you might find that things change and pivot quickly. We are currently becoming an ‘AI-first’ organisation meaning that we’re introducing lots of new exciting systems and ways of working, and not all of them will be polished or fully worked out as we test them with this year’s cohort.
We also don’t believe in keeping our programme static. To be successful as a nonprofit, you often need to move when the opportunity presents itself, not when you are ready. This means things might get swapped out at short notice and parts of the programme might change. This may be because of live feedback we get from funders, unexpected opportunities to get you better exposure, or a key expert or mentor that becomes available at short notice.
So come to K4G with an open mindset where testing, learning and pivoting are all part of your social entrepreneur journey.