The Ascend Fellowship is Back - and This One’s for You

If you're a Disabled professional early in your career, you already know how much energy it takes to navigate workplaces that weren't built with you in mind. Ascend was built specifically for that reality.

The Ascend Fellowship Program is Making Space's six-month career development program designed by and for Disabled professionals. It exists to give you the tools and community to grow your career on your own terms without having to leave your disability at the door to do it.

What You’ll Get Out of It

Ascend is built around three core pillars: confidence, clarity, and community.

Confidence in how you talk about your strengths, goals, and access needs in professional settings. Clarity on your career path, the workplace environments you’ll encounter, and what next steps actually look like. And community in creating real relationships with other Disabled professionals that extend beyond a single cohort.

With this cohort, there’s also something newer on the table: AI literacy. AI tools are becoming common in the workplace and our goal is to ensure no Disabled professional gets left behind. Ascend builds in structured, guided opportunities to engage with these tools because you deserve to be informed. We believe Disabled professionals need to be part of the conversation while it’s happening so we’ll work together to make sure you feel equipped to jump in.

How It Works

Ascend is 100% virtual and runs for 6 months. Most participants spend about 2-5 hours per week on average working on cohort curriculum. That time is designed to complement the professional development you’re already doing.

The program is asynchronous at its core, which means you have the flexibility in how and when you engage. That said, we do believe that consistent participation is what makes all the difference. Ascend works best when the community continues to show up for each other.

You’ll primarily work across 2 spaces: the Making Space platform, where you’ll access courses, session recordings, and AI tools, and Slack, where the day-to-day community lives. Each month includes at least 1 live session (available to attend live or watch within a week) plus optional drop-in office hours or 1:1s if you want extra support or an additional chance to connect.

AI in Ascend

AI participation in Ascend is structured and straightforward. Over 6 months, you’ll complete guided walkthroughs, short activities inside the Making Space platform, and surveys. None of these require any prior AI experience or expertise. And you’ll never be asked to advocate for AI or use third-party tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot.

What you’ll leave the cohort with is familiarity and a solid foundation. Our goal is that Ascenders (our cohort participants) feel informed and capable.

We also take privacy seriously. Like, really seriously. Personal stories shared through AI activities are never used to train third-party AI models and cannot be accessed by the Ascend or Making Space teams. Any learnings shared across the cohort are aggregated so individuals are never identifiable.

And there’s one more thing worth naming: Ascenders have a unique opportunity to directly shape how Making Space’s AI tools evolve. Your experience inside the program matters to us and we’ll be paying close attention.

The Horizons Cohort: What You Need to Know

Our upcoming Ascend cohort is Horizons, which we designed to focus on early-career Disabled professionals (less than 5 years of professional experience). Here are the key dates:

• Applications open: Monday, March 16, 2026
• Priority applications close: Sunday, April 19, 2026 @ 11:59 PM PT
• Program kickoff/orientation: Wednesday, June 3, 2026

The application takes about 20-30 minutes and will ask about your background, availability, and access needs, plus your most current resume.

Not sure if Ascend is right for you? Join us for a live info session on Wednesday, April 8 @ 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET. You can ask questions, meet our team, and get a feel for the program before you apply.

Is Ascend Right for You?

Ascend might be a great fit if you:

• Identify as a Disabled professional with less than 5 years of professional experience
• Are based in the United States
• Can consistently commit 2-5 hours per week for 6 months
• Are looking for career clarity, community, or both
• Are open to engaging with AI tools in a structured, supported way

Ascend is probably not the right fit if you're looking for job placement, legal or financial advice, or a program that runs on your own timeline without community participation expectations.

We'd rather you know that upfront than find out three months in.

Apply Now

Applications for the Horizons Cohort open on Monday, March 16, 2026 and close on Sunday, April 19, 2026 @ 11:59 PM PT.

Ready to apply? Head to Making Space now.

Have questions first? Register to attend our live info session on Wednesday, April 8 @ 2 PM PT/5 PM ET.

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