Welcome to the Moonshot Institute

Supporting Bold Ventures

Over the years, I’ve had many leaders reach out, asking whether I’m available for thought partnership, research and development consulting, coaching, and/or feedback on projects—and I’ve been honored to serve and support organizations of many types around the world. However, being a university president requires significant time and focus, meaning that I am unable to do that type of work. While my current responsibilities often mean that I must decline almost all requests, I’ve created The Moonshot Institute Substack as a focused way to provide white papers, concept proposals, and research reports to support, inform, and inspire mission-minded innovation in education, workforce development, and related sectors.

For those interested in a deeper and more personalized engagement, I’ve created a pathway to Moonshot Institute memberships for a very limited number of people or organizations, which is described in greater detail below.

What I Offer

Free Substack Subscription

Subscribe for free access to approximately 12 annual white papers, concept papers, and/or research reports. Some may only be available in full text for a limited time. Additional shorter articles are also available in full text under the free subscription.

Moonshot Institute Membership

The Moonshot Institute Membership is a highly selective and entirely confidential service and thought partnership platform for leaders, researchers, policymakers, and designers pursuing bold, transformative ventures. Whether you are launching a new school, designing innovative programs, venturing into a new education startup, drafting a pitch or concept proposals for a grant/donor/investor, working on the research and development of an education product or service, launching a new non-profit or think tank, working on a major public policy initiative, crafting a research or white paper for your organization, or reimagining the future of education, a Moonshot Institute membership may be helpful.

For those desiring personalized thought partnership, I offer the following membership benefits (distinct from the Substack subscription):

1. Personalized Thought Partnership and Mentoring: Receive up to four hours of one-on-one coaching per month to help refine your vision, overcome challenges, and accelerate impact.

2. Project Feedback and Support: Get expert input on your ventures, from strategy to execution, ensuring your ideas have the clarity and impact they need to succeed. This may include me providing draft concepts, ideas, and proposals to help achieve your stated goals.

Is a Moonshot Institute Membership Right for You?

Moonshot Institute Membership is designed for bold thinkers and leaders, including:

1. Founders of innovative schools, products, organizations, or programs.

2. Leaders, designers, researchers, and policymakers looking to make a transformative impact.

3. Entrepreneurs and visionaries reimagining what’s possible in education.

Exclusive Moonshot Institute Membership Plans

The Moonshot Institute works with a select group of visionary leaders pursuing bold, transformative initiatives in education, workforce development, think tanks, government agencies, and beyond. With over 30 years of experience, I bring a unique approach to thought partnership—helping leaders map possibilities, refine bold ideas, and tackle unseen challenges. Availability is highly limited to ensure the highest level of focus and value for each client.

How Being Considered for Moonshot Institute Membership Works

1. Reach Out First: Send me a message directly through Substack (see link at the bottom of this page) to start the conversation.

2. Complete a Personal Interview: I will take the time to learn about your goals, challenges, and vision. Together, we will determine if this partnership is the right fit for both of us. This includes consideration of my limited availability, which tends to be during evening (CT) hours and weekends.

3. Get Approval to Become a Member: If selected, you will be invited to join a membership tier that fits your needs and my availability.

Moonshot Institute Membership Plans

Tier 1: Annual Thought Partnership – $10,000/year (or $834/month)

• Includes up to 4 hours of personalized thought partnership per month.

• Provides high-level guidance to refine transformative ideas and create actionable conceptual maps.

• Designed for leaders focused on significant projects requiring strategic vision and clarity.

Tier 2: Premium Thought Partnership (Extremely Limited Availability) – $20,000/year (or $1,667/month)

• Includes up to 8 hours of personalized thought partnership per month.

• For leaders tackling complex, multi-phase projects that demand deeper engagement and collaboration.

• Priority access includes higher scheduling priority and more intensive involvement in your work.

• Perfect for ambitious projects requiring sustained, high-level collaboration.

Important Notes

• Exclusivity: Membership is by invitation only and requires an initial conversation to determine fit.

• Unused Hours: Unused hours do not roll over to the next month. Members pay a monthly subscription regardless of how many hours are used.

• Additional Hours: Any work beyond your plan is available at a rate of $250/hour, subject to availability. However, due to my limited availability, I am rarely able to offer additional hours.

• Membership Fees: All fees for Moonshot Institute services are considered professional service fees and are not tax-deductible. However, a portion of fees collected by the Moonshot Institute may be donated to a charity of my choice, including Concordia University, Nebraska, where I serve as president. This does not impact the terms of your membership or the services provided. Donations, if made, are entirely at the discretion of the Moonshot Institute.

Ready to Begin?

If you’re interested in working together, reach out by messaging me using the link at the bottom of this page. Let’s have a conversation to determine if this membership is the right fit for both of us.

Disclaimer: Do you use AI to write the articles on Substack? The ethical use of AI is an important topic. When new technologies emerge, they often evolve faster than our ability to make sense of the ethical implications. As such, I offer this disclaimer to provide a transparent picture of my own journey and approach. I’ve already made mistakes, even embarrassing ones, but I will strive to quickly learn from them and provide a transparent view of my present approach. As such, this disclaimer will be updated over time.

The full initial draft (in writing or as an audio dictation), words, and ideas for my Substack articles always come from me. From there, I often use AI for editing Substack articles. I regularly use Grammarly and/or Microsoft Word’s built-in Spellcheck or Grammar Check (both of which are a form of AI) to aid in proofreading and editing my work on Substack. In instances where I use AI for something other than background research or editing my original work, you can expect that I will cite or note it in the article.

I also regularly use DALL-E to generate the images for many articles. In addition, I sometimes use royalty free images. If credit is required by law, requested by the creator, or simply the courteous thing to do, you can expect to see the credits right below the image.

I continue to evolve in my experimentation with the use of ChatGPT, Grok, CoPilot (and various other ChatBot technologies) to serve as an editor for my Substack publications.

What does this mean? There are three common scenarios, though I hope to experiment with others in the future (and I will update this accordingly):

1. I write a full first draft in Word, Grammarly, or a word processor, and then submit it to the ChatBot, asking it to serve as an editor, akin to how I have one or more people edit almost anything that is published in my formal capacity. This is also similar to how editors review my manuscripts when they are submitted to a journal, newspaper, or book publisher. By the way, when I write for any of these partners, I never use AI beyond the basic spellcheck / grammar check available in Microsoft Word—not even to use and then cite it.

2. I record myself speaking on a topic and then place the recording in a ChatBot to transcribe, remove disfluencies, and provide a draft transcript that I can refine before publishing it. This is where I’ve made the most past mistakes. Because the ChatBot is transcribing, it adds its own grammatical interpretations and even takes liberty with sub-titles, organization, corrections, and adding clarifying language. As such, I’m still learning to use prompts that ensure my words, voice, style, and intent dominate—while also achieving a quality, personal, but streamlined approach to sharing ideas. Because this is an evolving practice for me, and also because it sometimes creates a final draft that can be flagged as AI-generated content, expect that when I use this approach, it will be noted at the beginning or end of the article.

3. I use ChatBots to conduct background research related to topics that I’m writing about, akin to an interactive and advanced search engine. If there are quotes or unique ideas that I include in the article, you can expect that I will give some sort of citation or in-text credit.