Project Lookout
Patent pending · Launching October 6 · Free for BECMA members
Every grant, contract, and bid your business deserves, found overnight, verified, and ranked with a score it can explain.
Work with us
Ready to adopt AI? We will walk with you.
Three ways in: training for your team, technical assistance from the first assessment through adoption, and the tools we build to the Hope Standard. Whichever you choose, we co-design with communities. We never design for them.
01
Training
AI training built around your team, not the other way around.
Hands-on training designed around your industry, your people's comfort with the technology, and the tools and workflows that will make the biggest difference on Monday morning.
Eligible Massachusetts organizations can use state workforce training funds to offset the cost. How funding works
We do not deliver off-the-shelf programming. We listen first and design second, so every session fits your field, your goals, and the tools your people already use.
We are the preferred AI trainer for the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts, where the BECMA AI Series reached a 100 percent engagement and recommendation rate across cohorts. As an approved Commonwealth Corporation provider, we can also help eligible Massachusetts organizations offset the cost with state workforce training funds.
Rev. Christopher Hope teaches from lived experience as the founder of a Black-owned business, an ordained minister, an Aspen Institute Fellow, and a lecturer at Boston University. That combination changes how the content lands.
Formats
- Single-session workshops designed for your organization
- Multi-session cohort series for a member or employee community
- Train-the-trainer programs that build lasting capacity in-house
- Custom curriculum for chambers, foundations, companies, and workforce programs
- Micro-credentials for workers who want documented AI skills
- Virtual, in person, or hybrid. We come to you.
Topics we build around
- Lead generation and bid discovery
- Marketing and content creation
- CRM and organizational memory
- Grant and fundraising discovery
- Procurement and RFP response
- Operations and everyday automation
- AI literacy and workforce readiness
- Compliance and leadership in regulated fields
How a training comes together
Listen
We talk with the people who will be in the room about their work, what worries them, and what they have already tried.
Design
We build the curriculum around your real documents, tools, and workflows, in plain language.
Practice
Hands-on sessions where everyone works on their own tasks, with a teammate on hand for tech support so no one falls behind.
Follow through
We check back on what stuck. Train-the-trainer options keep the skills growing after we leave.
Who teaches
As a healthcare AI consultant, I came into the BECMA x The Hope Group AI Series already deep in this work and I still left every session with something I could apply the same day. Chris Hope teaches from the real experience of running a Black-owned business.
Jennifer NgureFounderImara Health AI Consulting LLC
Recent programs
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Partnership · BECMA
Putting AI in the hands of Massachusetts' Black-owned businesses
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Course · GME leaders
AI for GME leaders and administrators
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Program · Civic AI Access Lab
Civic AI Access Lab: apprentice-delivered AI training for small business owners
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Teaching · Boston University
Training the next generation of ethical AI leaders
02
Technical assistance
From strategy to implementation, and through adoption.
Most organizations know they need AI. Very few know where to start, or whom to trust to help them get there. We assess, prioritize, and implement with your team, and we stay until the new way of working sticks.
We are a certified technical assistance vendor for the City of Boston’s small business community and for BECMA. We do not stop at recommending tools. We configure them, connect them to the systems you already run, and stay with your team through every stage of adoption.
Engagements begin where you are. If you have never used an AI tool, we start with a readiness assessment. If you have tools that are not delivering, we find out why. If you are an institution rolling AI out at scale, we design the architecture and the support model around it.
Because we build and ship our own software, our advice comes from the bench, not from a slide deck.
What is included
- AI readiness assessment and a prioritized 90-day roadmap
- Tool selection, configuration, and implementation
- CRM integration and workflow automation, with a person in the loop
- Custom AI agents for procurement, fundraising, and lead generation
- Board-ready AI policy and governance, built on the Hope Standard
- Vendor evaluation and AI procurement advice
- Funding strategy and grant writing for AI adoption
- Ongoing support for live deployments
How an engagement runs
Discovery
A free, 30-minute conversation, then interviews with the people who do the work every day.
Map
We trace where the week actually goes and find the bottlenecks worth fixing first.
Roadmap
A phased plan with measurable outcomes, built around your real budget and capacity, usually within two to four weeks.
Build
Configuration and integration sprints inside the systems you already use.
Enable
Training and change management so the new tools become the normal way of working.
Review
Quarterly check-ins to measure, adjust, and stay reachable long after launch.
Who you work with
Working with The Hope Group changed how I think about what's possible for my business. Rev. Hope took the time to understand exactly where I was — not where he assumed I'd be — and built a plan around my reality. I walked away with a roadmap I could actually use.
Nicole WigginsOwner, Jewn EnterprisesCity of Boston Certified Small Business
Recent engagements
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Partnership · City of Boston
Building ethical AI capacity for Boston's public workforce
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Tool · JEWN BUG
JEWN BUG: an AI that reads procurement portals so a small painting crew does not have to
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Tool · Unicorn PO Dispenser
Unicorn PO Dispenser: purchase orders in a dozen formats, turned into clean records
03
Tools
Our tools, in your organization.
Software we build to the Hope Standard and prove in the field, ready for your team, your members, or your grantees.
Lookout launches October 6 with BECMA, free for BECMA members. Join the waitlist
Driftwood
Open source · Live at cmd-z.com · Running the Lookout beta
An open source platform for running a beta without losing the plot. It runs the live Project Lookout beta today.
Every tool we release is tested against the Hope Standard before it reaches a single user. In Lookout, every match shows why it scored the way it did, a bias suite runs before every release, and member profiles are never used to train models. In Driftwood, nothing synthetic is ever shown as live, and a person sights every report. In both, people make the decisions.
Need a tool that does not exist yet? We also build custom tools with the people who will use them, like JEWN BUG for a Boston painting company and the Unicorn PO Dispenser for a women-owned distributor. That work starts with technical assistance.
Ways to bring Lookout in
Direct organizational license
For small businesses and nonprofits that want Lookout working for their own team.
Institutional distribution license
For chambers, foundations, networks, and financial institutions distributing Lookout as a member or grantee benefit. Multi-tenant from day one, so a new network onboards without a rebuild.
Build-out partnership
Custom configuration for a community, region, or funding ecosystem.
Who builds them
The Hope Group didn't show up and lecture us. They listened first — then built something around how we actually work. As a woman-owned business I needed a partner who understood both the technology and the real-world constraints I operate under. I found exactly that here.
Ellen CynarUNICORNCity of Boston Woman-Owned Business
Where we start
AI is very good computing. That is all, and that is plenty.
In an organization's own hands, aimed at its own goals, it can take real weight off the people doing the work. Sold the usual way, it is a subscription. Here is what we hear most often from the organizations we work with, and what we do about it, together.
“We know we need AI, but we don't know where to start.”
What we doWe start where you are. A readiness assessment and a prioritized 90-day roadmap, co-designed with your team, in plain language.
“Our staff are drowning in repetitive work.”
What we doWe map the workflows eating your week with the people who do them, then replace the repetitive ones with quiet, reliable automation a person still signs off on.
“We tried AI training but nothing changed.”
What we doGeneric training does not stick. Ours is built around your team's actual workflows and goals, and we come back to check.
“We need an AI policy before our board will approve anything.”
What we doWe deliver plain-language, board-ready AI governance you can actually implement, built on The Hope Standard.
Built for the organizations on the ground doing the work
Small businessesNonprofitsMunicipalities and public agenciesChambers of commerceFoundations and intermediariesWorkforce and apprenticeship programsSchools, colleges, and universitiesHealthcare and medical education
Funding available
Massachusetts may help pay for it.
As an approved Commonwealth Corporation provider (under the name Equity Intelligence LLC), eligible Massachusetts organizations may use state workforce training funds to offset the cost of our programs.
To apply, contact Commonwealth Corporation directly at express@commcorp.org or through their portal, and mention Equity Intelligence LLC as your training provider. We are happy to walk you through it.