(image from anthropic.com)
Artificial intelligence firm Anthropic announced it is budgeting $150 million to train young techies and nonprofit staff how to use and implement its Claude agentic AI model. The firm has partnered with nonprofits CodePath and Social Finance to launch Claude Corps.
Claude Corps will start with 100 candidates, to be known as fellows, for training and to be hosted at nonprofits. The intention, according to a statement from Anthropic, is to scale the program to 1,000 fellows at as many as 400 nonprofits. CodePath will be the fellows’ employer of record and will lead programming during the fellowship.
The organizations will receive a $10,000 implementation grant. The fellows will be paid $85,000 and benefits for the year plus Claude API and tooling access. The intended start date is October 19.
Applications for the fellowships must be filed by July 17 on Anthropic’s site. Applicants must have completed both AI Fluency and Claude 101. Proof of completion must be submitted with the application. Applicants must be 18 or older with less than two years of professional work experience. A degree is not mandatory.
There is an interview process. There will be written questions, a practical take-home assessment, and a final-round “Super Day,” consisting of two one-on-one conversations.
Applications are open on a rolling basis for the next two cohorts, which begin in January 2027 and August 2027, according to the statement from Anthropic. Host organization applications are also open for all cohort start dates. For more information about criteria for hosting a fellow and what’s involved, see the Claude Corps website.
Social Finance is managing the philanthropic capital behind the program, supporting program expansion through philanthropic and public channels, building sustainability through innovative financing, and leading the program’s assessment and learning agenda, according to a statement on the Social Finance website.
Claude Corps is being described via a statement on the Social Finance website as a proof of concept. “We are showing that AI upskilling can be designed deliberately: with shared accountability across sectors, and with a structure that scales. If it works, it becomes a playbook — a blueprint others can adapt with other tools, other technologies, other moments of disruption.”
The official program unveiling was made by Anthropic via a posting on LinkedIn and its website. It caught several prominent executives in the nonprofit technology space by surprise. They spoke to The NonProfit Times on background. Several executives, some working with Anthropic on other projects, said that they knew a program of some sort was being developed but were caught by surprise at the posting.
The announcement came from Anthropic on June 11. The posting came 10 days after the firm submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering of common stock. The day after the Claude Corps announcement, the U.S. Department of Commerce cited national security concerns and issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 agentic AI models by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The firm was forced to disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance. Access to all other Anthropic models were not affected.
