Leadership for Social Change brings together folks from many different backgrounds, lived experiences, and stages of life and career. This includes those working in the non-profit and social sector, community organizers and activists, social entrepreneurs, recent graduates, and those in mid or late career wanting to shift their work towards social change. Established leaders who want to create more inclusive and values-aligned cultures for their teams and organizations are also welcome. Many of our alumni are from racialized, gender-diverse, and LGBTQIA2S+ communities, ranging in age from 22 to 60!

In each session, you'll be supported by Groundswell's team of facilitators and your cohort of peers through an intentional sequence of interactive workshops, guided personal reflection, and small group discussions, each one building upon the previous ones. We’ll incorporate mindfulness and energizer breaks to keep the screen fatigue at bay and support you in feeling present. You can come as you are and we'll often remind you to do what you need to be comfortable, including the option to have video off for some parts of the sessions.

The 4-week course includes a total of 26 instructional hours, offered in two formats. The first format is 4 weekly full-day sessions from 9:30-5:30pm PT (including a 90-minute lunch break). The second format is 8 twice-weekly evening sessions from 6-9:30pm PT (including a shorter break).

You can expect to spend 2-3 hours a week outside of class time on course-related activities, including spending time with reflection prompts that we provide, some assignments, and your own self-directed learning and unlearning. There are no grades or marks here!

We limit each cohort to 16 participants to cultivate a supportive small group experience. You'll get to know each other while sharing, discussing, and reflecting on what comes up in the course. We'll also create a private chat group so you can support and encourage each other during and after the course.

Sessions are not normally recorded, though if you let us know in advance that you'll miss a session, in most cases we can record it for you to watch later. You can also schedule a one-on-one call with a facilitator if you have any questions. Note that a significant part of the course experience is interacting with your peers in small group discussions, which aren't recorded.

Doing the work of social change requires us to be open to change ourselves. This involves not only learning more concepts and skills, but also unlearning the systemic narratives that we have internalized. We'll meet you where you're at in doing this work, and invite you to our community agreements which include honouring your own and each other's lived experience. Then we can start to collectively relearn ways of working and relating that shift the status quo.

We approach leadership from the inside-out. Our curriculum and sessions are rooted in social emotional learning (more on that in the course!) and acknowledging that we learn more about ourselves in the presence of others. We'll support you in digging deep though you'll have choice in how much of that you share. On the occasions where you don't feel like sharing as much, you'll benefit from witnessing your peers in a shared learning environment. Our community agreements include mutual confidentiality when sharing personal experiences.