CHANGEMAKER SKILLS CAMP - March 5-8, 2024

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Facilitators Academy 2025 Cohort

The Facilitators
academy

the community of learning & practice

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2025 cohort enrolling now

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  • 8 Weeks
  • 4 courses
  • community Circles
  • Lifetime Membership

Imagine being part of a global network of trusted and skilled facilitators who create spaces where everyone thrives. Where equity, inclusion, and trauma-awareness are woven into every interaction.

We are co-creating the Facilitators Academy with our peers in the field to create a network of facilitators around the world who can offer peer mentorship to each other. Together we are creating courses and communities of learning and practice to amplify the field and connect facilitators world-wide.

cohort details

COURSES INCLUDED:

  • MINDFUL MEETINGS
  • COLLABORATOR'S MINDSET
  • FACILITATING CONNECTION
  • FACILITATING POSITIVE SUM DECISION
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Session Dates:

MARCH 28th

APRIIL 11th

APRIL 18th

APRIL 25th

MAY 2nd

MAY 9th

MAY 16th

MAY 30th

One on one support, peer slack community, and all recorded sessions and materials available through lifetime membership.
Sessions on zoom 9-noon pacific. 

course details

MINDFUL MEETINGS
Tired of losing time and energy in draining meetings? Learn the skills to facilitate meetings that are efficient and effective, without sacrificing equity or connectedness. Level-up your leadership skills with live examples and practice and access to the go-at-your-own pace course that will help you and your team make meetings awesome. The 5-step Mindful Meetings Method will exponentially improve how you collaborate online and off.
COLLABORATORS MINDSET
Diverse communities need safe and thriving communities of care in which they can hold and be held through joy, strife, learning, and growing together. Research points to the additive negative impact on an individual’s wellness as a result of navigating subtle or overt racism and other implicit and explicit biases acted upon by individuals or represented in systems. Facilitation requires a mindset that trusts in the mathematics of positive sum game theory. The facilitator enters the field with the belief that we can be stronger together, that we can resolve conflicts by getting creative, and that no one needs to lose when we problem-solve together. Facilitators represent the vanguard accelerating our shift into a new reality where power is fuel, not a weapon.
FACILITATING CONNECTION
Facilitators lead in the responsibility for curating, creating, and caring for the shared space occupied by participants, so that participants can be fully present in dialogue with each other. Sometimes we call this shared space the “container”. Some engagements happen live, while others happen virtually. There are also asynchronous spaces, such as pre-recorded training sessions and discussion forums, or Facebook groups. In all of these cases, some work is needed on the part of the facilitator to set the tone, guide a process for co-creating norms for engagement, build community, and ensure a safe and equitable environment.
FACILITATING POSITIVE SUM DECISIONS
Facilitated decision making is a dynamic and iterative process even as it have very defined phases. The phases may begin sequentially but the facilitator is observing always when the group may need redirection or guidance within the process. We have a number of tools that are available to explore and reveal all the information needed for a group to come to elegant decisions. Positive-Sum game theory informs our practice. The theory imagines the way trust and creativity can help us arrive at decisions where no-one has to lose.

MEET SOME OF OUR ACADEMY MEMBERS…

Kit Amreik

The Facilitators Academy was a very invigorating experience and helped reorient my life when I needed it. I appreciate the manner that Emily as well as the team facilitated such a wonderful space. It encouraged me to come out of my shell and roar as a lion :]

Restorative & Transformative justice practitioner

“It encouraged me to come out of my shell and roar as a lion”

“I felt as if a more communitarian future were being manifested before my eyes.”

NANCY LATHAM

I learned so much from the Facilitators Academy – it wasn’t only about facilitation tools (although we learned a lot about those!) – it was really about holding a gentle space for people to bring forward their most authentic selves (even in these awkward Zoom spaces). In these days when the world gives us so much reason to feel rage, despair, and grief, holding gentle space is a critical skill. People can feel all those challenging feelings *and* get in touch with sources of joy and hope. Being in the “room” with the main facilitator, Emily Gonzales was a revelation. I felt as if a more communitarian future were being manifested before my eyes.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZER

Pat Mundy

Swell Collective’s Facilitators Academy was a transformative and pivotal experience for me. The curriculum is drawn from lead instructor Emily Gonzales’s many decades of hands-on positive-sum facilitation experience, coupled with a rich and ever-expanding library of books, articles, videos, blog-posts and more – all produced by thought leaders in the facilitation and allied spaces. In addition, the many wonderful activities at the heart of the training drove home the key insights needed to take one’s consensus-building skills to the next level, while providing real hands-on experience with the work. I would strongly recommend to anyone considering a facilitation role, especially in the progressive movement space, to place attendance at the Academy at the top of their list.

CEO in Technology

“Swell Collective’s Facilitators Academy was a transformative and pivotal experience for me.”

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Facilitator
Communities

Facilitators find themselves in many industries and fields. We have community gatherings to meet their unique needs, in addition to network building communities that bring us all together to learn, offer peer support, and grow the visibility of facilitation as the powerful skill and mindset set that it is.

The Public Sector & NGO Circle

Managers, directors, and program coordinators within public agencies and in nonprofit organizations are on the front lines of influencing and implementing policy. Collaborating with communities, facilitation is a powerful means to grow trust and effectiveness. These sectors have made long strides in diversifying their ranks. The leaders within thrive with care and peer support.

The Consultants & Social Enterprisers Circle

Trainers, facilitators, and consultants working in DEI and organizational effectiveness have unique insight into the needs and strengths across the landscape of communities they serve. The current political climate has put the work under a microscope. This targeting can feel isolating and stressful. These entrepreneurial builders can meet this moment with renewed commitment with support and operational acceleration.

Wellness Circle

Emergent and veteran leaders working at the transformative edge, re-imagining systems, and holding space for equity and change need communities of care for themselves as well. The work can be taxing on the mind body and spirit. Peer accountability support is powerful medicine.

Facilitators will change the way the world works…

A MESSAGE FROM EMILY

Over the course of thousands of hours designing and facilitating collaborative experiences and decision making, I have had the opportunity to learn alongside masters of the art and science of facilitation. I have watched in awe as conflict has been transformed into deepened trust and creative innovation. As a woman of color, I deeply understand the nuance of navigating our own identities in service to this work while at the same time developing practices of self and community-care that allow me to continue to show up as my best self in this work. I also am a self described “geek” and I have discovered the best technology to scale our work across the confines of time and geography.

Facilitators of effective collaboration are in high demand in communities and industries around the world. I am so excited to grow this community of practice with you so we can discover joy and creativity at the intersections of our differences and together, offer the spaces of community building our world desperately needs.

facilitators academy resources

As a community member, you will get:

IMPACTFUL FRAMEWORKS TO HOLD YOUR WORK

Have you ever wondered how it is all connected? By embarking on the Facilitators Academy journey, you will better understand how your calling is so much of exactly what is needed at this historical moment. Grounded in this knowledge, you will have the confidence to offer your insight to more groups and communities. Say goodbye to “imposter syndrome”.

PRACTICAL SKILLS TO UP-LEVEL YOUR PRACTICE

Sometimes we are so busy ‘doing’ the facilitation, we don’t get the necessary time to simply work on our skills. After the Facilitators Academy, you will have new and improved skills that will exponentially impact your effectiveness with the communities you serve.

INSIDER ACCESS TO INNOVATIONS IN FACILITATION TECH

Life since 2020 has taught the world just how essential the technology is that allows remote meetings and collaboration. We have built trusted relationships with the makers of some of the field’s most essential and innovative digital tools for facilitators. Facilitators Academy will give you insight and access to the leading edge of this technology and time to test it yourself.

A THRIVING COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

The Facilitators Academy community is the only one of its kind, bringing together facilitators in private practice and from within organizations. We also regularly invite elders, scholars, and practitioners of note to be in community along side us. Find the peer coaching and support you need within the Facilitators Academy community of practice.

THE TEMPLATES AND TOOLS LIBRARY

The Facilitators Academy has amassed hundreds of templates and tools with real world tips and tricks from facilitators themselves. Borrow and share with your peers what really works to build community and make decisions rooted in equity.

THE RESEARCH CATALOG

Our crew monitors the academic journals and popular press for the latest insights into the interdisciplinary field of facilitation. We analyze and summarize these findings into regular digests so our community can keep a finger on the pulse of the field.

certification

Facilitators who choose certification with Swell Collective’s Facilitators Academy become eligible for consideration to join the Collective Consultancy, the social enterprise consulting firm of the Swell Collective. Our firm maintains a consistent roster of annual contracts in the public and social enterprise sector. We are growing an equity-centered culture as we grow this impactful business. Enrollment in this cohort gets you half way there. 

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Have more questions?

Use the button below to schedule some time with our Facilitators Academy crew. We are standing by to answer your questions and get you plugged in to this global community of facilitators!

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