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Design for Social Impact Accelerator
Next cohort starts September 2025
Depending on interest, this course will also be available in French, Spanish and Arabic- register your interest below!
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Dismantling Systems. Rebuilding Futures. Leading Change.
ÂThe Status Quo Isn't Working
This is an 8-week immersive journey for social impact leaders, program designers, and funders ready to reimagine how change happens. Youâll gain the tools to build initiatives that center equity, redistribute power, and drive real, community-led transformation.
Who Should Join?
This program is designed for those working at the intersection of social change, funding, and design. You should apply if you are:
- A nonprofit or grassroots leader struggling to make programs truly community-driven
- A philanthropy professional rethinking how funding can be reparative, not extractive
- A service or UX designer ready to shift from "designing for" to "designing with"
- A policy advocate or researcher committed to dismantling systemic oppression
- A social entrepreneur designing models for economic and racial justice
This isnât just about learningâitâs about unlearning, rebuilding, and shifting power in real time.
What Makes This Program Different?
đš Learn From the Frontlines â Every week features insights from people with lived experience in system failure and change-making.
đš Real Stakes, Real Change â Work on actual case studies tackling systemic inequities in real time.
đš Deep Personal Reflection â Examine your own positionality, biases, and power in the design process.
đš Liberation Frameworks â Master intersectionality, anti-oppressive methodologies, and equity-centered design practices that shift power back to communities.
Join the waiting listÂ
Just add your name and email to stay updated
What you can expect from the course, and us:
The Design for Social Impact Accelerated is not your standard online program. This 8-week immersive learning journey is designed to equip you with innovative tools, fresh perspectives, and actionable skills to transform program design and drive meaningful social change.
This course offers you the unique opportunity to join a global community of peers committed to integrating critical, anti-oppressive design.
Hereâs what makes this program stand out:
- A Comprehensive 8-Week Structure: Weekly 1â1.5 hour live online sessions, including a 1:1 coaching session supplemented with independent learning activities, all grounded in equity-centered design thinking, anti-oppressive practices.
- Practical, Real-World Examples: Learn how to embed equity-centred program design within resistant organizations and navigate challenges with sceptical funders.
- Creative and Participatory Methods:Â Gain hands-on experience with participatory, trauma-informed and culturally- responsive design techniques and collaborative analysis.
- Flexible Learning:Â Engage with course materials through self-led readings, reflection exercises, or live interactive webinars tailored to different learning styles.
- Focus on Equity and Power:Â Explore critical topics like power dynamics and anti-oppressive approaches to social impact program design through discussions, case studies, and peer learning.
- Interactive, Peer-Led Learning:Â Experience dynamic, interactive sessions that prioritize peer collaboration over traditional lecture-style teaching.
- On-Demand Access:Â Canât make it to a live session? Webinars will be recorded and available for you to revisit or catch up at your convenience.
This course is designed for changemakers who are ready to move beyond extractive methods and embrace participatory, equity-driven practices in their work.
By the end of the course, you will come away with:
- A Deep Understanding of Equity-Centered Program Design: Master the language, frameworks, and conceptual tools to integrate equity design principles into your work. For example:
- âď¸Â Anti-oppressive program design toolkit
âď¸Â Community engagement strategy template
âď¸Â Intersectional analysis framework - âď¸ Stakeholder mapping templates
âď¸ Decision-making matrix for equitable choices
âď¸ Conflict resolution frameworks - Hands-On, Practical Experience: Apply theory to practice by tackling real-world challenges with guidance from a team of experts who bring decades of experience in social justice work, advocacy and community-led change.
- âď¸ Program redesign blueprint
âď¸ Community accountability plan
âď¸ Resource redistribution strategy - A Personalized Action Plan: Develop a tailored strategy to incorporate Design for Social Impactâs eight guiding principles into your projects and professional work.
- âď¸Â Pedagogies of Care, Wellbeing and Solidarity
- âď¸ 1:1 30 minute Coaching session
- A Lifelong Learning Community:Â Join a dynamic network of peers committed to equity and justice.Â
- âď¸Access to a global network of change-makers
- âď¸Alumni sessions & mentorship opportunities
- âď¸Ongoing resource-sharing platform
Learn From Those Reimagining Program Design
At Design for Social Impact, we believe in platforming systems-impact leaders who are reshaping how social change happens. As a social enterprise, we are committed to amplifying voices that challenge the status quo and push the boundaries of equity-centered program design.
Each week, our carefully curated global faculty shares firsthand experiences of integrating anti-oppressive approaches into social impact work. These conversations go beyond theoryâthey offer real-world insights into how nonprofit leaders, funders, and designers are shifting power, centering community voices, and building liberatory alternatives to traditional program models.
We are continuously expanding our faculty to bring you the most cutting-edge and transformative perspectives. Scroll down to meet some of our past guest speakers on our Research Design for Social Impact course.
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What makes this different from other courses ?
What if I can't make every live session?
I'm not fluent in English, Is this available in other languages?
My job is pretty busy- what sort of time commitment do I need?
Do you offer subsidised places?
Who will facilitate the course?
Can we take this course as a team?
Course Breakdown: Designing for Liberation and Regeneration
This is not just a courseâitâs a movement toward systems transformation. Over eight weeks, we will challenge dominant paradigms, center community wisdom, and build regenerative, abolitionist approaches to program design.
Week 1: Deconstructing Power in Design
Disrupt traditional design paradigms that reinforce hierarchy and exclusion
Map power dynamics within your organization and sector
Engage in radical self-reflection to examine bias, privilege, and complicity
Week 2: Intersectionality as Praxis
Move beyond tokenismâdesign programs that actively dismantle oppression
Integrate multiple lived experiences through participatory methodologies
Design for complexityâembrace fluid, adaptive models over rigid frameworks
Week 3: Community Power, Co-Design & Organizing
Shift from âdesign forâ to âdesign withââco-create alongside communities
Center organizing principles to build sustained movements, not just programs
Distribute decision-making powerâshift control to those most impacted
Week 4: Pedagogies of Care, Abolition & Solidarity
Apply abolitionist thinking to program designâmove from reform to transformation
Build frameworks for collective care and solidarity beyond the nonprofit industrial complex
Integrate healing-centered approaches that acknowledge trauma and resilience
Week 5: Circular Economies, Environmental Justice & Economic Liberation
Connect social justice to ecological justiceâmove beyond extractive models
Apply circular economy principlesâdesign regenerative and waste-free initiatives
Embed economic redistribution strategies that shift resources and power
Week 6: Radical Learning, Experimentation & Emergent Strategies
Embrace failure as transformationâiterate based on community insights, not funder demands
Develop feedback loops that are non-extractive and accountable to those impacted
Practice mutual accountability through peer-led evaluation and storytelling
Week 7: Anti-Oppressive Design & Decolonial Futures
Dismantle oppressive design logics embedded in mainstream program development
Center indigenous and ancestral knowledge systems in problem-solving
Co-create liberatory design principles rooted in autonomy, self-determination, and repair
Week 8: From Theory to Action â Building Systems That Last
Develop your personal liberation framework to guide future work
Create accountability structures that prevent mission drift and co-optation
Build long-term, community-led initiatives that outlast funding cycles
This is program design beyond the nonprofit playbookâgrounded in abolitionist principles, mutual aid, ecological regeneration, and radical reimagination and led by systems-impacted practitioners. Are you ready?