While working together in groups can be fun and exciting, it’s not always easy. How can we collaborate more effectively with each other without replicating oppressive hierarchical structures or getting bogged-down by inefficient group processes and interpersonal conflict?
Specifically designed for those working towards social change, this on-demand, self-paced training will provide you with everything you need to expand your organizational capacity and navigate the inevitable ups and downs of group life.
Through short presentations from experienced organizers on key topics, in-depth resources, interactive discussion forums, and suggested activities you can do on your own or with your group, you will learn, reflect on, and practice how to:
- Cultivate a dynamic team that functions like a mature ecosystem
- Establish a healthy group culture that fosters trusting relationships
- Develop goals, strategies, and tactics that are rooted in shared purpose
- Transform conflicts into opportunities for growth
- Run efficient, inclusive, and enjoyable meetings
- Work together in ways that unleash the collective genius
- Make decisions collaboratively and share power equitably
- Sustain member enthusiasm and involvement over time
- Apply effective collaboration to more complex organizations, partnerships, and everyday life
Because a group’s outer success depends on the health of its internal culture, learning how to work more effectively together may be the most important investment you can make in your organization’s future.
How Does It Work?
Once you have registered for Effective Collaboration Training – either on your own or as a group – you will receive an email inviting you to join our online course platform, Thinkific. There, you will have access to the following:
- 20 pre-recorded, 10-25 minute presentations with downloadable slide decks
- 20 downloadable PDF resources with links to deepen your learning and worksheets for group and individual activities
- 20 interactive forums where you can post your responses to discussion questions, and read and comment on responses from others
More detailed instructions for navigating the platform will be provided along with your invite to Thinkific, and additional technical assistance is available upon request.
You are welcome to go through the course at your own pace and engage with only those topics that seem most relevant to you. However, those who participate in the entire course from beginning to end will receive a digital Certificate of Completion and be eligible to apply to facilitate Effective Collaboration Trainings in the future.
This training is currently only available in English. If you would like to help translate it into other languages, please contact Transition US Training Director, Don Hall, at don@transitionus.org.
About Registration
Registration for this course is open to individuals and groups all over the world, regardless of affiliation. However, members of Transition US and Transition Network-affiliated groups are invited to sign up for free. For others, we are offering standard, scholarship, and sponsorship pricing options for both individuals and groups (up to 15 members):
- Standard Registration: $45 for individuals or $200 for group access to the course.
- Scholarship Registration: those who can’t afford the standard price are welcome to select a 50% discount as an individual ($22.50) or group ($100).
- Sponsorship Registration: those who can afford to donate an additional 50% as an individual ($77.50) or group ($300) are encouraged to help provide scholarships for others.
Please click on the button below to fill out a brief registration form and make payment (if needed) securely online via PayPal. If you require additional financial assistance, please email don@transitionus.org with your request. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Your Instructors
Nick Osborne has more than 30 years of experience in the private, public ,and nonprofit sectors. He travelled through the conventional management hierarchy, took a deep dive into collaboration and consensus, explored various practices of self-management and self-organisation, and founded Evolving Organisation in 2012. Nick created the original curriculum this Effective Collaboration Training is based on and became the first Certified Holacracy Coach in the UK back in 2015. In all of his work, Nick seeks to catalyse the transition to a way of thinking, being, and living which addresses, rather than contributes to, today’s challenges.
Jul Bystrova is a co-founder of the Inner Resilience Network and Director of the Era of Care project, which works with communities in crises. She has a 25-year history of community activism and a thriving private practice in trauma-informed, mind-body healing work. She has served as an Interfaith Minister, an academic in interdisciplinary research, and a boots-on-the-ground activist. She is deeply passionate about cultural healing, interpersonal, psycho-spiritual topics and justice issues. She also serves on the Transition US Collaborative Design Council and Transition Network’s Inner Transition Circle.
Diana Kubilos is a passionate “Transitioner,” having co-founded a Transition chapter in her former home of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and now working on community resilience-related initiatives in her home county of Ventura (in Southern California) and with the Inner Resilience Network. She is committed to co-creating spaces for community learning, healing, and organizing toward building a more nonviolent, just, and regenerative world. Diana holds a Master’s in Public Health and worked for many years in social work and health education. She retrained several years ago in mediation and Nonviolent Communication.
Jessica Alvarez-Parfrey is the Executive Director of Transition US. With a background in community organizing, nonprofit fundraising, and environmental activism (formerly with Greenpeace USA), Jess finds joy in seeking transformative opportunities for radical collaboration and community co-creation. Jess is a nepantlera, mother, creative, caretaker of 44 acres of land, and a JEDI consultant working in service to the project of collective liberation. She received her B.A. in Environmental Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and is driven to nurture opportunities for joy, healing, community-based strategy, and design informed by decolonized practice and methodologies.
Jessica Cohodes has spent 20+ years organizing people and groups. Advising corporate leadership teams, structuring social good nonprofits, co-founding community grassroots organizations and nurturing her dynamic family of five. She was formerly the Executive Synthesizer of Transition Milwaukee, who laid the seeds for the still fruitful Victory Garden Initiative. While mostly self-taught through the school of life, Jessica has earned a BA in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin, an MA in Social Innovation from Edgewood College, and her Organic and Biodynamic Farming and Permaculture Certifications. Equal parts idealist and realist, she believes investing in human capital will bridge a world of innovators that drives purpose, spirit, and principle through the dawn of collective consciousness. She is currently the Founder & CEO of Hivemind Teams LLC – a change management and facilitation consultancy which maximizes talent and structures that generate transformative group cultures and operating effectiveness. She is also currently combing her hometown of Milwaukee, WI for a 19.5 inch hazel branch that has never borne fruit to forge her first magic wand. (Should any reader discover such a unicorn, Jessica would be delighted if they would leave it be and reach out.)
Don Hall is a skilled facilitator and certified trainer with more than two decades of experience as an activist and community organizer. While drawing inspiration and insight from his involvement with groups as diverse as the Students for a Free Tibet, Outward Bound Discovery, and the Boulder Housing Coalition, Don’s primary focus over the past 14 years has been supporting the international Transition Towns movement. Don holds a Master’s in Environmental Leadership from Naropa University and currently serves as Training Director for Transition US.
Transition US wants to specifically acknowledge and express our heartfelt appreciation to the Tecovas Foundation for generously funding the creation of this course and to former Naropa University intern, Rachel Goldsmith, for her patience, skill, and commitment in guiding our development team from vision to fruition.
