At the heart of Global Grassroots was the Academy for Conscious Change, a mindfulness-based leadership program and social venture incubator for change agents to launch social change ventures (micro-NGOs) in their own communities. 

Academy of Conscious Change

The Academy design involves a four phase experience blending mindfulness and social entrepreneurship skill-building through a participatory, integrated, and holistic curriculum designed to catalyze both personal and social transformation.

Phase One: Intensive, Interactive Training Program

  • The intensive, experiential program included all essential tools for diagnosing key social issues. Academy participants designed micro-NGOs that systemically address community issues, are financially sustainable, and have measurable impact. The curriculum guided participants in constructing a mission, vision, theory of change, operational plan, organizational design, start-up and operating budgets, financial sustainability strategy, goals and evaluation metrics, strategic partnerships, code of conduct, baseline issue studies, and communications strategies.

  • Phase One also incorporated mindfulness-based leadership training and personal growth work to build confidence and self-awareness, unlock ideas, and develop leadership capacity. Our approach provided contemplative skills for understanding human behavior, defusing conflict, engaging stakeholders, overcoming fear, and building a sense of ownership by collaboratively diagnosing issues and developing local solutions.

  • We further utilized mind-body trauma-healing techniques with a scientifically demonstrated impact for alleviating post-traumatic stress, to protect the wellbeing of participants who are survivors of war and gender-based violence.

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Phase Two: Non-Profit Venture Development

  • Phase Two provided direct facilitation as participants completed a business plan for a viable community-based, non-profit organization. Hands-on coaching ensured that the new micro-NGO was designed to be self-sufficient, had measurable goals, had a sustainable financial structure, and would work at the root level to create systemic change for women.

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Phase Three: Seed Funding

  • In Phase Three, ventures meeting our criteria received a seed grant for 100% of their start-up costs. Funding was disbursed over several tranches to teach basic bookkeeping, financial analysis and reporting, and to protect against cost-overruns.

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Phase Four: Apprenticeship

  • Once a venture was launched, we provided high-engagement coaching and mentorship with the goal of supporting participants to reach self-sufficiency as soon as possible.

The complete Academy experience was 18-24 months for adults. It concluded with a graduation celebration signaling the team’s readiness to sustain their venture on their own. Our Young Women’s Academy adapted this model for recent secondary school graduates to launch self-designed ventures in their home villages before entering university.