For those who want to become even more knowledgeable about a particular social issue, or want to work on their leadership and organizing skills, here are some workshops and training programs that can further your education.

Act Up! Civil Disobedience Training
An online Civil Disobedience manual

ACTION (for a change)
"ACTION (for a change) will mobilize a network of tomorrow's leaders: change-makers who are equipped with integrity, faith, and understanding and inspired to bring transformation, healing and development to America and the world.

In order to discover and implement creative solutions to the challenges that leaders face today, emerging leaders must have the educational opportunity to experience American realities first-hand and partner with an array of Americans who are creating change in their communities. In response to this need, ACTION will take emerging leaders on a journey through the diverse story of America's past and present, offering them experiential, values-based training in transformational leadership, conflict management, intercultural communication and teambuilding. Distinctively, ACTION undergirds these practical tools with a focus on spiritual and ethical development, cross-cultural awareness, and social responsibility.

ACTION is an 8-week (September 25 to November 18 2006) experiential learning and leadership development program that explores the issues confronting America's communities, the country's existing leadership and approaches to creating change. Weeklong residencies in 6 locales, such as Washington, DC, Richmond, VA, Clarksburg, WV, Dayton, OH, Los Angeles, CA, and Seattle, WA, will focus on equipping participants with theoretical and applied training in personal and community transformation.

Tuition is $2000 (USD) for each participant. This includes all transportation, lodging, meals and training materials for the duration of the ACTION program. Some full and partial scholarships are available."


AFL-CIO Organizing Institutes
"The AFL-CIO Organizing Institute recruits, trains and places talented and committed people in full-time positions helping workers form and join unions in the American union movement."

AFL-CIO Union Summer
"Union Summer is a program of the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) to bring hundreds of workers, students and community activists into the streets and neighborhoods for a five-week educational internship to participate in and develop skills useful for union organizing drives and other campaigns for workers' rights and social justice."

Alliance for Democracy
Resources for Organizing & Education on the FTAA

Alternative Break Citizenship Schools (ABCs)
"The Alternative Break Citizenship schools combine the synergy and networking opportunities of a national conference with the personal and team growth aspects of an intimate leadership training. We take it one step further and present all activities within the dynamic atmosphere of a quality alternative break experience. Put together workshops, service projects, community interaction, speaker panels, teambuilding, discussions, and reflection and you've got the ABCs - an experience like no other."

Amnesty International Youth Activist Kollege
"The Youth Activist Kollege is an annual summer event for up-and-coming Amnesty leaders. High school and college students from around the country are selected each year to attend a four-day human rights camp where they receive the essential skills and training needed to lead their Amnesty groups to a year of kickin' activism."

The Campaign Institute
"A non-partisan effort to train recent college graduates to work and run a new type of electoral campaigns: conviction-driven, driven by the issues, funded by small donors, and fueled by grassroots activism."

Campus Leadership Program Training Seminars
(click on "Training" in left sidebar)
"A conservative philosophy alone isn't enough to build an effective campus organization. That's why the Campus Leadership Program offers training seminars specifically geared towards conservative campus leaders."

Center for Progressive Leadership Programs
"CPL's programs are building a base of activists and candidates dedicated to reinvigorating our national commitment to progressive values such as creating economic opportunities for all, providing high-quality schooling for our children, protecting civil rights, and ensuring affordable health care for every American."

Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO) Training and Development Programs
"We maintain that if we develop the skills and capacities of as many organizers as possible, they can effect positive change and promote justice in communities across the country--indeed, around the world."

Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO) Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program (MAAP)
or call 510-533-7583 xt. 13
"...brings together motivated activists of color for seven weeks to learn the art of organizing. Graduates receive help in getting jobs in community or labor organizations fighting for justice. Reserve your space in the movement today!"

Choice USA GrassRoots Organizing Weekends (GROWs)
"Because student leadership is constantly changing, GROW teaches techniques to build and sustain organizations over time. Choice GROW seminars use scenarios pulled straight from today's headlines to prepare student activists to promote and defend reproductive choice."

Choice USA Gloria Steinem Leadership Institutes
"The Gloria Steinem Leadership Institute is an intensive five-day training that helps emerging leaders develop the skills necessary to mobilize their communities for reproductive freedom. Each year, more than 50 students and young pro-choice activists are selected for the program. Participants from across the country are flown to Washington, D.C., for this all-expense-paid opportunity."

Collegiate School Teaching Institute
"A rigorous two week summer program designed to introduce college and graduate students of color to teaching and independent schools. Topics covered will include lesson planning, classroom management, teaching and learning styles, teaching of classes, diversity, independent school culture, as well as the interviewing and job search processes."

Community Action Training (CAT)
or email ctwo@ctwo.org
"Learn from experienced organizers, share skills and knowledge with other activists, and have fun meeting others dedicated to building a movement!"

Cornell University, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations - "Strategic Corporate Research: Understanding and Researching Corporate Ownership Structure, Corporate Finance, and the Sources of Corporate Power"
A Cornell Special Summer School Session For Undergraduate and Graduate Students Interested in Working in the Labor Movement Co-sponsored by the AFL-CIO
"This course will be designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to the nature and structure of corporate ownership, finance, and power in todays economy. Through lectures, readings, case studies, and research training and exercises the class will provide students with the tools to pose and answer basic questions on the operations, structure, and industrial relations strategies of corporate America. In particular this course will focus on how these company characteristics, structures, and practices impact on the firms labor relations policies and strategies and how unions can best respond to and capitalize on these characteristics in union strategic organizing and bargaining campaigns."

DART Training Institute
"The DART Organizers Institute is a paid, field school for those wishing to pursue a career in community organizing. The Organizers Institute includes a seven-day classroom workshop with veteran organizers from the field, and up to 15-weeks of in-field training with a local organization. Graduates from the DART Organizers Institute will join dozens of other successful organizers as fulltime, salaried staff members working to build the power of low-income communities throughout the country in their struggles for justice and equality."

Emerging Leaders Program
or 1-877-446-2233
(The National Congress for Community Economic Development Council) "The (ELP) is a unique leadership development program open to undergraduate and graduate students as well as recent graduates from colleges, universities, community colleges and trade schools. The ELP brings together students and practitioners each year to learn more about the diverse and exciting field of community economic development (CED). The ELP is a part of NCCED's Human Capital Development Initiative (HCDI) to create a "talent pipeline" of CED leaders and professionals."

EnviroCitizen's Summer Training Academies
"Get the skills to breathe new life into your campus campaigns! Both the DC and Denver Summer Training Academies are exciting week-long trainings for students on political skills to protect our environments and communities. The Academies will focus on issues of environmental justice, climate change, clean energy, and asthma - join us to push these issues into the political debate! The Academies will feature an innovative anti-racism curriculum, and the DC Academy will be open only to students and activists of color."

EnviroCitizen's Training Tour
"Envirocitizen's experienced team offers a range of flexible and fun trainings on college campuses. Our workshops will increase the effectiveness of your group and provide political skills necessary to protect the environment."

Environmental Leadership Training Program
"Can you imagine yourself running a campaign to defend old growth forests from corporate logging companies, protecting local communities from pesticides, or starting your own environmental group? Green Corps' one-year, full-time, paid Environmental Leadership Training Program gives you the best training available to launch an organizing and advocacy career."

Feminist Leadership Institutes
"Since July of 1998, we have been bringing together diverse groups of feminist student leaders from across the country to participate in our Feminist Leadership Institutes. Semester after semester, they have been outstandingly successful, not only in building the leadership and activist skills of the individual participants, but in strengthening feminist leadership on their represented campuses."

Green Corps (Field School for Environmental Organizing)
"Green Corps' mission is to teach the next generation of environmental leaders the strategies and skills they'll need to win tomorrow's environmental battles while providing critical field support for today's pressing environmental problems. Since our inception, we have trained thousands of young people in the skills of organizing and advocacy, led more than 50 critical environmental campaigns, and helped launch the careers of 150 Green Corps graduates currently holding positions of leadership in the environmental and social change movement."

Greenpeace Organizing Term
"Advanced Fall Semester Training for America’s Top Student Activists. Join Greenpeace and ten of the country's best student organizers this fall term to urge all candidates to address clean energy during the election. Travel abroad to meet and learn from international Greenpeace staff, and receive trainings from the nation's best organizers. Spend your Fall semester learning in action: mobilizing students across the country on clean energy, working with people most affected by pollution and elevating clean energy to be a priority issue during the election. Coursework includes cutting edge Internet organizing, strategic campaign planning, direct action climbing, grassroots organizing, working with the media and building community groups."

Human Rights Campaign Youth College
"Every election cycle, the Human Rights Campaign conducts Youth College for Campaign Training. Twenty energetic participants, ages 18 to 24, come to Washington, D.C., for an intensive week of hands-on training on how to run a winning campaign. After mastering the basic skills, participants spend two and a half months in regular staff positions in targeted political campaigns around the country, with stipends from HRC and housing from our friends."

Institute for Civic Leadership
"The Institute for Civic Leadership (ICL), is an intensive one-semester program for college women, designed to advance the civic leadership capacities and commitments of women and to promote the civic and democratic purposes of higher education. ICL attracts women from colleges across the country to participate in a supportive learning environment that is both intellectually rigorous and practically relevant. During the ICL semester, students examine the intellectual foundations of civic life and democracy in a diverse and multicultural context. Through internships, workshops, lecture series, and mentoring relationships, ICL students also develop the strategies and concrete skills needed for civic engagement and civic leadership. ICL's program takes place each fall semester."

Institute for Community Leadership National Nonviolence Leadership Corps
"The NNLC is an intensive seven week traveling leadership experience for students from ICL programs across the country. The students who travel with the NNLC from the Bay Area to Seattle sleep on gymnasium floors, get up each morning at 6:00, cook their own meals with a traveling kitchen, teach in local schools throughout the day and carry out public events or additional workshops each evening. The student leaders study and practice the lives of Dr. Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, Cesar Chavez and other great leaders." Contact Lai-Lani Ovalles for further information: (253) 872 3612, lailani@icleadership.org

Institute on Philanthropy and Voluntary Service
"The Institute is an intensive eight-week residential program for college undergraduates active in service. During the summer, approximately 35 students take courses on the history and ethics of philanthropy and volunteerism at Georgetown University. Students also hold internships with nonprofit organizations, attend presentations by leading figures from the nonprofit sector and participate in a variety of service projects."

Leadership Institute - Training
"The Leadership Institute, founded in 1979 by Morton C. Blackwell, is the oldest and most-respected training organization for conservative leaders at the local, state and national levels. Over the years, more than 31,000 of today's conservative "movers and shakers" have turned to the Leadership Institute for their training needs."

Michigan Campus Compact Annual Service Leadership Camp
"This three-day event attracts teams of students and their advisors from across the state who are interested in community service, service-learning and civic engagement in higher education. The planning team's intent in developing the agenda for this weekend is to "walk our talk" in including experimental components in each aspect of the program."

Midwest Academy
"The Midwest Academy offers on site training and consulting as well as five day training sessions for leaders and staff of citizen and community groups. The Academy is one of the nation's oldest and best known schools for community organizations, citizen organizations and individuals committed to progressive social change."

National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness - Site Visits & Training Tour
"Over the past fifteen years, the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness has worked with thousands of students at campuses nationwide to develop effective programs that address the issues of hunger and homelessness.  The national staff and organization has extensive experience working with student leaders.  Through trainings, planning meetings, and motivating speeches we can help you develop a semester of programs and inspire student activism."

Oxfam America CHANGE Initiative Training
US college students entering their sophomore or junior year can take advantage of Oxfam America's leadership training and become skilled and knowledgeable agents of change. Exposed to the international development issues that direct Oxfam's work, CHANGE Leaders use their new skills and insights to run Oxfam campaigns on their campuses and in their local communities.

Oxfam America CHANGE Initiative
"The CHANGE Initiative aims to develop capable and confident young leaders, who are informed and active agents for positive social change, and who inspire greater global awareness in others. Oxfam America is looking for a diverse group of undergraduate students, rising sophomores and juniors, committed to global social justice issues."

Peacemaker Training Institute
"The Peacemaker Training Institute helps young people become more effective peace and justice activists."

Pendle Hill Young Adult Leadership Development Program
A Service-learning and Spiritual Enrichment Opportunity for Young Adults ages 18-24. "Discern, learn, stretch yourself... find out how transformational a summer can be!"

Population Connection Campus Workshops & Activist Trainings
"We'd love to come to your campus or help organize an event to raise awareness about the connections between women's empowerment, the environment, and population. We are also happy to come do activist trainings and help out in any way that we can."

Replenishing Democracy: Summer Institute on Civic Engagement and Political Activism, Amherst College
A summer program for undergraduates designed to encourage connections between academic institutions and grassroots activism.

Rockwood Leadership Program
"The Rockwood Leadership Program is non-profit organization that promotes social change through leadership training and consulting to progressive non-profits."

Ruckus Society Action Camp
"Action camp is a weeklong intensive training program designed to unite activists, students, organizers, and other people interested in learning more about campaign development and expanding their skills base. Participants split their time between theoretical/ strategic workshops focusing on a wide array of advanced campaign skills and hands-on technical training in tactics for nonviolent demonstrations."

Social Justice Institute and 5 day Student Organizer Training
"Spend 10-15 hours/week this summer gaining the skills and knowledge needed for successful social justice work alongside some of the most talented student activists around the country. 15-20 Fellows will be selected from a wide range of fields, including global activism, electoral politics, grassroots organizing, and local direct service. This intensive program lasts for 8 weeks and is designed for select students who are passionate about collaboration, self-improvement, community organizing, and taking action." Prospective Fellows should contact Stephen Smith at snsmith@post.harvard.edu or 617.233.2624.

The Student Empowerment Training Project, Training Ground for Effective Student Government
"The Student Empowerment Training Project is dedicated to training student government leaders to be more effective advocates for the common concerns of students. We are best known for accomplishing this through our Training Program, where student government leaders learn to work with the media, lobby, develop leaders, and much more. Student Empowerment Trainings focus on the skills that will help student governments bring real concrete change to campus."

Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC) Summer Training Institute
"Times are changing and with George W. Bush as president and a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas in the works, it doesn't look like it's for the better. The income gap is growing. Corporations are merging and the rich are getting richer. Rainforests are shrinking, the sea level is rising, and more and more people are in prison, starving, displaced, and oppressed. Things look bleak. But it is not too late. Everyday people are fighting back, storming corporate offices, staging tree-sits, dropping banners, monkeywrenching, demonstrating, and organizing. A resistance is growing. We will have to struggle for a sustainable future for ourselves, our communities and our natural environment. Come to the Summer Training Institute where we will be learning, building, and organizing. Our Time Is NOW! "

Tuck Business Bridge Program
"With the recent support of the UPS Foundation, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College is offering a four week training program in finance, management and leadership later this summer. The grant will allow for students to attend specialized nonprofit training as well as the four week program at a substantially discounted rate. The Tuck School currently provides a Business Bridge Program that consists of a four-week intensive business "boot camp" specifically for liberal arts graduates heading transitioning from college to careers."

Training for Change
"Training for Change was founded on Martin Luther King's birthday in 1992, a carefully chosen birthday for a group that spreads the skills of democratic, nonviolent social change. Since then we've led hundreds of workshops for nonviolent activists around the world."

United for a Fair Economy Workshops
"United for a Fair Economy brings lively, energizing workshops on economic inequality to conferences, colleges and non-profits across the US. We start with people's own experiences to build a common-sense understanding of the changing economy."

USSA Foundation's GrassRoots Organizing Weekends (GROWs)
"GROW has been developed by the USSA Foundation and community organizers to give students the tools to solve the problems we face and to build our organizations around the principles of Direct Action Organizing to ensure long-term change."

Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Junior Summer Institute
"The goal of the program is to prepare students for graduate study and careers in public policy and international affairs. This goal is achieved by providing participants with the tools of critical thinking, speaking, writing, and quantitative reasoning and with the skills and experiences necessary to create, analyze, implement, evaluate, and affect policy in a multicultural, multiethnic society."

Youth On Board
"We prepare youth to be leaders in their communities and strengthen relationships between youth and adults by providing publications, customized workshops, and technical assistance. For the past eight years, Youth on Board has been helping individuals and organizations revolutionize the role of young people in society."

Washington Seminar Center (WSC)
"is centrally located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. - within walking distance of the U.S. Congress, Supreme Court, Library of Congress, and Smithsonian Institution. As a ministry to the nation, the WSC was established over 25 years ago by the Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church. We offer social justice, peacemaking, and interfaith dialogue programs and seminars to over 1600 visitors annually. We can also arrange a visit to your Representative in Congress."