Facilitative Leadership™ for Social Change (In-Person) September 29 - October 1, 2025

Lead in a way that inspires, invites participation, and builds commitment 

Facilitative Leadership™ for Social Change develops practical collaborative skills and tools for tapping the creativity, experience, and commitment of groups and provides participants with a forum in which to explore their challenges and aspirations as leaders.

This will be a 2.5 day in-person workshop. 

Session 1: Monday, September 29, 2025 9:00AM - 5:00PM ET
Session 2: Tuesday, September 30, 2025 9:00AM - 5:00PM ET
Session 3: Wednesday, October 1, 2025 9:00AM - 2:00PM ET

Location: NonProfit Center, 89 South Street, Boston, MA 02111

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Who Should Attend?
If you are committed to creating conditions in which you and others can act together and make change, moving together from vision to action in extraordinary new ways, then Facilitative Leadership™ for Social Change is for you. IISC defines leadership broadly, regardless of formal or positional authority; participants from a variety of organizational and network structures and hierarchies find value in this training program. You will, as well.

Why This Matters
Facilitative Leadership™ for Social Change develops practical collaborative skills and tools for tapping our individual and collective creativity and experience as social change agents. At the heart of the workshop are powerful leadership practices that make it easy for all of us — regardless of race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, and other identities and experiences — to offer our perspectives and talents, speak up when we have problems, take initiative, make decisions, work with others, and share responsibility for the health of the team, organization, or network.

What You’ll Learn
Facilitative Leaders model key practices that make it easier for principled, self-empowered collaborators to communicate, decide, and act together. The following list of these practices represents what you will learn in our standard seven-session online workshop or our two-day in-person workshops to engage your own and your collaborators’ skills, wisdom, and energy towards your shared goals.

• Introduction to Facilitative Leadership™ & Building Liberatory Power Equitably: Learn tools to create power-with, not power-over, focused on liberation and justice.
• Focus on Results, Process, Relationships: Balance outcomes, continuous improvement, and healthy connections to sustain collaboration.
• Discover Shared Meaning: Use communication to deepen understanding and improve decision-making and collective action.
• See Systems: Navigate complexity by recognizing the connections between visible and hidden layers of systems.
• Seek Maximum Appropriate Involvement: Make intentional, inclusive decisions that leverage people’s talents and build trust.
• Design and Facilitate Meetings: Use simple, intentional processes to create environments for participation and successful collaboration.

What You Can Expect
The Facilitative Leadership™ for Social Change workshop includes small group time to practice and grow your understanding, and individual reflection to help integrate the practices into your life and work. We prioritize connection between the program participants because the group’s collective wisdom is precious, and we try to give it space to grow and spread.

IISC is pleased to have a team of brilliantly skilled trainers – some of the best in the movement. All are fully steeped in the practices of FL4SC and also bring their own unique facilitation magic as they deliver IISC’s workshops grounded in our lens of love, power, and networks. You can look forward to a joyful and inspirational experience that is highly interactive and may include music, poetry, somatic practices.

Pricing
$575/person (Grassroots)
$1,125/person (Nonprofit)
$1,400/person (Foundation)
$1,675/person (For-Profit/Social Venture)

Facilitative Leadership™ for Social Change is available – both online and in-person – as an offering for participants from one organization or network. Details and pricing can be found here.

Subscribe to our mailing list to be the first to know about how to register when new dates are announced. And take a peak at this blog post to read some reflections of past FL4SC participants

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Facilitators

C. Payal Sharma (she/her) is an independent racial justice consultant, facilitator, and trainer who believes in the power of empathy, knowledge, courage, and action to create lasting equity and change. She has over 15 years of experience in the Boston area, nationally, and internationally, leading workshops, trainings, and organizational change strategies. She has partnered with numerous institutions, spanning nonprofits, state agencies, schools, and corporations. Payal leverages her power and skills as a multi-layered thinker and neurodivergent processor to attend to macro- and micro-dynamics of organizational change, tracking the late adopters, supporting the moving center, and empowering those at the leading edge.

Payal centers her work in love and humor, while holding history, truth, and possibility. She deeply believes that we must return to our shared humanity and is practicing revealing her own healed self. She also is an avid beginner scuba diver and loves honoring her introverted extrovert nature and comedic stand-up/storytelling. She lives with her partner in Malden, MA and is a proud auntie to her chosen families.

Simone John (she/her) is a seasoned equity consultant with deep roots in Boston, MA. Prior to joining IISC, Simone was TSNE’s Senior Director of Organizational Development. Simone spent five years at Trinity Boston Connects as the Associate Director of Organizational Equity Practice (OEP), a program that provides consulting, coaching, and facilitation for nonprofits striving to become racially equitable institutions. Simone has developed and trained curricula on topics including creating trauma inclusive organizational cultures, group facilitation with a racial equity lens, caucusing 101, and dismantling white supremacy culture in organizations, all scaffolded by three design principles: systems-thinking, relationship building, and trust. Outside work, Simone is a poet and interdisciplinary artist. Through documentary poetry, installations, images, and archival audio projects, her work surfaces and distills narratives that nourish and sustain Black folks. Learn more about Simone at simonejohn.com.
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Choosing Your Ticket Type

1. If you are individual who works in a grassroots organization or are otherwise affiliated with a racial justice group and you are paying for the workshop yourself, please register as Grassroots*
2. If you are individual with a social or public sector organization, please register as Nonprofit.
3. If you are in individual with a grantmaking or philanthropic organization, please register as Foundation.
4. If you are individual with a social venture organization, please register as For-Profit/Social Venture.

*The number of these tickets is limited, so we invite those who are BIPOC, systematically marginalized or excluded, and have the highest level of financial need to register with this ticket type. If this is the only ticket type that works for you and it’s sold out, please sign-up for the waitlist and we’ll contact you if a spot becomes available. 
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Have a question? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions and don't hesitate to reach out!