Virtual Programming
To continue to support Fellows’ and Alumni’s continued leadership development and strengthen their access to networks and resources, the U.S. Department of State leverages stakeholder expertise to deliver a suite of virtual programming, available on the Fellowship Portal.
First launched in conjunction with Mandela Day 2020, the Fellowship released 21 courses and resources, in partnership with Institute Partners across the United States, from July to December 2020. In February 2021, the Fellowship also launched an exclusive course for Fellowship Alumni on grants management in partnership with the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF).
After completing their Fellowships, Alumni have access to the Fellowship’s full library of virtual programming. By completing these online courses, Fellows and Alumni can earn badges and certificates, sharable on professional platforms like LinkedIn. Most course content is asynchronous and can be completed at the participant’s own pace and on their desired timeline.
In all the chaos of COVID-19, the Fellowship Portal was a very much welcomed resource! The course Navigating a Business in Uncertain Times provided me with knowledge and tools that have allowed my business to be profitable in these very difficult times! I posted an “Ask” on Givitas and received two amazing “Gives” and am very grateful to the Fellowship Portal that today I am in partnership [and] working on an exciting project to improve HIV/AIDS Care and treatment in Cameroon.”
Joan Enoh, 2019 Fellowship Alumna, Cameroon
Virtual Courses
Leading in a Crisis
- Countering Disinformation: The Role of Media and Trusted Sources in a Crisis | Lehigh University
- English as a Second Language, Part I: Advancing Core Skills | The University of Texas at Austin
- Food Security in Crisis: Addressing Availability through Resource Management and Mobilization | Purdue University
- Identifying Market Needs and Gaps: Building Your Business During a Crisis | Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
- Intermediate to Advanced Grant Writing, Managing, and Reporting: Approaches to Becoming More Successful | Appalachian State University
- Mapping Public Health Crises: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Resources | University of California, Davis
- Navigating a Business in Uncertain Times: Strategies to Ensure Your Enterprise’s Long-Term Success | Drake University
- Opportunities and Strategies to Promote Partnerships with U.S. Businesses | Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
- Public Health Communication Strategies: Increasing the Effectiveness of Your Messaging in a Crisis | University of Georgia
- Resilient Leadership: Overcoming Setbacks and Helping Your Team Thrive | The Presidential Precinct
Leading in a Changing Paradigm
- Collaborative Governance: Ensuring Inclusive Citizen Participation | Syracuse University
- Community Crisis Planning: Solving Global Problems at the Local Level | University of California, Davis
- Community Incubation Spaces: Effective Methods for Building Grassroots Economies | Drake University
- Demystifying the Numbers: Using Data and Analytics for Effective Decision-Making and Planning | The Presidential Precinct
- Digital Storytelling: New Models to Promote Local Initiatives After a Crisis | University of Georgia
- English as a Second Language, Part II: Practical Professional Skills | The University of Texas at Austin
- Leadership for Organizational Adaptability Resource Guide | Kansas State University
- The Path to Job Readiness: Essential Skills to Increase Youth Employment | Lehigh University
- Problem Identification: Utilizing Human-Centered Design Principles to Jumpstart your Venture | University of Notre Dame
- What is Leadership? Authority, Management, and Leading in a Changing World | Kansas State University
- Youth-Led Conflict Resolution: Including Young Voices for Effective Outcomes | Purdue University
Other Alumni Courses
- Grants Management Course | U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF)
- Navigating the New Information Landscape | IREX, Learn to Discern
- Protection and Resilience: A Holistic Approach to Digital, Physical, and Psychosocial Safety | IREX, Securing Access to Free Expression
- Mapping the DNA of an Idea: Visualizing a New Business, Social Venture, Product, or Service | Globalstratos
Leading in a Crisis
Intermediate to Advanced Grant Writing, Managing, and Reporting: Approaches to Becoming More Successful
Launch Date: July 15, 2020
Grant writing is a critical funding lifeline for many organizations. However, access to funding is a significant challenge to continued professional and institutional growth for many organizations led by young entrepreneurs, as well as civic and public management leaders in Africa. This course is designed for those who have at least some proposal writing experience. Participants will learn how to research and respond to grant opportunities; develop and maintain relationships with funders; implement and manage funded projects; and report on and share impact stories of funded projects.
Learning Objectives
- Identify the five stages of a project cycle and the “five R’s” of grant seeking.
- Learn how to prepare an organization to apply for and pursue grant opportunities.
- Learn the importance of researching funding organizations to determine the fit of a given opportunity/funder with one’s organizational mission and objectives.
- Learn the importance of and identify strategies for building and maintaining relationships with funders, prospective collaborating organizations, and community partners.
- Learn effective storytelling strategies to identify needs, propose solutions, and outline implementation plans.
- Identify key elements of successfully managing a grant project and avoiding common pitfalls.
Resilient Leadership: Overcoming Setbacks and Helping Your Team Thrive
Launch Date: July 15, 2020
Resilience is a characteristic of high-performing leaders that enables them to sustain positive energy under pressure; cope with disruption, uncertainty, and change; recover from setbacks; and help their teams advance and thrive.
Learning Objectives
- Articulate the five paradigm shifts of Authentic Excellence, a framework for values-based flourishing in leadership, and gain insight into how to apply these shifts to one’s own leadership practice.
- Gain insight into real-world examples of resilient leadership from Precinct colleagues and identify at least four specific practices of resilient leaders that can be adapted for one’s own use.
- Gain insight into what leadership resilience and mindfulness look like in an African context and apply specific practices for self-care and anxiety reduction.
Public Health Communication Strategies: Increasing the Effectiveness of Your Messaging in a Crisis
Launch Date: July 29, 2020
There is a critical need for community leaders who can effectively communicate public health guidance and risk information. Public health communications, particularly those undertaken in a crisis, need to engage individuals and communities in clear, effective, and meaningful ways. A large and growing body of evidence indicates that the most effective communications account for local needs, values, and resources, with particular concern for how those needs, values, and resources impact behavior during times of crisis.
This course will (1) provide participants with an overview of key principles of effective public health campaigns and crisis communication; (2) introduce participants to key community engagement concepts and insights for adapting public health campaigns and communications to local needs, values, and resources; and (3) identify ways to apply principles of crisis communication to change behavior and improve public health crisis outcomes.
Learning Objectives
- Identify common types of public health crises and principles of effective public health crisis communications.
- Compare strategies and approaches for providing information and guidance in a public health crisis and using communication to foster behavior change.
- Understand how to apply crisis and behavior change communication principles and approaches to address specific challenges and community needs.
- Identify necessary components of effective public health campaigns and understand how SWOT analysis can be applied to public health campaign planning.
- Learn how to identify and engage key stakeholders in one’s own community.
The Public Health Communication Strategies: Increasing the Effectiveness of Your Messaging in a Crisis course has aided my work immensely. Using the insights gained, we were able to develop a training module for COVID-19 safety and awareness for small and medium enterprises in Addis Ababa. The course was current, engaging and immediately applicable for me.”
Suraphel Alemu, 2019 Fellowship Alumnus, Ethiopia
Mapping Public Health Crises: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Resources
Launch Date: July 29, 2020
This course will introduce participants to a variety of existing GIS applications and resources critical to better understanding the COVID-19 pandemic, including: observing and predicting the spread of the disease; mapping death rates per capita; visualizing the distribution of existing medical facilities and locations of high-risk populations; and connecting those in need of food with those offering to deliver donations from a local food bank. This course will equip participants with the knowledge and resources necessary to utilize powerful spatial analysis and visualization tools to identify local solutions.
Learning Objectives
- Understand GIS benefits and capabilities relevant to business and public management applications, with a focus on public health.
- Identify relevant problems that may be addressed using GIS tools.
- Learn about tools and strategies for identifying appropriate data sets and mapping applications to solve complex problems, and access resources that can be used in participants’ home contexts.
- Understand how local disaster responses may be facilitated by readily available GIS tools, and learn how to access and apply these tools in local communities.
- Learn how GIS tools are being used by a Fellowship Alumnus to address local challenges in West Africa, and develop the ability to create an online GIS dashboard for participants to observe conditions in their own countries.
Navigating a Business in Uncertain Times: Strategies to Ensure Your Enterprise’s Long-Term Success
Launch Date: July 29, 2020
Business uncertainty and accompanying risk are inevitable, as has been clearly illustrated across the globe during the past few months. What can a business owner do to mitigate that risk? This course will address types of risk and strategies for planning for disruption. The session will begin with identifying the common categories of risk: is the risk preventable, strategic, or external? What level of control can we maintain? How might the response vary for each category? The second component will then develop strategies using the “four R’s:” reliability, robustness, resilience, and redundancy. This topic will conclude with a panel discussion highlighting relevant experiences of Fellowship Alumni. Throughout the course, participants will develop their own strategies for navigating business uncertainty.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the categories of risk (preventable, strategic, and external), and reflect on what each risk would look like for participants’ personal enterprises.
- Understand and apply the “four R’s” to participants’ individual businesses.
- Record lessons learned and best practices from Fellowship Alumni.
Countering Disinformation: The Role of Media and Trusted Sources in a Crisis
Launch Date: August 12, 2020
This course will explore the varied roles and vantage points of media sources during a time of crisis and uncertainty. Participants will heighten their awareness of bias and disinformation and its impact, exploring ways to understand as well as overcome bias/disinformation and build trusted, transparent sources. Participants will also reflect on their own media and communication roles as individual leaders in local/regional/global contexts and will frame personal intentions for the coming year.
Learning Objectives
- Explore the varied roles and vantage points of media sources during a time of crisis and uncertainty, including local media, public and traditional news media, high-profile leaders, online platforms and connectors, and social influencers.
- Heighten awareness of bias and disinformation and its impact and explore ways to understand as well as overcome bias/disinformation and build trusted, transparent sources.
- Reflect on individual media and communication roles in local/regional/global contexts, and frame personal intentions for the coming year.
Identifying Market Needs and Gaps: Building Your Business During a Crisis
Launch Date: August 12, 2020
During a crisis, understanding the principles of supply chain management and crisis leadership are essential for identifying key needs for mitigation, rapid response, and orderly recovery. Identifying these needs is challenging in an ever-shifting market, and requires innovative thinking and leadership to identify new needs. An adaptive business strategy is necessary for attracting and sustaining the financial resources needed to support an enterprise—and its surrounding community—through a crisis. Once a business becomes profitable, strategic investment that supports flexibility will allow the entire enterprise to grow and prosper. This course will provide participants with tools to build a resilient business model that includes crisis management, innovative decision-making, and leadership.
Learning Objectives
- Identify basic processes and tools to create successful and sustainable supply chains.
- Understand how interconnected networks, channels, and node businesses work together in a supply chain, and identify supply chain deficits and feedback for building resilience into participants’ own enterprises.
- Understand the role of marketing and describe the major types and stages of consumer buying behavior. Identify how marketing strategy and marketing mix must evolve and adapt to match consumer behavior and perceptions, product lifecycles, and the competitive environment.
- Acquire strategies to remain productive while maintaining control over access to corporate resources (especially during times of limited resources due to a local or global emergency).
- Develop and/or expand networks to better access capital opportunities. Develop personal decision-making criteria and apply these to build personal Decision Analysis Tools.
- Identify other individuals who can fill participants’ business gaps through a forum networking activity.
English as a Second Language, Part I: Advancing Core Skills
Launch Date: August 26, 2020
This toolkit will be presented in modules that provide links to a variety of ESL materials for high-intermediate to advanced English language learners. These resources will guide participants through a self-paced improvement of their speaking, listening, reading, writing, and grammar skills. A downloadable document will be available for each targeted skill that will summarize the resources presented throughout the module and will enable continued offline learning for participants.
Learning Objectives
- Users with high-intermediate to advanced levels of English-language proficiency will improve their English-language skills, with a focus on one or more of the following: speaking, listening, reading, writing, and grammar.
Learn about ESL: Part II
Food Security in Crisis: Addressing Availability through Resource Management and Mobilization
Launch Date: August 26, 2020
Food insecurity—particularly among marginalized groups—has become exacerbated by COVID-19. Measures to curb the virus have restricted movements, disrupted supply chains, and undercut the four pillars of food security: availability, access, utilization, and stability. Impoverished individuals, whose livelihoods are highly dependent upon the informal sector, have seen their markets collapse and suffered from subsequent widespread hunger. As economic activity is re-initiated, opportunities are surfacing for participants to assume leadership in reducing food insecurity in Africa.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the key drivers of food insecurity exacerbated by COVID-19 and discuss approaches for assessing impacts and resolving hunger.
- Identify ecosystems that can mobilize people and entities.
- Identify potential sources of assistance from the public, private, and non-profit sectors at local, national, and international levels.
Opportunities and Strategies to Promote Partnerships with U.S. Businesses
Launch Date: September 9, 2020
This course will introduce participants to the nature and goals of Prosper Africa and other U.S. government business and partnership promotion initiatives. Participants will be presented with resources to take advantage of the initiative’s entrepreneurial opportunities through a series of lectures, case studies, and expert interviews from the Rutgers Business School, the New Jersey business community, and beyond. Participants will also be presented with a customizable tool to assist in preparing their enterprises to take advantage of these initiatives. In addition, an offline forum will allow participants to learn more about opportunities and broaden their networks, thus furthering the development of a global entrepreneurial community in Africa.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the goals and objectives of U.S. government partnership initiatives and identify means to take advantage of these opportunities.
- Self-assess business objectives and readiness and identify government-sponsored business opportunities and the mechanisms/business models necessary to capture them.
- Develop a checklist for executing a successful business deal, including follow-up and growth strategies.
- Connect participants’ businesses to the local business environment and develop new market narratives that bring positive and more effective investments.
- Identify contact points to access necessary resources to execute an enterprise or deal and develop an investment opportunity database (by business category) that aligns with U.S. business interests.
Leading in a Changing Paradigm
What is Leadership? Authority, Management, and Leading in a Changing World
Launch Date: September 23, 2020
Leadership is defined in varying ways across hundreds of disciplines, contexts, and situations. While not a new practice, there are many ways to understand and apply the act of leadership. This course will go beyond leadership to explore definitions of authority and management. It will clarify the differences between, the distinct purposes of, and the practices of management and leadership, and of leadership and authority. Participants will consider how these three practices are important when building thriving communities, and will reflect on what circumstances require which practice(s).
Learning Objectives
- Understand the differences between leadership, authority, and management.
- Explore examples of leadership, authority, and management in sub-Saharan African contexts.
- Identify and assess distinctions between leadership and management challenges in one’s own organization and community.
- Construct a deeper meaning of leadership, authority, and management for application to one’s own work.
Community Incubation Spaces: Effective Methods for Building Grassroots Economies
Launch Date: October 7, 2020
This course will begin with an overview of the different types of incubation spaces, including community incubators, entrepreneurship centers, business accelerators, and co-working spaces. The content will then shift to focus on incubator goals and what to consider when starting an incubation space, including location, services provided, expertise available, and funding options. U.S. experts will provide their insight on starting and running an incubation space throughout the presentation. Participants will then have the opportunity to take a virtual tour of a community incubation space in the United States, followed by an expert panel of Fellowship Alumni who will provide advice on necessary considerations for creating an incubation space.
Learning Objectives
- Identify the different incubation space models and their services.
- Understand the key components, benefits, and best practices of incubation spaces.
- Identify key considerations for starting an incubation space including location, services provided, expertise available, and funding options.
- Hear perspectives on starting an incubation space from both U.S. partners and Fellowship Alumni.
The Path to Job Readiness: Essential Skills to Increase Youth Employment
Launch Date: October 7, 2020
Building the leadership potential, employability, and entrepreneurial capacity of youth is one of the highest-leveraged investments a community can make in its future success. This investment is more important today than ever before, as the current COVID-19 crisis has strained local and regional economies and put many youth and their families at an increasing disadvantage. This topic explores (1) the evolving global forces that are changing the future of work and success factors for youth, and (2) the ways that communities can come together, using cross-sectoral partnerships, to support paths for job readiness and success for young people across two important age groups: youth aged 14-20 and young adults/professionals aged 20+. Discussion in both areas will be followed by sessions highlighting examples of innovative programs and initiatives collected from Mandela Washington Fellowship Alumni and other partners.
Learning Objectives
- Explore and understand what the future of work may mean for youth employment and entrepreneurship.
- Identify goals, priorities, and potential approaches to maximize success for youth and young professionals/entrepreneurs in the future.
- Highlight the power of ecosystems and community/cross-sectoral partnerships to achieve success, as well as challenges and lessons learned in utilizing these connections.
- Explore approaches to training/development, mentorship, and support ecosystems for young entrepreneurs.
- Draw from the experience of Fellowship Alumni across the continent, learning from a powerful set of examples and forming an initial network of connections and resources for follow-up.
English as a Second Language, Part II: Practical Professional Skills
Launch Date: October 7, 2020
This course offers instruction and practice opportunities to improve practical professional English skills in the areas of speaking and writing. Content will focus on improving professional speaking capacity in presentations and networking conversations. Additionally, the content focused on professional writing skills will prepare participants to create an effective LinkedIn summary and improve their professional email communication.
Learning Objectives
- Ability to write an effective email for professional purposes.
- Develop and write an effective LinkedIn profile summary.
- Improve presentation skills through practice opportunities.
- Improve capacity to network at events more effectively.
Learn about ESL: Part I
Demystifying the Numbers: Using Data and Analytics for Effective Decision-Making and Planning
Launch Date: October 21, 2020
This course focuses on increasing participants’ ability to make data-driven decisions by turning data and data analysis into actionable insights that enhance organizational performance and impact. The course is designed to be especially effective for participants who have little or no experience using data in their work. Through this core content, participants will learn how to frame mission-critical questions that can be informed by data and then apply data-driven decision-making steps in their own work. The module will also highlight real-world examples of how non-profits, public sector agencies, and businesses are using data to enhance their mission and performance, and Fellowship Alumni will share their experiences leveraging data in an African context.
Learning Objectives
- Recognize the advantages of using data to inform strategic organizational decisions.
- Increase fluency in the vocabulary of data science.
- Frame specific questions central to an organization’s mission that can be better informed by data.
- Identify appropriate, reliable, unbiased sources of data and tools for data collection, keeping resource tradeoffs (e.g., time, money) in mind.
- Use data analysis methods (including free or low-cost available tools) to draw conclusions.
- Use effective data visualization techniques to communicate findings.
- Apply insights gained from data analysis to business decisions.
- Learn from real-world examples of how organizations use data in pursuit of their missions to begin building a culture of data-driven decision making in one’s own organization.
Digital Storytelling: New Models to Promote Local Initiatives After a Crisis
Launch Date: October 21, 2020
The digital revolution has produced major changes in the field of mass communication. Traditional media outlets often struggle to cover local issues due to decreases in financial and human resources. New production and distribution technologies, however, have produced new types of communicators and helped non-media organizations bring audio-visual products directly to the public.
This course focuses on how organizations, particularly NGOs, can use digital platforms to promote their initiatives and raise awareness with their target audiences. Content will cover the power of storytelling in the digital era and how civic engagement can be fostered through social and other communication channels. The course will also address the development of new communication business models at local and regional levels and will introduce strategies to make community issues relevant and attractive to traditional media.
Learning Objectives
- Examine the ways in which narrative can be used to both communicate and effect positive change in one’s own community.
- Identify global trends in business models supporting media and news.
- Understand the significance of key technology trends and how those trends may influence business models.
- Develop familiarity with the news media production process and the types of content that draw attention from press outlets.
- Gain insight into how NGOs can use traditional and new media to promote community issues.
- Identify channels to promote messaging and reach target audiences, including potential funders and decision-making business or political groups.
Youth-Led Conflict Resolution: Including Young Voices for Effective Outcomes
Launch Date: November 4, 2020
In conflict situations around the world, youth are often viewed as the problem instead of the solution. Youth are not included in discussions and decisions concerning their welfare and interests in situations of simmering conflict or violence. This topic will consider the reasons why youth, especially women, are not engaged in discussions and actions to resolve conflict situations. Participants will explore case studies and experiences of youth who are engaged in seeking and implementing initiatives to reduce the propensity for conflict in their communities, and to resolve it when it occurs.
Learning Objectives
- Open avenues for discussion around creating opportunities for youth to lead conflict resolution and mitigation.
- Assess examples of youth engaged in seeking and implementing initiatives to reduce the propensity for conflict, and to resolve it when it occurs.
- Explore the reasons for why youth, especially women, are not engaged in discussions and actions to resolve conflict situations.
Collaborative Governance: Ensuring Inclusive Public Participation
Launch Date: November 4, 2020
This course is focused on increasing participants’ understanding of methods for managing community involvement in participatory processes to enhance public good. The core content will leverage the experiences of local community members, Syracuse University, and Fellowship Alumni to identify institutional management structures that coordinate international, national, and local decision-makers and to embrace lessons learned from the United States, Europe, and countries throughout Africa leading to enhanced community resilience. The four main themes that will be addressed are: 1) Community participation and collaborative governance; 2) Ensuring inclusiveness of youth, women, and other potentially marginalized groups; 3) Articulating governance institutions to coordinate multilateral, regional, national, and local decision-making; and 4) A case study of resilience programming under the Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters (BRACED) effort.
Learning Objectives
- Identify and articulate methods of collaborative governance and describe different methods to facilitate community participation.
- Identify practices that foster youth participation in decision-making; promote engagement across cultures and societies; effectively incorporate voices from different social and ethnic groups; and focus on post-conflict and gender-aware programming.
- Understand how to take inventory of an institutional setting in different countries.
- Identify different strategies to bring multilateral funds into domestic institutions and to connect local communities to the ministries tasked with managing those funds in a decentralized manner.
- Understand how the mandate to use community participation to define public good investments helped communities in Mali and Senegal adapt and improve resilience.
- Discuss the challenges of conducting monitoring and impact evaluation in collaborative governance and what steps can be taken to address these challenges.
Leadership for Organizational Adaptability Resource Guide
Launch Date: November 18, 2020
Leadership for organizational adaptability is a concept that draws from Adaptive Leadership and Systems Leadership, concerned with designing processes and structures that hold organizational demands to innovate and demands to maintain operations in productive tension. This resource guide will give participants the necessary knowledge to apply a leadership for organizational adaptability framework to their work by (1) exploring key concepts associated with leadership for organizational adaptability; (2) outlining a leadership learning and development framework for leadership for organizational adaptability; and (3) providing an organizational audit appropriate for developing leadership capacity through practice and reflection.
Learning Objectives
- Understand basic elements associated with leadership for organizational adaptability.
- Compare and contrast one’s personal context with associated organizational adaptability concepts.
- Apply organizational adaptability concepts to one’s own leadership practice or organizational context.
Problem Identification: Utilizing Human-Centered Design Principles to Jumpstart Your Venture
Launch Date: December 2, 2020
This course will teach participants to use Human-Centered Design (HCD) principles to identify, define, and validate a problem that represents an opportunity for innovation in their work or community. Sessions will work through four stages: (1) clearly defining why a problem represents an opportunity for innovation, defining an unmet need for a user segment, and conducting a current solutions analysis; (2) defining the impact metrics, benefits to stakeholders, and brainstorming and prototyping solutions; (3) evaluating financial viability and creating a pilot plan; and (4) effectively pitching an innovation.
The course will provide a strong foundation in this tested method of problem verification for participants regardless of background or sector, one that is widely applicable in today’s ultra-connected communities. Content is best suited for those with little to no experience with the HCD approach or those who would like to refresh their skills.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the general philosophy of Human-Centered Design (HCD).
- Gather information for a problem area of interest and synthesize it into areas that present opportunities for innovation.
- Identify current solutions, their shortcomings, and the barriers to addressing those shortcomings.
- Define impact metrics for a user segment if the unmet need is addressed and evaluate how stakeholders benefit from the impact being created.
- Understand HCD brainstorming techniques and generate multiple solutions to address an unmet need.
- Create a no/low-cost prototype, gather feedback from users and stakeholders, and incorporate feedback into subsequent prototypes.
- Evaluate the financial feasibility of a business, program, policy, or initiative.
- Create and iterate an initial live version of a new solution.
- Understand the two components of an effective pitch: content and delivery.
Community Crisis Planning: Solving Global Problems at the Local Level
Launch Date: December 2, 2020
As the COVID-19 pandemic and other global crises continue to emerge, an opportunity exists to review examples of recent challenges and explore how solutions have been developed at a local level. This course will introduce participants to several local crisis scenarios including the COVID-19 pandemic in Yolo and Butte counties and the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California. These examples will demonstrate how local leaders used pre-crisis scenario-building efforts to prepare for disaster and how they activated an emergency response system that leveraged community partnerships to address the crises. The course will highlight successful partnerships between formal government and informal community structures. Participants will also have the opportunity to reflect on lessons learned as they engage with sessions featuring presentations and discussions among government and community leaders, university experts, non-profit professionals, and Fellowship Alumni. The goal of this course is to provide participants with local examples of crisis challenges and responses to help prepare them to solve issues in their own communities through global learning and community crisis planning.
Learning Objectives
- Understand key components involved in preparing for a crisis and the importance of recording lessons learned after a crisis occurs.
- Discuss the steps involved in activating a system to respond to an emergency.
- Study the importance of partnerships and the interplay of formal and informal structures to support solutions to solve local problems.
- Reflect on the way that strategies for leading and communicating in crises can be implemented in participants’ local communities or organizations.
Fellowship Alumni Courses
USADF Grants Management Course
This five- to six-hour workshop is designed to improve Alumni’s grant management skills and help them increase their spheres of influence. This course is for both those who have previously managed an award and those looking forward to their first time receiving and utilizing funds. The U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) will share its perspective as a grant funder, and the perspective of Fellowship Alumni who have successfully managed and leveraged grants to grow their non-profit organizations, social ventures, and private businesses to serve thousands of people. Course modules include:
- Introduction to Grants Management
- Before the Grant
- Site Visits
- During the Grant
- Reporting
- Relationship Management
- Conclusion and After the Grant
Watch the course trailer and learn more.
I’ve enjoyed going through the courses on the new platform. The toolkits I’ve downloaded from the Grant writing course are [what] I’m now using with my team to get our recently registered Health Horizons Trust up and running and to competitively apply for grants. The accredited certificates after each course have been successfully added to my LinkedIn page and are key to my set goal task of building my professional credibility on this platform.”
Cheurombo Pswarayi, 2019 Fellowship Alumna, Zimbabwe
Navigating the New Information Landscape
Through this course, developed in collaboration with IREX’s Learn to Discern curriculum team, Fellowship Alumni will be equipped with key skills and tools for navigating today’s information ecosystem, which contains—in addition to objective reporting—a significant amount of misleading, manipulative, and dangerous content. Mis- and disinformation have profound negative impacts on all aspects of life and society, and leaders like Fellowship Alumni are well-positioned to build critical thinking and resilience in their communities. This course will increase Alumni’s understanding of key concepts in today’s information infrastructure, such as media ownership and independence; social media platforms and their algorithms and all the competing incentives; human cognitive and emotional biases that impact how we engage with information; and concepts of dis- and misinformation. It will also focus on developing skills that can lead to forming resilient critical information engagement habits that promote responsible, safe, and empathy-driven participation in today’s information space. Alumni will not only gain these skills and tools for themselves, but will also be empowered to develop and deploy strategies for sharing them.
Protection and Resilience: A Holistic Approach to Digital, Physical, and Psychosocial Safety
Through this course, developed in collaboration with IREX’s Securing Access to Free Expression (SAFE) team, Fellowship Alumni will be equipped with knowledge, skills, and tools to more resiliently continue their work, and manage–as well as mitigate–the risks and threats they face in their day-to-day work and personal life. This course will increase Alumni’s understanding of key concepts in holistic safety, addressing it through the unique lens of digital identity, physical awareness, and psychosocial care. Instead of a more traditional approach of looking at digital, physical, and psychosocial safety as separate from each other, in this course, the three domains will come together as one. Alumni will not only gain these knowledge, skills, and tools for themselves, but will also be empowered to develop and deploy strategies for sharing them.
Mapping the DNA of an Idea: Visualizing a New Business, Social Venture, Product, or Service
Through this course, developed by Fellowship partner Globalstratos, Fellowship Alumni will be equipped with skills to initiate their idea, move it toward a more mature concept, and find ways to move forward in starting their venture. This is an introduction to the key concepts of Globalstratos’ venture creation (development) methodology and a walk-through of some of their tools. The information and tools presented in this course can help Alumni take a vague initial idea and begin to add clarity and definition to it.