Events and Trainings

Events

Please contact us at scherthan@openmindsev.org if you would like to register or find out more information about any of our upcoming events.
These events are for groups that specialize in using digital tools to facilitate large-scale education of the public about how they can effectively participate in democratic decision making.

Upcoming Events
​Coming soon!
Tech Summit 2021 - Virtual July 12-23 - Annual focus for this important part of OPEN, a tradition, and particularly an engagement point. A good space for learning and engagement, share ideas, innovation, inspiration from around the network in the field of technology  A place to provide deeper dives into some content (workshops, trainings) that includes respect for diversity of place, language etc.

Past Events

• 2021 Executive Director's Summit - Virtual March 15-19 2021 - A safe space to connect, discuss the organisational and leadership challenges, learn new leadership approaches and discuss the emerging challenges of Covid in their teams as well as in strategy. Overarching purpose of all our Summits is to build relationships and increase collaboration.
• ​OPEN Summit - Virtual June 16-19 2020​ - Previously planed as a presencial event in Warsaw, Poland. Create a space to promote cultural exchange, trust, enhancement, growth and join forces among the members of the network. The main focus is to share knowledge and lessons learnt in the world health crisis.
• Executive Director's Summit - Virtual March 20-23 2020 - Also originally planed as a presencial event, this time in Barcelona, Spain. This Summit brought together founders and Executive Directors of various NGOs so that they can meet each other in person, share lessons learnt, raise strategic and organisational development questions and forge new relationships.
• Tech Summit - Goa, India October 27-Nov 1 2019 - This summit is for all the Tech and Tech adjacent staff of the NGOs to learn about various tools and tech platforms. It is an excellent opportunity for tech staff to learn from each others successes, share skills, plans and visions and build working relationships.
• OPEN Summit - Frankfurt, Germany June 17-21, 2019 - This event is for all the Senior staff from NGOs from various parts of the world. This Summit will be primarily to facilitate skill-sharing, problem-solving, and collaboration building, with session content appropriate for both senior and mid-level staff. 
• European Summit - Budapest, Hungary March 26-29, 2019 - This event brings together NGOs from the Central European region to train new campaigners on tactics, strategy building, using the effective language and help build connections with each other to collaborate well. 
• Digital disinformation & European Parliamentary Elections - Berlin, Germany February 4-5 2019 - This event will focus on How disinformation has already distorted elections and what we’re likely
  to see next, How to understand the full range of threats to our democracies and our communities that often get collapsed into the unhelpful term “fake news” and what can we do now.
• Startup Summit - Paris, France September 3-7, 2018  - This event will be for groups that are just starting their journey and want to learn the basics of building an organisation that can help citizens in their region participate in their communities as well as train new staff on the best tools, including new tech, currently available to them.
• Tech & Organising Summit - Cluj, Romania April 23-27, 2018, The agenda will involve a lot of training on tech practices and tools, organising models that NGOs can use and plan programs  to run with a big focus on using the best tools that they will need to do effective organising and learn from each other on best approaches that have been already tried by others in the past.
• Open Summit - Bangalore, India Feb 5-9, 2018, This meeting, similar to the summits before it, will be an important step in creating a culture of trust. This has been vital for any collaboration, enhancement, and growing among groups. By exchanging their experiences, the participants realise how much they share in terms of similarities. They also realise how much they can learn from each other as some groups solve challenges that others are facing.
• ​Startup Summit - Berlin, Germany November 20-24, 2017,  This event will be for groups that are just starting their journey and want to learn the basics of building an organisation that can help citizens in their region participate in their communities as well as train new staff on the best tools, including new tech, currently available to them.
• Tech Summit & Hackathon 2017 - Berlin, Germany In June 2017, technology staff from NGO’s all over the world gathered in Berlin/ Germany to share and create tools, models, innovations, and best practices. This year tech-adjacent staff was also invited to help build new technology to ensure that citizens could use this tech to be more engaged with and informed about their governments.​
• Learning Tour 2017 - Verden, Germany From July 11-14  Open Minds hosted a “Learning Tour” - Open Minds is a valuable partner for on-boarding and training all your new staff - with attendance by senior staff as well to facilitate training.
• Executive Directors Summit in Verden, Germany 2016 - The 3-day event brought together the Executive Directors of organisations from Sweden, Ireland, Canada, Austria, Poland, Romania, Italy, Netherlands, Israel. It also included WeMove.EU, a pan European organisation. The focus was on leadership education and development in a changing world. Our educative initiatives included sessions on management practices, sustainable organisational growth, mental health and financial management. We also brought several experts in organisational development together; including Dr. Phil Ireland and Ben Brandzel to conduct 1:1 coaching sessions with attendees.

​

OPEN Academy

The OPEN Academy strengthens and emboldens NGO's and their staff by
offering specialised trainings, networking and knowledge sharing
opportunities.
​The purpose of the OPEN Academy is to build a centralised hub for shared learning experiences via trainings, workshops and secondments. The OPEN Academy develops tailor made professional learning opportunities for NGO's as well as providing a space for collaboration around the world.

Upcoming Workshops
​Coming soon!
Housing Strategy Lab - Virtual  May 2021 
​Digital Campaigns Training - Virtual June -July 2021
​
Past Workshops

• Adaptive Leadership Lab - Virtual First intake: 5-9 Oct, 2020. Second intake: 19-26 Nov 2020. OPEN organised and delivered an Adaptive Leadership® program for people who are affected by structural racism or ethnic discrimination. This course was the first of its kind for OPEN and as far as we’re aware, it was the first time that Adaptive Leadership has ever been taught online.  We had a total of 25 Network staff participate in the program from 13 countries & organisations respectively. The overall feedback from participants was positive with many referring to the program as ‘life changing’ and ‘transformational’. There are requests from the Network for it to be run again in 2021.
• Analytics Academy - Virtual 20 Sep - 18 Nov, 2020. The Analytics Academy was an eight-week course focused on metrics and data analytics, aimed at boosting data skills across the network. The course involved 31 staff from 17 organizations across the network, participating over the course of eight weeks. The course included external speakers, practical hands-on data analysis and supported participants running real-world experiments in their own organizations. 
• Recurring Donor Strategy Lab - Virtual 30 March & 13 April, 2021. The Recurring donor strategy lab drew on Skiftet, Campact & 38Degrees’ expertise to develop the training. The purpose of the workshop was to support groups to develop their own potential pathways to a more successful recurring donor program. The lab was delivered to 22 participants from 7 organisations
• Far Right Round Table - Virtual 21 April, 2021. The Far right roundtable was 2 hour workshop that explored the Network’s campaigns tackling conspiracy theories, disinformation and the rise of the Far Right in the wake of the pandemic. The session hosted 18 participants from 6 different organisations.
• Peer to Peer Program - Virtual  13 April - 20 May, 2021. The peer to peer program is a 6 week professional development opportunity offered to staff from NGO's currently being delivered. Graduates will come out of this program with the necessary tools & techniques to professionally coach staff or volunteers, encouraging development, problem solving & goal setting. Participants will learn how to structure difficult conversations, ask the right questions and support their colleague’s professional development. This program has 41 participants from 18 organisations
• Economics mini-series - Virtual  12 Nov, 24 Nov, 2020 Feb 9, March 2, 2021. The Economics mini-series was a four part series on economics, linking to other socio-economic rights/concerns. It came about during a time when the Network was doing some budget work
  - national/federal budgets were being tabled; groups were working on macroeconomic and spending campaigns and most were asking their governments to fund new budget related services, including basic income grants that have budget implications. These sessions have been watched over 120 times since uploaded at the time of writing.

OPEN Lives

For the OPEN live format, we get experts from all over the world to give
us input on a wide range of topics for 1.5 hours. We design the content
of the program according to the needs that arise in trainings and
conferences.

• February 14, 2020: How to reach new Instagram members? w/ Eva Suss. Instagram wizard will share the learning, goals and best practices made along the way.
• August 26, 2019: Fires in Amazon! How should we take action to stop this.
• May 29, 2019: Planning an election campaign w/ Raluca Ganea. This session will cover how planning, running and working through the various hurdles means in an Election campaign.
• April 17, 2019: How to turn around mobilisation quickly and have maximum impact w/ Reggie Hubbard. This session will describe the tips, tactics, strategy and lessons learnt from a previous successful event on how to organise one for maximum impact.
• February 27, 2019: Skillshare on growth w/38Degrees. This session will cover using digital tools, sharing best practice and new ideas and how to evaluate the growth in membership numbers.
• December 13, 2018: Milestones of Campact's 2018 Member conference w/ Eva Suss. The session will cover practical tips towards bigger organising including in-person training.
• October 25, 2018: writing a convincing Reader Focused Theory of Change w/ Becky Jarvis. Reader focused theory of change is one of the key components to an effective email. It answers the important question 'why me?'. 
• August 22 2018: Message testing on Facebook w/ Anisha Humphries. It will cover how to test messages, how to set it up, analyse results, and cover both theory and practical tips. 
• July 24, 2018: Alternative funding models w/ Laura O'Connell Rapira, Siobhan O'Donoghue and Jurjen van den Bergh. They will share ideas, opportunities and discuss how to mitigate challenges. 
• June 26, 2018: Lessons from Uplift's recent campaign victory w/ Siobhan O'Donoghue who will share how they managed to run and win the Repeal campaign.
• June 25, 2018: Lessons from Leadnow's rapid response campaign w/ Jolan Bailey and Logan McIntosh They will share lessons from their recent rapid response day of action and share how they managed to mobilise so many people in such a short time. 
• June 6, 2018: How to effectively use ControlShift for campaigns w/ Eline Peters who will share how DGZ has used ControlShift effectively with a latest example.
• May 10, 2018: How to build effective microsites w/ Sarah Knutson. Microsites are an increasingly used tactic for big campaigns and this training will give you all the tools to build one yourself. 

• March 29, 2018: Keeping Campaigning Fresh. What are the biggest tool trends and how to utilise them for maximum impact.
• March 22, 2018: Intro to systems mapping and choosing systemic leverage points. How to identify, map and connect stakeholders and get results.

• February 21, 2018: Using Whatsapp w/ Nelson Carr and Benjy Cook. How to use Whatsapp as a channel, organising and sharing to receive maximum results from campaigns.
• November 15, 2017: Facebook Bots w/ Rowan Pereira. Learn about Facebook messenger and how to use it effectively. 
• ​October 26, 2017: General Data Protection Regulation w/ Michael Snook. This is a really important opportunity for all NGOs to understand what is GDPR, what you need to be doing right now and what you need to be doing in the next few months. 
• August 10, 2017: How MoveOn helped stop Trump from repealing Obamacare: Ben Wikler who led MoveOn's work on health care and helped shape the broader movement's strategy, will describe how the campaign worked and what's next. 
• May 9, 2017: Member-Led Campaigns @ MoveOn + 38 Degrees w/ Robin Priestley & Corinne Ball: Listen to Corinne (MoveOn) & Robin (38 Degrees) discuss and compare how they have supported millions of people to start, sign and win powerful petitions.
• May 9, 2017: Running a great hiring process: Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman's recent session on best practice recruitment to help you find brilliant new staff.
• May 10, 2017 Wielding Test Results (for beginners) w/ Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman: A crash course on A/B testing and harnessing experiment results to improve your digital campaigns. The beginner version of "Choosing Metrics Wisely"
• May 11, 2017 Effective Metrics (advanced) w/ Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman: An advanced session with Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman discussing what metrics you should focus on and how to avoid vanity metrics.
• March 25, 2017: Involving members in campaign planning: ActionStation walks us through their stellar strategy for engaging and empowering their members – ensuring their actions are as member-driven as possible.
• March 3, 2017: Corporate Campaigning 101, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman. Learn the essentials of corporatecampaigning, and how it differs from political campaigns.
• February 21, 2017: Psychographic Targeting & Advertising: Henny Smith. How GetUp used psychographic targeting and Facebook ads in the 2016 election to influence swing voters and kick multiple fascists out of parliament.
• January 17, 2017: Media Training with Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Committee and generally regarded as one of the best media people in the business!
• November 3, 2016: Texting the revolution: Text for Bernie director Daniel Souweine talks through the volunteer texting program that sent 10 million individualised messages in the 2016 election.

To attend an upcoming webinar or see a recording of past webinars please contact: scherthan@openmindsev.org.