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Shifting Power Accelerator
Build a shifting power roadmap, earn stakeholder trust and gain the technical skills you need to remain relevant in the future of global aid
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Course overview
Gain the skills & confidence to redefine your role and shift power in 90 days.
The future of global aid is in
⚡️ building equitable partnerships,
⚡️ empowering local leaders, and
⚡️ shifting power to the communities we serve.
That future is now.
Have you taken the time to develop the skills, practice, and confidence needed to redefine your role and remain relevant in this future?
If you haven't, the Shifting Power Accelerator will give you the time you need and so much more.
Designed for busy professionals working for powerful institutions in the global non-profit, philanthropic, and public sectors, this course will help you navigate barriers to shifting power by learning the emerging best practice in key thematic areas:
🌍 Liberatory Futures
🌍 Power and Decision-Making
🌍 Influencing for Change
🌍 Mutual Capacity Strengthening
🌍 Community-Led Design
🌍 Participatory Grantmaking
🌍 Movement Building
I've carefully crafted a practical, cohort-based course drawing from industry-tested frameworks in each focus area. I've also curated case studies from sector leaders who candidly share their challenges and steps to incremental change.
Besides group discussion with your peers (which you'll get plenty of), the most exciting part of the course is the experience of shifting power in real-time.
At the start of the course, you will have the opportunity to invite a community accountability partner (e.g., a community or civil society leader or Global South colleague you have an existing relationship with) to participate with you.
You will share course frameworks with your Community Accountability Partner between each workshop, actively listen and reflect on the dynamics of your partnership, and work together on prioritized areas of power imbalance.
I'll be available during weekly office hours and 24/7 via the online course platform to offer personalized support for your specific and immediate challenges and goals.
Together, we will actively contribute to long-overdue changes across the global non-profit sector.
I can't wait to see you on the course!
Maya
Facilitator, Shifting Power Accelerator
P.S. Not ready for a 90-day commitment? You're not alone. That's why I'm launching a series of self-paced masterclasses on equitable partnerships and community-led development that will be announced very soon.
Sign up for this waitlist to get notified as soon as we launch! https://maven.com/forms/9cce5b
This course is for you if...
01
You’re a non-profit, philanthropic, or public sector professional at a powerful institution expressly committed to shifting power.
02
Your organization has localization or equal partnership plans, but you need tools, examples, and support to implement them successfully.
03
You are ready to shift power meaningfully in the next 90 days, and have an existing or new change initiative you can focus on.
Practice industry-tested frameworks used by leading #ShiftThePower organizations
Validate your locally-led or community-led goals and objectives.
Shifting power requires critical inquiry. You’ll ask key questions to interrogate your motivations and your role, as well as measure how equal or community-led your partnership really is.
Give up gatekeeping for good.
Embrace a mutual capacity-strengthening model over outdated top-down capacity-building approaches. You'll prioritize areas for partner-led growth.
Overcome barriers to flexible funding.
Unrestricted funding can seem like a compliance nightmare. You’ll learn how flexible funds and participatory grantmaking work so that you can build your own mechanisms with partner and donor support.
Innovate your program design process.
Inviting input on project ideas is not enough for equal partnership. You’ll practice participatory and co-design methods for a truly community-led and bottom-up approach.
What’s included
Live sessions
Learn directly from Mahrukh (Maya) Hasan & Fearless Project in a real-time, interactive format.
Lifetime access
Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.
Community of peers
Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.
Certificate of completion
Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.
Maven Guarantee
This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.
Course syllabus
14 live sessions • 79 lessons • 9 projects
Week 1
Introduce yourself in the SPA portal
#share-your-work: 2 truths and a lie
Invite a community partner to participate in the course with you
- ✍️
✅ Introduce yourself in the SPA portal
Submit by Jul 2 - ✍️
✅ Two truths and a lie 🤫
Submit by Jul 5 - ✍️
✅ Invite a community partner to join you on this journey
Submit by Jul 5 - 🛠️
[Essential] SPA Week 1 - Orientation Checklist
- 🛠️
[Essential] Template - Will you be my Community Accountability Partner?
- 📚
Open letter to INGOs looking to ‘localise’ their operations [6 min]
- 📚
Black Lives Matter is a reckoning for foreign aid and international NGOs [5 min]
- 📚
Fostering Equitable North-South Civil Society Partnership
- 💡
The Nine Roles that Intermediaries Can Play in International Cooperation
- 📚
Cultivating a health global development ecosystem
- 📚
Envisioning an alternative ecosystem for global development and humanitarianism
- 📹
What does decolonising aid really mean? [7 min]
- 📹
How can we shift power through influencing? [10 min]
- 🎙️
Is 'decolonised aid' an oxymoron? [54 min]
- 📊
Change in the humanitarian sector, in numbers (25 years of data) [8 min]
Jul
2
[MANDATORY] 🌍 Workshop 1: Orientation & Liberatory Futures
Jul
4
Orientation Checklist Q&A
#1 Start Here: Liberatory Futures
Welcome to the Shifting Power Accelerator!
Start reflecting on what it means to 'shift power,' 'decolonize aid,' or 'localize.' Envision a future world where every community or group has full agency over their own lives.
Get oriented to the Maven platform.
✅ Actions to complete your milestone:
Homework to complete before the next workshop:
⏳ Estimated time: 30 min
Week 2
Jul
9
⚖️ Workshop 2: Power and Decision-Making
Jul
11
Office Hour and Lab
#2 Conduct a power analysis
Your first milestone is to understand your power in the context in which you work. Look at the actionable frameworks below to consider your relationship and partnership.
✅ Actions to complete your milestone:
Use the power awareness tool to evaluate the different decision-making powers of you (or your organization) and your partner (or their organization)
⏳ Estimated time: 60 min
Week 3
Map and prioritize your stakeholders to ethically and effectively influence
Jul
16
🙌 Workshop 3: Influencing for Change
Jul
18
Guest Expert Live Q&A with Themrise Khan, Scholar-Practitioner
#3 Map your influence
Your second milestone is to understand your sphere of influence and how to activate it in the context in which you work. Use the actionable frameworks below to map your stakeholders and begin developing an influencing plan for your change initiative.
✅ Actions to complete your milestone:
⏳ Estimated time: 60 min
Week 4
*Break* Catch up on weekly assignments
No module content yet
Week 5
Describe your target growth area to support partner-led learning
Jul
30
📚 Workshop 4: Mutual Capacity Strengthening
Aug
1
Office Hours and Lab
#4 Target mutual growth areas
Your third milestone is assessing your capacity-strengthening approach and determining how to adapt it for partner-led development. Please look at the resources below as you reflect and adapt your capacity-strengthening practice.
✅ Action to complete your milestone:
⏳ Estimated time: 60 min
Week 6
Describe one co-design principles you can apply immediately
Describe one participatory technique you can practice and commit to using
Aug
6
💡 Workshop 5: Community-Led Design
Aug
8
Guest Expert Q&A with Hibak Kalfan, NEAR Network
#5 Practice a co-design principle and technique
Your third milestone is to evaluate your typical project design approach and adapt it to be co-designed and participatory in the context of your organization and stakeholders. Please review the resources below as you reflect and adapt your design and innovation practice.
✅ Actions to complete your milestone:
⏳ Estimated time: 60 min
Week 7
Outline the zero draft of your concept note that can successfully influence your organization, donor, or other stakeholders to buy in to your initiative
Aug
13
(CANCELED) 🤑 Workshop 6: Participatory Grantmaking
Aug
15
Guest Expert Q&A with Vanessa Stevens (Global Fund for Children) and Salome Tulay (Community Healthcare Initiative)
#6 Draft your concept note
Your next milestone is to create a concept note describing the problem, goals, and intended outcomes of your shifting power initiative. Please look at the resources below for ideas related to funding as you reflect on the distinct components of your shifting power initiative.
✅ Actions to complete your milestone:
⏳ Estimated time: 60 min
Week 8
Week 9
Aug
29
(NEW) 🤑 Workshop 6: Participatory Grantmaking
Week 10
Share your commitment to #ShiftThePower on social media
Join one or more communities of practice
Sep
3
[MANDATORY] 🎓 Workshop 7: Graduation & Movement Building
#7 Wrap up: Join the #ShiftThePower movement
Congrats! Your final milestone is to join the #ShiftThePower movement officially.
There are many ways to get involved, continue learning, and advocate for change. Check out the various solidarity initiatives below, from support groups to global and local campaigns to communities of practice.
✅ Actions to complete your milestone:
⏳ Estimated time: 15 min
Bonus
Bonus materials
Bonus resources (tools, case studies, and reports) about shifting power, including liberatory futures, power and decision-making, mutual capacity strengthening, community-led design, participatory philanthropy and grantmaking, and movement-building.
Guest Expert Q&A
We will have 1 to 3 guest experts from the #ShiftThePower movement who will join us during the course for special Q&A sessions. These guest experts will be announced very soon!
What students are saying
What people are saying
Anat Cassuto
Alexis Cooley
Bethlehem Mengistu
Matthias Naab
Kate Cummings
Samantha Dickson
Marisa
Guido van Heugten
Egbert Wits
Dylan Dellosa
Meet your facilitator
Mahrukh (Maya) Hasan
Mahrukh (Maya) Hasan
Sr. UN, USG & NGO Consultant. DEI and Innovation Expert. 20+ years of experience.
Mahrukh (Maya) Hasan is the founder of Fearless Project, a leadership development and organizational change studio. In her 20+ year career, Maya has managed partnerships, grants, design, M&E, communications, and research teams at NGOs supporting civil society in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, CAR, DRC, Myanmar, and South Sudan.
Maya was also a course developer and facilitator for the Global Executive Leadership Initiative (GELI) hosted by UNOPS, USAID, LSE, and Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. She has an MA in International Economics and International Relations from Johns Hopkins University SAIS.
Want to bring this course to your organization? Book a call
Interested in a FREE 1:1 Strategy Session? Book a call
Send Maya an email.
Connect with Maya on LinkedIn.
Fearless Project
Fearless Project
Tackle bias with courage and confidence
Fearless Project is an online education start-up advancing leadership, innovation, and inclusion in the non-profit workplace. We help social impact leaders design work cultures where everyone can flourish.
We offer courses, coaching, and consulting to accelerate change for the future of the non-profit, philanthropic, and public sectors.
An Applied, Practical Curriculum
5-6 hours per week
👩🏻🏫 Live Workshops
Tuesdays at 8:30 am EDT (2.5 hrs/week)
One module per week with lessons walking you through shifting power topics and workshops to practice them. Workshop recordings are available within an hour, with additional resources to help you complete the next project.
🙋♂️ Q&A with Maya or Special Guest
Thursdays at 8:30 am EDT (1 hr/week)
Six 1hr live Q&A calls with Maya (or a Guest Expert) and the rest of the cohort to answer questions and dive deeper into that week's module and projects.
🫱🏼🫲🏾 Partner Assignments
Due Fridays: Self-paced (~1.5 hrs/week)
Develop a Shifting Power Initiative by completing a series of small weekly assignments with your community accountability partner. Reflect and apply course frameworks following each workshop and work together on priority areas of power imbalance.
💡 1:1 Coaching
Post-course - you pick a date/time
One 60-minute video call with Maya to discuss a topic of your choice, usually a professional, leadership, or organizational challenge. Get personalized feedback and advice within two months of the course.
🌐 Community of Practice
Post-course - lifetime access
Stay in touch with Maya and other Shifting Power Accelerator Alumni via a WhatsApp group, an email listserv, Zoom support calls, and in-person meet-ups (at the bi-annual #ShiftThePower Summit or whenever possible!).
Interactive, cohort-based learning
A Cohort of Applied Practitioners
You will join a supportive community of aid and development leaders not just talking about shifting power, but actually doing it.
Shared, Collaborative Learning
Through Maven, an award-winning e-learning platform, and Zoom, you will collaborate with peers via group discussions, discussion boards, and team projects.
Practical & Experiential, Tools-Based
Between workshops, you will report to a local partner of your choice (e.g., a local civil society leader or a Global South colleague). Using course frameworks, you will actively critically reflect on this partnership, working together on prioritized areas of power imbalance.
Who we've worked with
Your investment is 100% risk-free
If you attend the sessions, fully participate, and still don’t find the course valuable, we’ll happily refund your full payment up to 14 days after the course ends.
More details: Refund Policy
Get reimbursed by your employer
🎓 Use your employer's Professional Development budget
80% of our students get this course paid for by their employers. Since the course teaches critical skills for the future of work, participation could even get you promoted.
You won't know until you ask!
👉🏽 Copy and paste this request template
It's awkward to ask your boss for funds. So we've made it easy. Just copy-paste, fill in the blanks, and send this template to your manager or budget authority.
🏆 Course certificate & LinkedIn Badge
Upon completion, we will email you a certificate of completion, as well as a link to a LinkedIn Badge you can upload to your profile.