Civic Leadership & Organising Academy
Monday 22 June – Friday 26 June 2026 • Mary MacKillop Spirituality Centre, Baulkham Hills NSW
Organisations serious about social change know that leadership doesn't happen by chance. They invest in their people — developing experienced leaders and creating pathways for the emerging leaders who will carry their organisation forward.
The Civic Leadership & Organising Academy is a 5-day residential professional development program for civil society leaders. Drawing on 80 years of international community organising practice, it equips participants with the frameworks, tools and self-knowledge to lead more effectively — and gives their organisations something lasting in return.
For organisations with a professional development budget, this is where it should go.
Frameworks that work in the real world. Community organising has produced some of the most proven frameworks for understanding power, building relationships and mobilising people around shared interests. Participants apply these directly inside their own organisation and across the communities they serve.
Leaders who know what they stand for. Participants engage in structured reflection on their own values and sense of purpose — becoming clearer about what drives their decisions, more confident in how they exercise influence, and better able to lead their organisation with intention.
Organisational capacity that compounds. Participants leave with practical tools to rebuild relationships, deepen engagement, and address the patterns of drift and decline that are weakening civil society organisations across the country.
A network worth being part of. Graduates join a national cohort of trained leaders — people who share a common language, a common framework and a common commitment to strengthening the organisations and communities they lead.
Civil Society needs strong leaders.
The fee for Alliance partners sending leaders or emerging leaders to national training is $1,850 (including GST). Non-Alliance partner organisations are welcome to participate at a fee of $3,700 (including GST).
If you would like to attend but have hurdles in the way — including around cost or invoicing timing — talk to us first. We want to make this accessible to the leaders who need it most.
Comparable leadership programs in Australia charge between $6,000 and $12,500 per participant — making the Academy exceptional value for purpose-built civil society leadership development.
Investment
The Civic Leadership & Organising Academy is for organisational leaders serious about their own development and the long-term health of their organisation.
Testimonials
“6-Day Training shook up some of my deep-seated assumptions about power and politics. I left more strategic, pragmatic, and effective - not only in my political and community engagement, but in my union and in my work.”
— Dr Rosemary Hancock, National Tertiary Education Union
“I walked out of 6-Day Training with an acute sense of the power of relationships. I walked in good at them, I left understanding my power, my influence and how to be great at them. After 6-Day Training I felt a renewed sense of purpose in my own leadership and duty to act on it!”
— Marcela Hart, Settlement Services International
“The 6-Day Training uncovers some of the deep-seated values and assumptions that form the foundations of our society, and inform our own thinking. Awareness of these issues creates the potential for change that would previously have been impossible … paradigm changing!”