Location: Orlando, Online. This program will feature an in-person opening weekend and closing weekend. In between there will be weekly online sessions.

Financial, Family and Disability Access: Childcare and missed wage stipends available for some participants — see details below.  Online content will be captioned and we are committed to doing the best we can to meet other access needs.

Session Dates:

The program will meet in-person in Orlando from September 29th-October 2nd and again January 19th-22nd. There will be 1 Thursday session before the opening weekend and then most weeks between the opening and closing weekends. Full dates available here.

Cost: $0 – $7,000. Details on sliding scale are in the application. We are committed to making this program accessible to people regardless of ability to pay, and we are committed to building poor and working class leadership in our movements.

Apply now!

Background

Catalyst Project runs the Anne Braden Anti-racist Organizer Training Program for white social justice activists and organizers in order to strengthen racial justice vision, strategy, analysis, leadership, and organizing skills in white communities. This program is designed to support white activists and organizers in becoming accountable, principled and strategic anti-racist change-makers.

Why Florida?

This program is limited to people currently organizing in Florida. Florida has a centuries long history of organizing and powerful resistance to white supremacist violence. Organizers across the state are working to build progressive power in difficult circumstances and with national implications. Black and People of Color-led organizing is resisting attacks on Black political power, education, immigrants, reproductive rights, and trans and queer people. White people need to be a part of the progressive majority in Florida and Catalyst Project is excited to collaborate with people doing that organizing–pushing back against white supremacy now and building power over the long haul.

Program Description

This program is part political education, part leadership development and personal transformation work, and part organizing training. It’s not a series of “101” style workshops, but a rigorous political education and leadership development program intended to support white organizers and activists in becoming more effective racial justice leaders as a part of multi-racial movements. We ask that applicants already be actively engaged in grassroots organizing work and commit to staying in and reflecting on that work for the course of the program. Participants should plan on spending an average of 6 hours per week in addition to the time in sessions.

Participants in the Anne Braden Anti-Racist Training Program:

• Develop an understanding of white supremacy as it interconnects with patriarchy, capitalism, homophobia, transphobia, imperialism, settler-colonialism and the state, and how this should impact our vision and strategy
• Learn about histories of resistance and liberation, and about social justice movements today
• Build grassroots fundraising skills and raise money for a BIPOC-led organization
• Learn about transformative organizing and develop anti-racist organizing skills
• Receive mentorship and anti-racist leadership development
• Gain skills for anti-racist strategy development,  leadership development, and alliance-building
  

This program is a good fit for people who are trying to build these skills:

• Organizing white people into more effective racial justice work, and developing other social justice leaders
• Building alliances with organizations led by people of color and building stronger relationships with organizers of color
• Moving racial justice from an “issue area” into a core strategy and approach to all of your organization’s work
• Strengthening anti-racist culture in your organization by aligning your internal policies and practices with your mission and external work
• Centralizing anti-racism in your campaigns, communications, and membership work
• Moving from a diversity-based approach to a racial justice approach, and having a more historically grounded & systemic analysis of current issues
• Supporting and building the leadership of people of color in your staff, board and/or membership without being tokenizing
• Organizing in complicated political contexts, connecting with what keeps you in this work for the long haul, and being able to take more risks for collective liberation
• Developing racial justice politics and practice that are class-conscious, feminist, and anti-ableist.

Who Should Apply?

This program is designed for social justice activists and organizers with white privilege in Florida who are looking to grow in their anti-racist skills, analysis, and practice. Poor and working-class folks, rural organizers, women, LGBT and queer folks, Jewish people, and members of grassroots social justice organizations are highly encouraged to apply. We will prioritize applicants currently engaged in grassroots organizing in working class communities, particularly working on:

• economic justice
• climate and/or environmental justice
• labor organizing
• education fights
• trans and queer liberation
• faith communities
• migrant justice
• reproductive justice
• work against policing, imprisonment and surveillance

Childcare stipends and Lost Wages Support

****We will offer full and partial childcare stipends for people who will need to pay for extra childcare in order to participate in the program.

****We may be able to offer missed wage stipends for people who will not be able to participate in the program without them.  

More information and frequently asked questions on our website.

Who is Catalyst Project?

Catalyst Project helps to build powerful multiracial movements that can win collective liberation. We organize in majority white sectors of social justice movements with the goal of deepening anti-racist commitment in white communities and helping to build multiracial movements for collective liberation. We do this by creating spaces for activists and organizers to collectively develop deeper political analysis, vision, strategy and organizing skills. Our work is based in the belief that all people have a right to dignity, housing, food, healthcare, meaningful work and healthy communities. We organize with the understanding that anti-racism can be a catalyst for challenging all forms of oppression and creating fundamental change.