Changemakers 2026: A Six Week Virtual Training for Non-Profit Agents of Change

The people who hold the front lines of social change are navigating enormous external pressure while being asked to show up fully for the people they serve. The cost is familiar to anyone in this work: chronic stress, secondary trauma, and burnout that drives experienced, deeply committed people out of the field– and leaves communities without their most experienced and committed champions.

Resilience is not a personality trait, and it is not one more thing to feel behind on. It is a set of learnable skills. For more than two decades, the Garrison Institute’s Contemplative-Based Resilience (CBR) Project has taught cutting-edge evidence-based skills to humanitarian aid workers, service providers, and caregivers around the world, on a simple premise: be well to serve well.

Session one opens Wednesday, November 4, the evening after the midterms. After this tumultuous period, Changemakers will spend the following six weeks holding their clients, communities, and colleagues through exhaustion or uncertainty. This course is where you come to resource yourself to sustain and expand your capacity to serve, lead, and build the future those communities need.

Six weeks, structured around our Contemplative Based Resilience Project  the “ABCs of resilience”: Awareness, Balance, and Connection. Every 90-minute session includes a brief guided practice, a teaching from an internationally recognized contemplative teacher, small-group discussion with your own colleagues and peers, and a closing integration and application session where leaders from across the social impact world answer the question at the heart of the program: how do you resource yourself? Each week ends with one small, concrete practice to try in your real life and work –  and each new session begins by asking how it went.

You’ll learn with faculty including Sharon Salzberg, Kaira Jewel Lingo, Oneika Mays, Atman Smith, Ali Smith and Andres Gonzalez, alongside CBR teaching faculty and guest leaders from frontline organizations.