Inside the room: 8 weeks with the 2026 Changemaker cohort
Forty young leaders, four continents, one shared question, what does it actually take to build something that lasts?
Every spring we run the Changemaker Academy, eight weeks of online sessions, three in-person retreats, and one very long group chat that never really sleeps. The 2026 cohort was our largest yet, forty leaders from twenty-two countries.
We don't teach a curriculum. We teach a rhythm, weekly reflection, monthly field reports, quarterly public commitments. Most of the work happens between sessions, in the small decisions that compound.
What surprised us this year was how much time the cohort spent on the unglamorous parts, budgeting, governance, succession planning. Nobody arrives at the Academy wanting to talk about bookkeeping. Almost everyone leaves convinced it's the difference between a project and an institution.
