+Acumen Free Courses

We have some great new course partners, including Bain & Company and Grameen Foundation. ·         Many new courses that will be available on-demand, so you can start and work through the material at your own pace. ·         We’re proud to announce we’re releasing our first course in a second language--Storytelling in Spanish! Check out the full roster below, and sign up now!

 

Readings that Matter: Letter from Birmingham Jail Starts: January 16 REGISTER   “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” wrote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from Birmingham jail, where he was being imprisoned for participating in nonviolent demonstrations against segregation. In this short course, you’ll get together with a small group to discuss Dr. King’s famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” ultimately learning some powerful techniques he used to confront injustice and speak truth to power.

 

Acumen Essentials I: Introduction to Moral Imagination and Challenges in Poverty Alleviation Starts: January 20 (6 weeks) REGISTER     What does it take to become a leader who can change the way the world tackles poverty? Working in small groups, you’ll learn more about issues in international development, cultivate more self-awareness, and discover your own leadership style, through the lens of moral imagination.

 

Storytelling for Change (New! Spanish also available) Starts: January 27 (6 weeks) REGISTER (English) REGISTER (Spanish)     Connect with and inspire your audience! Acumen and The Ariel Group have created this hands-on course to help you develop your practical skills as a storyteller. Whether you work in an office, making presentations in the boardroom, as a teacher with 30 to 300 students, interacting with customers, or one-on-one with individuals, using the elements of story bring you closer to your audience.

 

Growing Prosperity: Developing Repeatable Models® to Scale the Adoption of Agricultural Innovations Starts: January 29 REGISTER   How can social enterprises find new, effective ways to profitably serve hard-to-reach customers at scale? This one-day course digs into the findings revealed in Growing Prosperity, a new report by Acumen and Bain & Company.

 

Adaptive Leadership: Mobilizing for Change Starts: February 2 (4 weeks) REGISTER   Are you a leader going through a tumultuous time and looking for guidance? Developed with Cambridge Leadership Associates, the Adaptive Leadership course is designed to help individuals and organizations identify and tackle systemic change through a process of confronting the status quo and identifying technical and adaptive challenges.

 

Truth, Trust, Tribes & Trials: Marketing with Dignity to the Base of the Pyramid Starts: February 3 (4 weeks) REGISTER     This course is specially designed for those working to serve customers at the base of the pyramid. Acumen's advisors Seth Godin and Mary Pat Ryan share their cumulative marketing experience and distill the many lessons Acumen has learned from years of experience into a simple framework for critical thinking around 4 Ts - Truth, Trust, Tribes and Trials.

 

Board Strategy for Social Enterprise: Best Practices to Maximize Your Impact Starts: February 5 (5 weeks) REGISTER   Learn how to create the “right” board for your venture. This course, developed by Acumen and Accion Venture Lab, is for social enterprises or non-profits that are in the early-stages of forming a board for their enterprises.

 

Design Kit: The Course for Human-Centered Design Starts: February 9 (7 weeks) REGISTER   What is Human-Centered Design, and how can you use the design process to create innovative solutions for change? Acumen has teamed up with IDEO.org to offer this popular course on principles of Human Centered Design. Join us for a real design challenge to discover, ideate, and create a prototype through this course.

 

Financial Sustainability: The Numbers Side of Social Enterprise Starts: February 11 (6 weeks) REGISTER     Acumen and our course partner, Dr. Erik Simanis, will teach you how to think about and build a basic financial model from the ground up with this introductory course on financial modeling for start-up social enterprises.

 

Making Sense of Social Impact: Acumen’s Building Blocks for Impact Analysis Starts: February 16 (5 weeks) REGISTER   What does social impact mean and how can you assess it? This introductory course will help you understand how Acumen analyzes impact in our portfolio and how you can apply the same building blocks to any socially-focused company or organization that you are personally excited about.

 

Market Analysis at the Bottom of the Pyramid Starts: February 17 REGISTER   This short course with the Grameen Foundation will teach you about market segmentation, or how to divide your market into clusters that have relatively similar needs. You'll learn about survey tools like the Progress Out of Poverty Index and be better prepared to use such tools to get important insights about your customers.

 

Scaling Smart: How to Grow Your Impact Starts: March 2 REGISTER   There is a growing buzz around the need for social enterprises to scale solutions, but a lack of practical frameworks to get there. By the end of this 2-hour course with Bain & Company, you’ll have completed a diagnostic tool for your own enterprise and developed a plan that will help you avoid "bad scale" as you expand. You’ll walk away with a simple roadmap to achieve sustainable growth.

 

Lean Data Approaches to Measure Social Impact Starts: March 11 REGISTER     This 4-hour course shares the latest cutting-edge insights from Acumen's Impact Team. You’ll learn more about the Lean Data mindset as it applies to data collection and impact measurement. The course will be interspersed with real case studies from social enterprises in Acumen’s portfolio so that you understand on-the-ground challenges and rewards associated with implementing a Lean Data approach.

 

+Acumen courses are generously supported by our funding partners, including our Keystone Partner: American Express.