ChangeMaker's Institute
Designed to Inspire Empower Challenge Girls to Be Catalysts for Global Change
What is ChangeMaker's Institute?
Are you interested in learning how to make social change?
Do you want to better understand who you are and how your identity informs your perspective and the role you play in your communities?
Are you looking for a place where you can build the skills to work in teams and build consensus among different groups of people?
Do you want to improve your ability to turn thoughts into action?
This virtual program provides opportunities for high-school girls to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to be effective catalysts for change in their communities and beyond. If you strive to create a more just and equitable future, then let us help you transform this passion into action.
In this program you will:
- build relationships with mentors and peers
- work directly with experts in the social impact space
- learn how to use frameworks to launch change-making efforts
- develop an understanding of your identity and how it plays a role in your community
- think deeply and critically about the problems our world faces
Students who participate walk away with a new found confidence in themselves and in their ability to spark positive change in their communities. You will become part of and continue to have access to an incredible network of peers, mentors, and expert change-makers from around the world.
Don't just take our word for it, listen to what these ChangeMaker's Institute students had to say about their experience.
“ChangeMaker’s 101” is now “Lessons in Liberation.”
“ChangeMaker’s 102” is now “On Purpose.”
“ChangeMaker’s 103” is now “Integrity-centered Movement Building.”
“ChangeMaker’s 101” is now “Lessons in Liberation.”
“ChangeMaker’s 102” is now “On Purpose.”
“ChangeMaker’s 103” is now “Integrity-centered Movement Building.”
Are you a teacher or school administrator?
Porter’s Center for Global Leadership offers a variety of partnership opportunities to bring ChangeMaker’s Institute to your students.
Registration for Fall 2024 will open soon
ChangeMaker's
Certificate
While all of our courses are designed to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to create effective change, students who enroll in the ChangeMaker’s Certificate program will have the opportunity to participate in an exclusive changemaking fellowship.
After successfully completing all three courses, they will take all of the knowledge and skills they’ve acquired to implement real social change. This certificate provides young women, aged 14-19 years old, with the opportunity to stay engaged with the ChangeMaker’s Institute for up to a year as they gain deeper insight into the realities of changemaking and gain first hand experience enacting these changes.
Students who successfully complete all three courses will earn a PCGL ChangeMaker’s Institute Certificate that exemplifies their passion and dedication to becoming an effective, driven changemaker.
101 – A New Frontier
of Changemaking
You will learn the basics of the social change sector, how to understand systems of oppression, and the power of consensus-building and collective impact. You will will learn to explore deeper wisdom about the nature of oppression, liberation and freedom, and how to apply learning from effective movement builders into your own lived experience. This knowledge and the accompanying skills will provide you with a base to effectively approach change moving forward in any one of our future offerings and in your own life.
Over the course of seven weeks, you will work in small groups with peers from around the world. Led by expert facilitators, you will be guided through a process of reflecting on the systems of oppression that surround us and the ways that people attempt to create change, eventually determining what you think is the most effective approach to change-making and how it can be applied to your community.
Young women (age 14-18) who are passionate about building a more just and equitable future, should join us!
Our ChangeMaking Courses
Our courses are, first and foremost, exciting and engaging! We connect girls from all over the world and engage with them in critical discussions about real issues happening in their local and respective communities, and how to initiate change. Here’s what we have coming up for the 2024-2025 season:
On Purpose
Tuition: $450
ChangeMaking: On Purpose
No prerequisite required. Participants meet on Zoom for two hours on Tuesdays for 6 weeks.
Lessons in Liberation
Tuition: $550
ChangeMaking: Lessons in Liberation
No prerequisite is required. Participants meet on Zoom for two hours on Saturdays for 10 weeks.
On Purpose
Tuition: $450
ChangeMaking: On Purpose
No prerequisite required. Participants meet on Zoom for two hours on Saturdays for 6 weeks.
Integrity-centered Movement Building
Tuition: $500
ChangeMaking: Integrity-centered Movement Building
Prerequisite courses: Lessons in Liberation and On Purpose in order to register for this course. Upon successful completion of this course, students will receive the ChangeMaker’s Certificate. Participants meet on Zoom for two hours on Saturdays for 8 weeks.
We offer a limited amount of need-based financial aid for each course. If tuition is a financial barrier, please complete our financial aid application by June 15, 2024 for our Summer 2024 On Purpose course and by September 1, 2024 for all other courses.
The ChangeMaker's Certificate
Students who successfully complete all three courses in the series will earn a PCGL ChangeMaker’s Certificate that exemplifies their passion and dedication to becoming an effective, driven changemaker. They will become better informed about the history and frontier of changemaking, social contract theory, systems of oppression and exploitation, and movements for change while also building the skill sets necessary to implement real social change. Our students who complete the certificate successfully have learned how to launch their own changemaking movement, and many of them have done so over the years!
Certificate Requirements
Successfully complete the following courses during high school:
ChangeMaking: Lessons in Liberation
ChangeMaking: On Purpose
ChangeMaking: Integrity-centered Movement Building
Students may choose to take one course per year or all of them in a year; it’s up to you and what you think you can manage in terms of your individual workload and schedule.
Skills Building:
- Critical thinking
- Creative problem solving
- Leadership
- Collaboration
- Communication
- Global citizenship
What Our Students Learn:
Defining and Redesigning for a Just and Fair Society
In order to think about how to define and redesign a more just and fair society, we will learn about the concept of a social contract including understanding the history of changemaking and the concepts of freedom, agency and liberation. We will explore what a just and fair social contract would look like for us today as a framework for a society that we would want to live in.
Mapping Systems of Oppression
We will explore our understanding of three core concepts in change-making: truth, liberation and oppression. We will consider what these concepts mean, what they look like, and how they become pervasive forces in our lives. We will look closely at the mechanics of oppression, and how it threads through our systems of education, housing, healthcare and government. We will map how these systems impact communities, and the roles we all play in these outcomes.
The History of Change-making: A Case For Collective Impact
We will explore key historical moments of revolutionary change in human societies. We will explore the critical questions of: What is social change? And, what causes it? We will look at some examples of the most powerful ways to make change as well as their shortcomings. We will look at the mechanics of how change agents today operate in communities through government, philanthropy, non profit or grassroots leadership – making the case for a shift in how we operate as change-makers.
Hands-on Application of Consensus and Movement Building
We will explore the “how to” and “why” of consensus building and movement building, which are foundational skills that enable change in the modern world. By learning what it takes to build and grow a movement, you will learn how to interview members of your community, how to identify all of the people who can influence your movement and how to facilitate group discussions with people to invite them to join your movement. We will explore the meaning of and need for diversity, equity, reflection, collaboration, and mindfulness on the front lines of our change movements. This will provide an introduction to the skills that you will need to be a leader on the frontier of meaningful movements for social change.
Lead Facilitator
Cat Lindroth '04
Catherine Lindroth ‘04, lead program designer and facilitator of ChangeMaker’s Institute, was most recently the Founder and Managing Partner at Social Contract. Social Contract specializes in collective impact, works with government and philanthropy to help identify the highest value levers for social change, and offers technical assistance to execute high-impact initiatives. Before Social Contract, Catherine founded SummerCollab and DualSchool, two education-based, non-profit organizations (born from collective impact movements she mobilized) focused on student creativity, agency, and critical thinking. She was a 2018 “Everyday Hero” awarded by the Jaffe Foundation. Throughout her career, Catherine has helped foundation, non-profit, and government leaders strategically foster innovation, collaboration, and collective impact. Combining her expertise in entrepreneurship, education, youth development, organizational management, facilitation, design thinking, systems thinking, and program design, Catherine deploys a unique set of skills in allyship with daring, visionary minds looking to make an inspiring impact in the world.
Cat Lindroth '04
Lead Facilitator
Krissy Guest '04
Facilitator
Christina Alexander '97
Gizelle Clemens '04
Olivia Coléon '06
McKenzie Roller '20
Cristina Trullols '95
The ChangeMaker’s Institute was co-designed in partnership with Porter’s Center for Global Leadership and Miss Porter’s School graduates McKenzie Roller ‘20 and Catherine Lindroth ‘04. We are excited that Krissy Guest ’04 and Catherine Lindroth ’04 bring their diverse experiences in the social impact space as leaders and facilitators in the ChangeMaker’s Institute.
Catherine Lindroth ‘04, lead program designer and facilitator of ChangeMaker’s Institute, was most recently the Founder and Managing Partner at Social Contract. Social Contract specializes in collective impact, works with government and philanthropy to help identify the highest value levers for social change, and offers technical assistance to execute high-impact initiatives. Before Social Contract, Catherine Founded SummerCollab and DualSchool, two education-based, non-profit organizations (born from collective impact movements she mobilized) focused on student creativity, agency, and critical thinking. She was a 2018 “Everyday Hero” awarded by the Jaffe Foundation.
Throughout her career, Catherine has helped foundation, non-profit, and government leaders strategically foster innovation, collaboration, and collective impact. Combining her expertise in entrepreneurship, education, youth development, organizational management, facilitation, design thinking, systems thinking, and program design, Catherine deploys a unique set of skills in allyship with daring, visionary minds looking to make an inspiring impact in the world.
Kristen “Krissy” Guest ’04 is a licensed social worker and psychotherapist who believes in the impact of “answering the call”. For Kristen, the biggest call is healing with joy. Change starts within and Kristen is joining Changemakers to guide and learn from a group of change agents with the power to develop the inner man as much as the world. Following Miss Porter’s School, Kristen earned her bachelor’s from Mount Holyoke College, a Masters of Divinity and Masters of Science in Social Work from Columbia University. During this time, she received training in best clinical practices, as well as looking at ways to encourage clients from a strengths-based and social justice lens, among others.
Kristen’s experience includes mentoring and serving clients in some dark times and positions, such as shelter and psychiatric hospitals and homes. Never, though, has she wavered from the idea that pain – physical, emotional, mental, spiritual – can overpower our minds first and that is an important part of healing. Understanding, loving, and appreciating self; all worth it.
Beyond current career-work, Kristen thrives on joy work and belief-shifting. As a person who also has a chronic illness, she seeks experiences and people to invest joy into at all times. From a young age, having an autoimmune illness meant going many days without the ability – or will – to get out of bed. With faith and a deep propensity to get to a place where she could support others in their journeys, she has made it her mission to come out the other side; as always, a work in progress. Not only this; her ultimate goal in life is to serve in a way that empowers others to activate joy for themselves. Kristen takes her mission seriously and looks forward to supporting other changemakers in their work.
Take the first step to becoming a ChangeMaker!
Inquire to be the first to know when applications are open!
"*" indicates required fields
