Digital Campaigning Certificate Program 2025

Essential online training for every staffer to build people power & justice in the digital age

As the far right around the globe claws back some of our hard-won gains, are you feeling the urgency to sharpen your organizing strategy? Do you want to be more deliberate and strategic with the online and offline tools and tactics at your disposal? Are you looking for ways to strengthen your campaigns despite limited time and resources? Do you want to connect with others who are also pushing back—organizing with purpose, clarity, and creativity in the face of growing threats? If so, this training is for you. 

Are you a BIPOC social justice staffer? Join the BIPOC Campaign Leadership Fellowship that includes this program.

Program Overview

This digital organizing training is for you if you:

• Are part of an issue organizing or electoral group, or a union, that is building power to win change
• Are in a communications, organizing, fundraising, operations or leadership role 
• Want to win systemic change, grow your base, attract donors, run your organization more effectively, pressure targets, activate your supporters, and shape narratives
• Have an organizational commitment to set aside needed time blocks for this program 

In-depth training: What we’ll cover

This program covers all of the digital campaigning essentials. It includes 20 sessions over 10 weeks and feedback on assignments. Topics include:

• Campaign strategy development, combining online and offline tactics, escalation and creative direct action
• Social media, including Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok, short-form video, and building online communities 
• Outreach tools, including email, WhatsApp, mobile messaging, and digital ads
• Making content that drives action, personal & public narrative, winning against opposition messaging, graphic design, and video
• Systems and infrastructure to run an effective campaign, including A.I., metrics, CRM/member database/action tools/team tools
• Digital security to reduce risks to you, your organization, and activists

Participants will get individual instructor feedback on how to apply the topic to their organizing through assignment review. Instructors are deeply experienced online/offline campaigners with real-world experience applying the tools to organizing. They span a range of backgrounds and organizing experiences. 

During and after this intensive, participants and their organizations will have unlimited access to SMT’s library of 150+ hours of training, which costs over $4,600 if purchased individually. This enables interested participants and organizations to go deeper into the above topics, and covers additional topics. 

Certificate requirements

• Certificate levels: Earn a Certificate in Digital Campaigning, Level I or Level II
• Attendance: Sessions will be recorded, but participants should plan to attend 16 of the 20 sessions for a certificate at either level.
• Assignments: Complete five assignments to apply your knowledge for a level I certificate and ten for a level II certificate. 

Participation and time zones

This program will run from October 7 to December 9. Instruction days will consist of two 90-minute sessions with a 30-minute break in between.

• Asia/Africa/Europe/Oceania: on Tuesdays (10 weeks), 11:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. Brussels/Johannesburg Find the session times in your timezone here. 
• Americas: on Wednesdays (10 weeks), 1:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. New York/Caracas Find the session times in your timezone here.

Curriculum Overview

Organizing Strategy and Tactics

• Meeting the moment – understand digital tactics working for the far right and how to be more aggressive and strategic about our approach.
• Digital organizing overview – get grounded in how online and offline tools can connect to build power. Reflect on your organizing and chart a path through the program.
• Organizing strategy & digital planning – guidance for building a simple or complex digital campaigning plan for your organizing group or union that connects to winning campaigns.
• Creating an effective activist pipeline – how to absorb new members and bring them into your organizing, including online organizing.
• Choosing the right direct action tactic – select and build out a range of direct action tactics and escalations spanning the online and offline worlds to pressure targets. We will also discuss effective strategies and tactics being used by groups organizing under authoritarian regimes.

Content that Drives Action

• Public narrative overview – craft an effective frame and narrative for both our immediate campaigns and longer-term organizing to activate people, build broader support, and win.
• Personal narrative overview – build the skill of sharing one’s own story, as well as engaging with members and leaders to share theirs.
• Winning the story battle against our opposition  – spot disinformation targeting our communities and train members to combat it, learn about effective ways to engage online.
• Graphic design – tools and design principles to create beautiful, inspiring images that will drive action.
• Video – produce and use video powerfully on a shoestring budget.

Outreach Tools

• Mobile messaging overview – tool demos, use cases, and campaign examples for using peer-to-peer, broadcast, and relational texting tools.
• WhatsApp – groups, communities and content sharing tips.
• Email – writing, segmenting, and sending campaign tips and tricks to help make this a powerful tool in your organizing.
• Online ads – Facebook, Instagram, and other ads to find organizing leads and persuade people about issues and campaigns.

Social Media

• Bluesky, Instagram & TikTok – how to use Bluesky, Instagram & TikTok to build power online and see results offline.
• LinkedIn – how to use LinkedIn to pressure targets, broaden and engage their network.
• Short-form video – how to expand engagement and your audience via short-form video, and get people activated for next steps.
• Building online communities – use existing communities and build new ones to find organizing leads and to engage and build leadership among your members across WhatsApp Groups and Communities, Facebook Groups, Discord, etc.

Systems & Infrastructure

• Fundraising – grassroots fundraising tactics and peer-to-peer fundraising.
• A.I. – how specific A.I. tools can help us improve internal workflows and processes, and how to create effective prompts.
• Metrics – focus your limited time and resources where they can get the biggest bang.
• CRM/member database/action tools – approaches to get the most out of your CRM for building new members/supporters and activating current ones, regardless of the tool.
• Project management and team tools – how to use campaign and project management tools like Trello, ClickUp, Asana and Airtable to improve workflows.
• Digital security – the set of practices activists and organizations should implement to reduce risk, including starter practices and more advanced practices, as well as tips and templates for effective implementation across the organization.

Language and Hearing Accessibility

Instruction is in English, with live AI captioning in 39 languages. Interpretation into additional languages depends on funding. Email [email protected] if you’re interested in additional language support. Course recordings include courses instructed in French, Spanish and Arabic, often with captions in up to seven languages.

Testimonials

See testimonials of alumni (community organizing | union) from across the world who’ve joined the program to become more effective and strategic campaigners, organizers, communicators and fundraisers.

Cost

Prices for the intensive range from $600 to $1,750 per registrant based on the organization’s budget, location, registration time, and whether it’s a group or individual rate. This range helps provide every registrant with tailored support, including individual review of assignments, while making the program accessible to groups across the world.

In order to support a movement organization learning space, SMT trainings are for staff of non-profits – NGOs, unions and electoral campaigns. Trainings are not for consultants or agencies. Consultants & agency staff who register will have their registrations refunded. Alternatively, on-demand trainings are available to all on SMT’s course platform.

Region	Budget of the organization	Early bird (by June 13, 2025)	Regular (after June 13, 2025)	Price for additional person from the same org
North America + Western Europe + Australia/New Zealand	$1M and above	$1,638	$1,820	$800
	$1M and under	$1,310	$1,456	$800
Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, MENA, Latin America, and Oceania (except Australia/New Zealand)	$1M and above	$1,638	$1,820	$600
	$1M and under	$702	$780	$600

Group Rates

Significant discounts are available for groups of up to 10 seats. Participants can be from different organizations. Contact [email protected] for an invoice. We’ll need registrant names, emails, titles and organizations in spreadsheet form.

Region	Budget of the organization	Early bird (by June 13, 2025)	Regular (after June 13, 2025)
Group Rate up to 10 seats (payment by invoice)	North America + Western Europe + Australia/New Zealand	$8,000	$9,000
	Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, MENA, Latin America, and Oceania (except Australia/New Zealand)	$6,000	$7,000

Photo: Millions take action against U.S. far-right government’s actions, Indivisible Brooklyn. (Alarmy 2025)