About us

PeoplesHub is an online training organization connecting and supporting groups and individuals across geographies in order to build more powerful, thriving, and transformative movements.  PeoplesHub is founded on the belief that, when people at the grassroots build power, we can change our world. By offering live, interactive trainings online, PeoplesHub aims to reduce the cost of high-quality trainings and make skills and support more accessible to community groups.

Our Offerings

We believe powerful, thriving movements must practice change through Resistance, Resilience, Restoration, and Reimagination to make transformative change. We call these the “4 R’s,” which serve as the foundation for all our programs.

We offer five different kinds of training opportunities:

1. In-depth Core Trainings for groups, designed by PeoplesHub and facilitated by a team of experienced trainers. These trainings focus on the core challenges so many groups experience and support participants to practice bold, creative visioning, strategic assessment, liberatory leadership development, and thriving group culture. Our first series of Core Trainings, “Building Blocks for Thriving Groups,” includes 6 trainings focused on group culture, strategy, vision, and leadership development. Learn more here!
2. Interactive PeoplesHub Workshops invite guest trainers to offer their own workshops on relevant topics. These Popular Education workshops range from 1-2 hours, and are open to individuals and groups. We offer guest trainers coaching and tech support to adapt their unique content to a participatory online format.
3. PeoplesHub Circles bring together dozens of participants online for discussion of a key topic relevant to the movement moment, highlighting a panel of storytellers and practitioners.
4. Community Care & Strategy Clinics create space for practice, conversation, and peer support to dig into key questions and challenges our movements are facing. This is a new program we are excited to experiment with to offer emergent space for connection and learning.
5. Ongoing Trainer and Tech Support Lead Development supports members of our Core Training Team to continue honing their facilitation skills, while we collectively evaluate and improve our curriculum.  We offer deep individual and peer mentorship to our Core Trainers. We also support our guest trainers through coaching and have a robust coaching and tech support lead development program.

Our Training Philosophy & Format:

We believe that everyone is a learner and a teacher. Our trainings draw on a deep tradition of Popular Education and are designed to illuminate the knowledge already held within the group, while helping participants gain tools for making change.  By learning together in a group, participants can build community, practice new skills, strengthen relationships, counter isolation, and learn from each other. 

We have developed a unique online training style that is deeply engaging and facilitates connection. We have tested and practiced two formats that we use for our trainings:

• Group Connect: This format enables groups to learn together in person, while connected to a trainer online through Zoom.  We offer this format for our Core Trainings, and support groups through the technical setup.
• Individual Connect: Individuals join these trainings from their own computer, tablet, or phone along with a trainer. We use this format for PH Workshops.

Who We Are & How We Got Here:

The PeoplesHub Staff, Core Team, and Advisory Board include some of the country’s leading social justice trainers and organizers.  We came together to envision the possibilities for this new online movement school in the summer of 2017 with the leadership of Sarah van Gelder, and many of us stepped into the Core Team to support the ongoing work of the organization as contractors and staff at that time.

We at PeoplesHub strive to ensure that every offering, from our trainings and workshops to our circles and all communications, expresses the values and principles of our organization and the world we are striving for. With that understanding, there is not a 100% guarantee that this will always be the case because we have no control over what our presenters, especially our guest facilitators, will communicate. If one of the presenters or trainers says something that you feel does not reflect the values and principles of PeoplesHub or hits you the wrong way, please reach out to us so we can work as a team to ensure that our values and principles are better reflected in our offerings. Thank you.