CSCCE Community Tools Trial: CiviCRM
2026-03-25 14:00 - 15:30 (America/New_York)
For our second Tools Trial of the year, we’re continuing our theme of open-source platforms that support community engagement by hosting a session about CiviCRM.
CiviCRM is an open-source constituent relationship management (CRM) platform designed for nonprofits. It can be used to manage community member data, design and implement communications campaigns, and support fundraising efforts. For STEM community managers, like those in the CSCCE community of practice, CRMs like Civi hold the potential to better understand their members and how they interact with the community and each other. How to unlock that potential, however, can feel overwhelming, with significant technical and financial barriers (not to mention initial setup time).
At the Tools Trial, we’ll explore some of these topics, and get a better sense for what is possible with Civi.
Speakers:

Lauren Collister (IOI)
Yo Yehudi (OLS)

Join us on Zoom

Content Design (CODE26Sp)
2026-04-21 - 2026-05-29
Content Design (CODE) is a six-week course that introduces a strategic approach to designing and creating community-engaged content that energizes and inspires your community members. During the course, we cover the fundamentals of writing clear and actionable prose. However, this course should not be thought of as a “writing 101” course – instead, it’s a design approach that can impact how you create a range of different content types for your community.
Our Spring offering of Content Design (CODE26Sp) will run on Tuesdays and Fridays beginning Tuesday, 21 April until Friday, 29 May 2026.
The key dates are:

Tuesday lessons: 21, 28 April; 5, 12, 19, 26 May at 10am – 11:30am EDT / 2pm – 3:30pm UTC
Friday Co-Labs: 24 April; 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 May at 10am – 11:30am EDT / 2pm – 3:30pm UTC

Registration deadline: Friday, 3 April 2026
REGISTER
More information is available on the CODE webpage.

Mini-workshop | Creating core values statements
2026-04-29 11:00 - 13:00
Core values statements describe the values underpinning how community members would like to interact, and include a definition of each value as well as examples of what they look like in action. Core values statements are most effective when they are co-created with community members and are specific to the community, rather than re-using values statements that others have created. In this Mini-workshop, you will practice a process for developing core values that you can adapt for your own community.
Price: $175
Register here: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/cscce-mini-workshop-creating-core-values-statements-corevalues26
Registration deadline: Wednesday, 22 April 2026

Mini-workshop | Giving and receiving feedback
2026-05-28 11:00 - 13:00
Providing useful and kind feedback to others and being open to receiving feedback ourselves is a critical skill for effective collaboration – including during other CSCCE activities! During this session, we’ll explore the functions of feedback, how to structure yours, and what can make receiving feedback easier.
Price: $175
Register here: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/cscce-mini-workshop-giving-and-receiving-feedback-feedback26
Registration deadline: Thursday, 21 May 2026

Quarterly Skills Share Session | How to support a sense of belonging and productive community engagement - and measure them!
2026-06-03 11:00 - 12:30
Ensuring that your members feel like they belong and are empowered to engage in community activities is fundamental to community management. In this Quarterly Skills Share session, our speakers will discuss how to co-create codes of conduct that support inclusive engagement, different ways of assessing engagement and community health, and how to ensure that the meetings and events you host support your community’s purpose. We’ll consider these topics in the context of large, online communities as well as smaller, in-person gatherings, and will touch on themes from various CSCCE training courses including co-creation of community resources, designing community programming, and developing champions programs.
Speakers:

Kevin Gott (NERSC)
Rebecca Hartman-Baker (NERSC)
Mike Lipka (NASA)
Samantha Wittke (CSC – IT Center for Science, Finland)

Quarterly Skills Share (QSS) sessions are an opportunity for participants in the CSCCE Community Manager Certification Program to share insights and expertise about their roles as STEM community managers. Sessions last 90-minutes and include three to four presentations, with ample time for Q&A and discussion.
Please note: This is not a public event – participation is by invitation only!

Enacting culture change: The Four Frame Model (CultureChange26)
2026-07-29 11:00 - 13:00
Many culture change projects are met with general enthusiasm at the conceptual level, but fall short during their implementation. In this Mini-workshop, participants will reflect on their own role as change agents and use Bolman and Deal’s Four-Frame Model to assess and describe different types of barriers to culture change initiatives (structural, human resources, political, and symbolic). We will then use the model to identify where community managers might exert leverage – and what specific actions could help to overcome the identified barriers.
Register for this Mini-workshop (deadline: Wednesday, 22 July 2026)
About CSCCE Mini-workshops
CSCCE Mini-workshops are 90- to 120-minute sessions that introduce discrete ideas in community management or go deeper on a core framework.
Mini-workshop descriptions

Designing for effective decision-making during virtual meetings (Decisions26)
2026-08-04 10:00 - 12:00
Meetings and virtual events often involve asking attendees to make decisions. Decision-making invokes numerous considerations, including how to negotiate power dynamics, empower everyone to express their opinions, and actually reach the outcome(s) you desire. In this Mini-workshop, you will explore four broad decision-making modes (authority rule, consultation, voting, and consensus) and then use the PACT framework to plan a decision-making process. You will leave prepared to deploy decision-making processes in a way that invites all attendees at your meetings and events to contribute.
Register for this Mini-workshop (deadline: Tuesday, 28 July 2026)
About CSCCE Mini-workshops
CSCCE Mini-workshops are 90- to 120-minute sessions that introduce discrete ideas in community management or go deeper on a core framework.
Mini-workshop descriptions

Making a PACT for more engaging virtual meetings and events (PACT26)
2026-08-11 12:00 - 14:00
With virtual work increasingly the norm, community managers are often tasked with convening and facilitating virtual meetings. In this mini-workshop, participants will discuss the opportunities and challenges of virtual meetings and explore the “Making a PACT” framework (Purpose, Attendees, Community management, Tech tools) for effective meeting design. Community managers will apply the framework directly to example scenarios so that they leave feeling empowered to use the framework in their own community management.
Related resource: Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement. (2021) Using virtual events to facilitate community building: Making a PACT for more engaging virtual meetings and events. Woodley, Pratt, and East doi: 10.5281/zenodo.4987666
Register for this Mini-workshop (deadline: Tuesday, 4 August 2026)
About CSCCE Mini-workshops
CSCCE Mini-workshops are 90- to 120-minute sessions that introduce discrete ideas in community management or go deeper on a core framework.
Mini-workshop descriptions

Preparing and Designing for large-scale collaborations (CollaborationsA/B26)
2026-08-19 10:00 - 2026-08-20 12:00
Preparing for large-scale collaborations (Collaborations A)
In this first of a two part series of two-hour workshops, you will explore dimensions of team readiness for large, multi-stakeholder collaborative initiatives and how a team readiness assessment can be used to identify which areas you need to address as a priority. By the end of this workshop, you will have drafted a survey for your project, ready to determine how to translate the survey responses into practical next steps in the second workshop.
Designing for large-scale collaborations (Collaborations B)
In this second workshop of a two part series, you will debrief the team readiness surveys that you drafted in workshop one and completed for homework. You will explore how to report the results back to the team and determine next steps to take. Then, using a framework describing collaborative approaches, you will identify which combination of approaches or activities will be helpful for the next stage of your collaboration.
Part A | Wednesday, 19 August 2026 10am – 12pm EDT / 2pm – 4pm UTC
Part B | Thursday, 20 August 2026 10am – 12pm EDT / 2pm – 4pm UTC
Register for this 2-part Mini-workshop series (deadline: Wednesday, 12 August 2026)
About CSCCE Mini-workshops
CSCCE Mini-workshops are 90- to 120-minute sessions that introduce discrete ideas in community management or go deeper on a core framework.
Mini-workshop descriptions

Working with volunteers (Volunteers26)
2026-08-25 10:00 - 11:30
Community managers are often trying to create spaces that support group learning and self-expression to build something members of the community couldn’t create alone – and this almost always includes incorporating volunteer contributions. In this Mini-workshop, we’ll explore common community manager concerns related to working with volunteers. We’ll discuss how to flip the narrative from self-doubt and scarcity to center volunteers in a way that empowers and supports them in working together and builds your confidence as a community organizer. We will discuss making contributor pathways visible so that work gets done, while being respectful of members’ different contexts. If you’ve ever found yourself thinking things such as “I feel really self-conscious about asking for contributions from our volunteers – are we being too demanding?” and “I know that different members in our community need different things, but I don’t know where to start.” then this discussion-based workshop is for you.
Register for this Mini-workshop (deadline: Tuesday, 18 August 2026)
About CSCCE Mini-workshops
CSCCE Mini-workshops are 90- to 120-minute sessions that introduce discrete ideas in community management or go deeper on a core framework.
Mini-workshop descriptions

Creating Community Playbooks (PBK26F)
2026-09-15 11:00 - 2026-10-30 12:30
This seven-week course is for anyone who wants to create or update a playbook but needs some guidance and/or accountability to get it made. All learners must be actively managing a community, collaboration, or team. This course is also appropriate for community managers interested in creating a playbook for a community champions program.
REGISTER
Even if you already have a playbook or existing documentation about your community, this course will help you to identify gaps, make updates, or improve the adoption and reuse of existing content. We’ve found that previous learners in similar trainings that we’ve offered appreciated the opportunity to audit and update documentation and processes to enhance existing communication norms.
Our fall offering of Creating Community Playbooks (PBK26F) will run on Tuesdays and Fridays beginning Tuesday, 15 September until Friday, 30 October 2026.
The key dates are:
Week 1

Tuesday lesson: 15 September at 11am – 1pm EDT / 3pm – 5pm UTC
Friday Co-Lab: 18 September at 11am – 1pm EDT / 3pm – 5pm UTC

Weeks 2-7

Tuesday lessons: 22, 29 September; 6, 13, 20, 27 October at 11am – 12:30pm EDT / 3pm – 4:30pm UTC*
Friday Co-Labs: 25 September ; 2, 9,16, 23, 30 October at 11am – 12:30pm EDT / 3pm – 4:30pm UTC*

*Note that daylight savings changes in the UK and Europe in late October may affect the timing of the last two sessions of the course in your region.
Registration deadline: Friday, 28 August 2026
REGISTER

Project Management for Scientists Bootcamp (PMB26F)
2026-09-21 12:00 - 2026-10-22 18:00
This seven-session online bootcamp intensive offers a grounding in the basics of project management, tailored to apply to specific STEM contexts and with a strong emphasis on the interpersonal considerations that support successful collaborative work. This training draws upon a core text, The Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook by Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, with materials contextualized for STEM scenarios and applied to custom STEM case studies by CSCCE staff.
REGISTER
Over the course of this training, we will introduce you to a variety of concepts and approaches that scientists can use in managing their collaborative projects. You will use CSCCE-created templates to create a Project Canvas describing the three key domains of a project (Foundation, People, and Creation) and the three building blocks of each domain (which include the project’s purpose, benefits, stakeholders, sponsor, and the plan for delivery and evaluation).
We will use detailed STEM-specific case studies to support you with completing the Project Canvas in small groups, with application sessions intended to aid you in implementing the concepts in your own projects. In our experience, this provides the most value – supporting high fidelity acquisition of key concepts as well as dedicated time to make progress on individual projects with instructor support.
Our Fall offering of Project Management for Scientists Bootcamp (PMB26F) will run on Mondays and Thursdays beginning Monday, 21 September until Thursday, 22 October 2026.
The key dates are:

Optional orientation session: Monday, 21 September 2026 at 12pm – 12:30pm EDT / 4pm – 4:30pm UTC
Introductory session (required): Thursday, 24 September at 12pm – 2pm EDT / 4pm – 6pm UTC
Monday sessions: 5, 12, 19 October at 12pm – 2pm EDT / 4pm – 6pm UTC
Thursday sessions: 8, 15, 22 October at 12pm – 2pm EDT / 4pm – 6pm UTC

Registration deadline: Friday, 28 August 2026
REGISTER
