July 2025 CSCCE Monthly Newsletter

JULY 2025 Newsletter

Introducing the Birdaro training program

CSCCE is an established source of professional development training and consultancy for community managers in a range of STEM contexts. Over the years, we’ve worked with a number of open-source projects and their staff members, gradually building a deeper understanding of the specific challenges faced by these communities – and additionally designed the pilot training for NSF’s Pathways to Enable Open Source Ecosystems (POSE) program.

Now, thanks to funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, we’re launching a new project called Birdaro, and our first Birdaro offering: a tailored training program for leaders and decision-makers in open-source projects. In this special edition of the CSCCE monthly newsletter, we’re focusing on the Birdaro training program so that you can:

Apply to join our first cohort (as an individual or as a team of two or three)
Spread the word about Birdaro to your networks
Let us know you’re interested in a future cohort by completing the application form and indicating your preferences (e.g., your time zone and availability)

About the Birdaro training program

Open-source projects are a unique combination of volunteer collaboration and product development. As an open-source project becomes popular or heavily used, its creators face complex questions like “how can we support contributors so that they stay involved with the project as demands increase?” Or, “how can we fund maintainers to ensure project continuity?” Or, “what infrastructure do we need to put in place to gather input from users?”

The Birdaro training program aims to address these questions over the course of a 12-week period in late Summer/early Fall 2025 (with exact dates still TBD depending on applicant availability). Participants will have the opportunity to take multi-session trainings, participate in shorter, webinar-style discussions, and connect in more informal co-working sessions.

In our extensive research phase, when we spoke to multiple individuals and organizations in this space (more on that to come!) several themes came up again and again as important for projects facing transitions. These included:

Governance – considering who makes decisions and how decisions are made both within the project team and within the wider community.
Organizational management – where should a project live, what might key roles be, and how to move away from a BDFL model to more distributed and defined roles.
Community engagement – how to engage users and contributors on a project successfully, how to develop leadership pathways, how to work with volunteers.
Systems-health considerations – how to ensure communities are welcoming to all who want to contribute, how to support multiple ways of contributing to a project, including non-technical contributions, how to consider issues of safety and security as projects scale and power is more distributed, and considering project health and volunteer and leadership burnout.

The Birdaro training program will include modules related to all of these focus areas, and is free of charge for the inaugural cohort.

APPLY TO THE BIRDARO TRAINING PROGRAM

About the Birdaro training program

A screenshot of the Birdaro application form.

How to apply

To apply to the Birdaro training program, please complete this Google Form before the end of the day (anywhere in the world) on Sunday, 20 July 2025. The application will take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete, and only one member of your team need apply. We plan to begin reviewing applications on 21 July, with a view to notifying successful applicants by 31 July.

Apply | FAQs

A vector drawing of two people participating in online training - one as instructor, one as learner.

Program eligibility

The intention of the Birdaro training program is to support open-source leaders, predominantly in research or research-adjacent contexts, who are advancing scientific research in some way, e.g., as part of a grant-funded project at a university, a nascent non-profit project under a fiscal sponsor, or even a stand-alone non-profit. Birdaro is for projects facing a transition point – maybe you’re considering setting up your project under a fiscal sponsor, maybe your community has rapidly expanded and you need to adjust to meet the enthusiasm, or maybe your project is looking to launch paid services.

Not sure if Birdaro is for you? Email info@birdaro.org

Image adapted from an original by vectorjuice via Freepik

A starling murmuration at Prestwick, UK.

About the name: What is a “birdaro?”

A “birdaro” is a flock of birds in the constructed international language of Esperanto. We were inspired by the murmurations of starlings – the swooping three-dimensional shapes of hundreds of birds working together. We see the work of empowering open-source leaders as similar, charting a path forward together, in community.

Image credit: Walter Baxter via Wikimedia Commons

Additional CSCCE trainings coming up this year

Scientific Community Engagement Fundamentals

In CSCCE’s foundational training, Scientific Community Engagement Fundamentals (CEF), you get to immerse yourself in theory, practice, and a supportive cohort of STEM professionals committed to nurturing engaged communities through network-centric leadership.

Gain vocabulary and frameworks to effectively describe your work
Apply core frameworks to enhance your community activities
Increase your confidence and effectiveness as a community manager

CEF was designed with both new and established community managers in mind. Participants should be actively managing, or about to start, a STEM community or collaboration. CEF cohorts regularly connect professionals at a range of career stages.

Our Fall 2025 cohort of CEF (CEF25F) will run on Mondays and Thursdays beginning Thursday, 4 September until Thursday, 23 October.

Nurturing Online Communities

Nurturing Online Communities (NOC) is an opportunity to explore social science claims about how people behave online, and develop strategies and tactics to increase engagement, commitment, and constructive behavior in the communities you manage.

Apply evidence-based concepts to common community challenges
Connect with others in similar positions to consolidate solutions
Build documentation to guide your moderation style

One of CSCCE’s more advanced training courses, NOC is designed for community managers who are managing online communties of practice, and who are encountering challenges related to engagement, behavior, and/or moderation. Prior participation in Scientific Community Engagement Fundamentals is recommended.

Our fall offering of Nurturing Online Communities (NOC25F) will run on Tuesdays and Fridays beginning Tuesday, 30 September until Friday, 14 November 2025.

Project Management for Scientists

In this multi-modular training (an introductory Mini-workshop followed by a 3-week bootcamp), you’ll develop the skills you need to manage complex projects with contextualized project management frameworks and tactics in this applied training for STEM professionals.

Develop a new vocabulary for organizing and administering work
Create a Project Canvas to guide your project team or community
Explore strategies for managing interpersonal dynamics

Project Management for Scientists (PMB) is for anyone managing a STEM project – whether that’s coordinating a multi-disciplinary grant, launching a new program, or delivering an update to technology or documentation. If you’ve considered project management training before, but felt it lacked applicability to the STEM ecosystem, then this is the course for you.

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. Coming up this year:

6 August | Creating core values statements
1 October | Working with volunteers
5 November | An introduction to project management for scientists

Depending on course participants paying the supporting rate, we may be able offer a limited number of discounted tickets for our upcoming trainings. If you would like to participate but your organization is unable to cover the whole cost, please complete this course discount request form.

CSCCE

c/o Community Initiatives,
1000 Broadway Suite #480,
Oakland, CA, 94607, USA
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info@cscce.org

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