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
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
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
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
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
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
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
A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated the graduation of our first general registration cohort of our Project Management for Scientists Bootcamp (PMB). They followed in the footsteps of our pilot cohort, which we ran for Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) grantees at the end of 2024. And we’re excited to announce that the training will be back on our calendar in November/December of this year!
In this blog post, we’ll share a little more about our thinking behind offering PMI (the Mini-workshop, An Introduction to Project Management for Scientists) and PMB as separate but connected trainings, and highlight how these trainings impacted the STEM community, program, and project managers who took them.
If you have any questions about what you read here, please contact training@cscce.org.
“There is a lot of project management advice and resources out there but having a training dedicated to STEM and its unique challenges makes it much more meaningful and immediately valuable.” – PMB24CZI participant
Continue reading “Project Management for Scientists – choose the training combo that works best for you!”
This two hour session provides an overview of the concepts and approaches scientists can use in managing their collaborative projects. You will leave the session able to describe what a project is and the relationship between projects and operations. We’ll also discuss the three types of project and their relationship to uncertainty and complexity. Finally, we will explore the competencies of an effective project leader, whatever their job title. Please note that we also offer a two-day Project Management for Scientists Bootcamp that significantly expands on the topics covered in this Mini-workshop, and sets you up to put many of these principles into practice using HBR’s Project Canvas.
Price: $175
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cscce-mini-workshop-an-introduction-to-project-management-for-scientists-tickets-1286709465649?aff=oddtdtcreator
Registration deadline: Wednesday, 29 October 2025
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.
Price: $175
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cscce-mini-workshop-working-with-volunteers-tickets-1286675584309?aff=oddtdtcreator
Registration deadline: Wednesday, 24 September 2025