Strategic Planning for Peacebuilders

This is a self-guided virtual eCourse, accessible on desktop or on your mobile phone via the Teachable app.

Once enrolled, you'll have the opportunity to join one optional live cohort experience each year, connecting with peacebuilders from our global community to share experiences and deepen your learning.

You'll have lifetime access to all course materials and updates.

If any of this resonates, this course was built for you.

You struggle to turn what you know about conflict into a strategic plan. You have real understanding of the conflicts and social issues you work on, whether from formal training, personal experience, or both. But when it comes to designing a strategic response, something gets lost. The gap between understanding what needs to change and producing a professional-quality strategic plan that shows how to make that change is real. You want a clear, systematic process for developing a concrete, actionable plan that builds on your knowledge and experience.

Your planning process produces the same generic project types as everyone else. You keep ending up with the same kinds of initiatives: dialogue workshops, community mediation, social cohesion projects, training programs. You know more creative and effective approaches to building peace exist, but the planning frameworks available to you default to a narrow set of project types that the sector recycles. Your strategic plans end up looking no different from those of any other organization, and you want to break that pattern.

You struggle to develop a strong peacebuilding theory of change. You understand the concept, and you know donors and organizational leaders expect a quality theory of change. But creating one that maps clear pathways from your activities through different levels of peacebuilding outcomes to the long-term change you want to see is a different challenge entirely. You want tools and frameworks that help you build a theory of change that is relevant to your context and that gives you clarity on how your programming will effectively transform the causes of conflict or social issues you are working to address.

Your strategic plans are shaped by donor priorities, not your own. The planning processes you are engaged in are oriented towards what donors want to fund, not around the change you envision. You find yourself designing initiatives to fit funding criteria rather than addressing the causes of conflict as you understand them. Or you want to plan peace initiatives outside of traditional systems entirely, whether as an activist, a community organizer, or an independent practitioner, and you want a strategic planning process focused on designing initiatives that make real impact.

You want to design more creative and strategic peace initiatives. You can sense that there are more innovative and effective ways to build peace than the limited set of project types the sector defaults to. You want to explore approaches across the full spectrum of peacebuilding, from peace economics and PeaceTech to environmental peacebuilding, arts-based approaches, and many more, and incorporate them into a professional-quality strategic plan. But you don't have a framework or process for discovering these possibilities.

The Strategic Planning for Peacebuilders eCourse trains you in EP's original 10-step strategic planning process and equips you with a unique set of original tools we have developed to produce a complete, professional-quality strategic plan that is more creative, more strategic, and more effective in transforming the causes of conflict and social issues than conventional planning approaches can produce.

What Makes Everyday Peacebuilding Different

Not Your Standard Peacebuilding Training

Our 3 Core Approaches

Our courses are grounded in three core approaches that inform everything we do. We apply them to help you develop a rich understanding of the causes and dynamics of modern conflict in a way that peacebuilding training operating within traditional systems is restricted from doing by the political interests of donor countries.

Demilitarist: We name militarism as a root cause of war and conflict. This includes military spending, weapons manufacturers, the arms trade, domestic militarization, and militarized cultures that produce and sustain violence. Our courses equip you to see these dynamics as they manifest in your society and empower you with creative ways to transform them.

Decolonial: We recognize how the lasting effects of colonization and neocolonial systems contribute to modern conflict dynamics, and how the structures that produce conventional peacebuilding efforts often reproduce these power dynamics rather than transforming them. Our courses help you identify and address these patterns. We do our best to center local, community, and indigenous knowledge over Western institutional frameworks.

Intersectional: We recognize that peace and justice are intertwined, and that for peacebuilding to be effective it must engage in transforming overlapping systems of oppression (race, class, gender, sexuality, ability) as interconnected drivers of conflict. Our courses draw linkages between social justice issues and the dynamics of peace, war, and militarism, strengthening the ability of peacebuilders to address social justice issues and social justice activists to build peace.

These aren't abstract values. They're diagnostic tools woven into every course, changing what you see when you analyze conflict and how you formulate solutions.

What you'll walk away with:

A complete, professional-quality strategic plan. Throughout this course, you build your strategic plan progressively, from defining your social issue and envisioning impact through mapping outcomes, identifying entry points, formalizing your theory of change, and designing your M&E approach. By the end, you will have produced a professional-quality strategic plan for a peace initiative, organization, or action of your choice, planned across a full results framework, complete with theory of change, indicators, and M&E system. This document is yours to use: for launching new initiatives, for strengthening existing programs, for organizational strategy, or for donor proposals.

A transformational planning process you can apply again and again. You will learn EP's 10-step strategic planning process, a systematic methodology that starts with the change you want to see, maps three levels of outcomes, then builds towards mapping of entry points and activities, producing strategic plans built on clear logic rather than plans designed to justify predetermined activities. This is a process you can use and adapt across different contexts, conflicts, social issues, and professional settings throughout your career, whether you are developing a plan on your own or leading a strategic planning process with a team or organization.

Creative programming possibilities across the full spectrum of peacebuilding. Using EP's Comprehensive Map of Peacebuilding Entry Points and Program Types, you will discover hundreds of programming possibilities across 24 peacebuilder types that go far beyond the narrow set of project types the sector defaults to. You will identify the approaches that best address the causes of conflict and social issues you want to change in your context, designing initiatives that are more innovative and more strategic than conventional planning allows.

A theory of change that gives you clarity on how your programming creates impact. Using EP's Peacebuilding Theory of Change Builder, you will develop a theory of change that maps clear pathways from your planned activities through different levels of peacebuilding outcomes to the long-term change you want to see. This goes beyond standard theory of change exercises by drawing from a far more comprehensive set of change pathways, giving you a theory of change that is contextually relevant and that clearly demonstrates how your programming will transform the causes you are addressing.

Practical M&E skills for peacebuilding outcomes. You will learn how to design M&E systems appropriate for peacebuilding contexts, including practical approaches for measuring intangible outcomes like trust, social cohesion, relationships, and attitude change. You will develop indicators mapped across your results chain and design a measurement approach that serves both program improvement and accountability purposes.

The skills to communicate, fund, and sustain your plan. You will learn how to present your strategic plan to different audiences, develop a resource mobilization strategy, write compelling proposals that present transformative approaches in ways funders understand, and design for sustainability and local ownership from the start. For those working outside traditional systems, you will gain frameworks for turning your strategic plan into structured, sustainable action without depending on donor funding.

Who this course is for:

Peacebuilding, humanitarian, and development professionals who design or contribute to program planning and want a systematic strategic planning process and original tools that go beyond what conventional training offers, helping you produce strategic plans that are more creative, more strategic, and more effective in addressing the causes of conflict than standard approaches.

Program managers and organizational leaders who want to strengthen your ability to lead strategic planning processes within your organization, develop quality theories of change and M&E systems for peacebuilding programming where outcomes like trust, social cohesion, and attitude change are harder to plan for and measure than in other sectors, and produce strategic plans that demonstrate clear pathways from activities to impact for funders, partners, and stakeholders.

Early-career professionals and graduates of peace studies or related fields who want to move beyond the traditional theories and frameworks taught in academic programs and gain a systematic strategic planning methodology and unique suite of tools to produce your own professional-quality strategic plan, bridging the gap between academic knowledge and the practical planning skills employers expect or to launch your own initiatives.

Professionals in related fields (social justice, human rights, education, governance, environmental work) and nonprofit or social sector professionals who recognize that the social issues you work on shape and are shaped by conflict dynamics and want systematic planning tools to design more effective and strategic initiatives.

Activists, community organizers, and independent practitioners who want to turn your vision for change into a structured, strategic plan of action. Whether you are working outside of traditional systems or building grassroots initiatives, this course gives you a planning process focused on designing initiatives that make real impact.

Experienced practitioners looking for more creative and effective approaches. If you've worked in peacebuilding for years but feel that the strategic planning frameworks available to you keep producing the same kinds of projects, this course offers original tools that open up programming possibilities across the full spectrum of peacebuilding, helping you design initiatives that go far beyond what conventional planning allows.

Course Curriculum

This course includes 5 modules with approximately 28 video lessons, downloadable workbooks with practical activities, and all the tools and frameworks you need to produce your own professional-quality strategic plan.

Module 1: Foundations of Strategic Peacebuilding Build your foundation for strategic planning and understand what makes planning truly strategic. You will explore how conventional strategic planning typically works in the peacebuilding sector, what it misses, and why EP's approach is different. You will learn how conflict analysis informs strategic planning, with a direct bridge for students who completed our Practical Conflict Analysis course and an on-ramp for those bringing their own knowledge and experience. This module also covers participatory approaches to planning, power dynamics in program design, and introduces EP's three core approaches (demilitarist, decolonial, intersectional) as design lenses you will encounter throughout the course. You will also explore how to plan strategic peacebuilding initiatives on your own terms, whether within traditional systems or independently, rather than orienting your planning around donor priorities.

Module 2: Your Strategic Planning Process Learn and apply EP's 10-step strategic planning process, a systematic methodology that begins with the change you want to see and works forward through three levels of outcomes to entry points and activities. You will define the conflict or social issue you want to change, envision the impact you want to achieve, map the structural, cultural, and behavioral changes needed, identify who can influence those changes and how, and determine the activities and entry points that connect directly to the change you are working to create. Each lesson applies directly to the strategic plan you are building. Tools developed from our Peacebuilder Typology are introduced in this module to help you think expansively about entry points and programming possibilities.

Module 3: Designing Initiatives Across the Full Spectrum of Peacebuilding This module works differently from the others. Using EP's Comprehensive Map of Peacebuilding Entry Points and Program Types, you will explore the range of programming possibilities available to you across the full spectrum of peacebuilding practice. The module is organized into 9 lessons corresponding to the 9 categories of our Peacebuilder Typology, and you will engage with the lessons that correspond to the entry points you identified in Module 2. Each lesson explores a wide variety of project types, approaches, and programming possibilities within that category, opening up creative options most practitioners have never considered. By the end of this module, you will have refined and expanded your initiative design with approaches drawn from across the peacebuilding landscape.

Module 4: Building Your Strategic Plan: Theories of Change, Results Frameworks, and M&E Take the initiative you have designed and formalize it into a complete, professional-quality strategic plan. You will build your results chain from the work you completed in Modules 2 and 3, then develop your theory of change using EP's Peacebuilding Theory of Change Builder, a tool that provides a far more comprehensive set of change categories than standard resources offer. You will develop indicators mapped across your results chain, including practical approaches for measuring intangible peacebuilding outcomes like trust, social cohesion, and attitude change. You will also design your M&E system with tools for tracking progress, measuring change at multiple levels, and ensuring your plan serves both program improvement and accountability purposes.

Module 5: Implementation, Sustainability, and Resource Mobilization Move from plan to action. You will learn how to communicate your strategic plan to different audiences, including organizational leaders, community partners, funders, and policymakers. You will develop a resource mobilization strategy that goes beyond traditional donors, learn to write compelling proposals that present transformative approaches in ways funders understand, and design for local and national ownership and sustainability from the start. The module closes with strategies for scaling and deepening the impact of your initiative over time.

What Peacebuilders Say About Our Courses...

Payment options

Enroll for $350 USD using the enrollment button above.

For organizations: Looking to enroll staff members as part of professional development? Email Taylor for organizational pricing and group enrollment options: taylor@everydaypeacebuilding.com

Want to use your organization's professional development budget? Forward this page to your supervisor. Many organizations recognize our courses as professional development that directly improves effectiveness of peace initiatives. At $350, this is a fraction of the cost of comparable professional training.

Alternative payment methods available: If you need to pay via bank transfer, Wise, mobile money, M-Pesa, or in local currencies, email our community manager Mustapha at mustapha@everydaypeacebuilding.com who can help find a solution that works for you.

Our Scholarship Program
Everyday Peacebuilding is a community of peacebuilders from all walks of life in over 100 countries. We believe peacebuilding education should be accessible to everyone, regardless of financial circumstances.

Diverse participation strengthens our community and enriches the learning experience for everyone. When peacebuilders from different contexts, backgrounds, and experiences learn together, we all benefit.

Partial (25%, 50%, 75%) and full (100%) scholarships are available based on financial need. Applications are open year-round and reviewed monthly by Mustapha, our community manager. Decisions are communicated via email, typically after the first week of each month.

Questions?

Course questions: taylor@everydaypeacebuilding.com

Scholarship and alternative payment questions: mustapha@everydaypeacebuilding.com