Virtual Global Study Tour 2026 - Messaging

The Virtual Global Study Tour is a unique opportunity to ‘travel’ the world from your desk, learning new approaches to organising or messaging from leading international practitioners, and considering how to apply the insights to your own organisation or movement.

Delivered through two distinct concurrent streams – community organising and persuasive messaging – the Virtual Global Study Tour is designed to build bridges between international best practices and our own movement, and strengthen our collective knowledge and understanding of international socio-political trends likely to shape upcoming state and federal elections. 

Understand what’s working and what’s failed in campaigns from the Americas, Asia Pacific, Africa, and UK/Europe, then in between ‘visits’ we’ll have intentional space to debrief in small groups, identifying key lessons along with risks and opportunities for application in the local political context.

The Tour is inspired by previous in-person US Study Trips, as well as Tours taken during Covid - which have enabled organisations working across climate, economic justice, racial justice, public health, workers’ rights, and more to embrace creative and innovative approaches to engaging and mobilising diverse audiences, and building people-power to secure progressive policy wins.

Is this for me?

• If you’re a senior level organiser or messaging practitioner, and you have decision making capacity over these strategies within your organisation – then yes, this program is for you. Please register asap as places are strictly limited. We encourage organisations to send 2-3 staff across the two streams, to deepen learning and enable in-organisation support when testing new approaches.

• The program assumes an existing level of prior knowledge on persuasive messaging or community organising, and organisational authority to design organising and messaging strategies.

Learning Outcomes

• Learn new approaches to organising and messaging from leading international practitioners and researchers including insights and reflections into what it takes to create high impact campaigns. 

• Leave the program with increased confidence and inspiration to design and deliver ambitious organising and persuasive messaging projects that build people power, and engage and mobilise diverse audiences. 

• Build bridges between international best practices and your own organisations and movements, and increase knowledge and understanding of international socio-political trends likely to influence upcoming state and federal elections. 

• Build relationships between local organisations and movements, across those leading organising and persuasive messaging strategies, with the high-trust cohort model enabling:

  • Space to identify key lessons, along with risks and opportunities for application in the local political context,

  • A foundation upon which practitioner networks that enable ongoing sharing of knowledge and intel will launch.

Dates and Times

The Virtual Global Study Tour will take place over 7 weeks from October to December online via Zoom:

Orientation Call: 

• Monday 12th October | 12:30PM to 2:00PM AEDT

Week 1 Learning Session: 

• Tuesday 20th October | 8:30AM to 11:30AM AEDT

• Thursday 22nd October | 5:30PM to 8:30PM AEDT

Weed 2 Reflection Session:

• Wednesday, 28th October | 12:00PM to 2:00PM 

Week 3 Learning Session:

• Wednesday, 4th November | 8:30AM to 11:30AM AEDT

• Thursday, 5th November | 5:30PM to 8:30PM AEDT

Week 4 Reflection Session:

• Wednesday, 11th November | 12:00PM to 2:00PM AEDT

Week 5 Learning Session: 

• Tuesday, 17th November | 8:30AM to 11:30AM AEDT

• Thursday 19th November | 5:30PM to 8:30PM AEDT

Week 6 Reflection Session:

• Wednesday, 2nd December | 12:00PM to 2:00PM AEDT

The learning session weeks will include international guests and run in different formats, including longer lectures and briefings, lightning talks, and conversations. The morning and afternoon sessions allow for broad timezone crossover with the UK and Europe, United States and Canada and South America, Asia Pacific, and Africa. 

The reflection weeks are an opportunity to debrief lessons and insights from the previous week, and discuss practical implications for our work. These sessions may also include local speakers in the Australian timezones.

The program is designed to build on content week-on-week, it’s an ‘all-in’ program and we require a commitment that you'll attend all sessions.

Scholarships

We offer full and partial scholarships ($200+GST) for First Nations people, people with disability, people of colour, refugees and people seeking asylum as well as unwaged activists. To apply for a scholarship, please complete an application here.

Accessibility

This program will be run entirely online via Zoom. Please outline any access needs during registration and to enquire about how we can help you participate in the training, please contact us at info@australianprogress.org.au.

Team Registrations

We are offering a 20% team discount for teams and organisations registering 2 people.

Other Information

More on accessibility | Code of Conduct | Cancellation Policy