Acumen recognized early on that capital alone was not enough to address the problems of poverty, so we established Acumen Academy, the world’s school for social change. Our Fellowship program brings together cohorts of social enterprise founders working on problems of poverty. We equip them with the knowledge, skills and community to grow their capacity, develop their moral leadership and build scalable solutions.
We accompany Fellows for life, providing them with access to capital, community and actionable resources to help scale their organizations. Not everyone can be a Fellow, so we’ve developed online courses for anyone, anywhere seeking to create positive impact in their communities.
Does Acumen Academy teach systems thinking skills in its courses? (AI prompt and response)
Acumen Academy teaches systems thinking skills through its dedicated “Systems Practice” course.
This free, 8-week on-demand course teaches learners to apply a systems thinking approach to complex problems, covering:
– Mapping complex systems for clarity
– Identifying leverage points for high-impact interventions
– Creating leverage hypotheses for systemic change
– Developing frameworks for adaptive learning as systems evolve
– Mindsets like setting “Guiding Stars” and “Near Stars,” analyzing forces (enablers/inhibitors, upstream/downstream effects, structural/attitudinal/transactional forces), and SAT analysis
The course includes videos, readings, case studies and activities, developed with the Omidyar Group, and has been used by peacebuilders and social innovators for real-world applications like peace processes and community change. Upon completion, participants receive a Statement of Accomplishment.