Facilitator Certification in the FBMC

We’re glad to be able to offer a new set of workshops for folks who would like to lead FBMC Workshops in their own teaching programs, in their accelerators, and for their consulting clients.

Workshops to become a Certified Facilitator

To become a Certified Facilitator, folks will need to complete a series of three workshops, complete an effective “test run” of a workshop with CV and/ or Petra, and have CV and/or Petra confirm that the facilitator is ready to host FBMC workshops within their own programs. Facilitators will also need to complete a full FBMC Workbook for a business of their choice, and share this with the group of FBMC facilitators.

Certified facilitators will need to complete two foundational workshops (F0 on Canvases, F00 on Feminism & Business), as well as the full-length workshop that covers the entire FBMC tool (F5). (Details on these workshops are further down the page.)

Foundational Learning (required):

F0. Understanding the Design and Construction of the FBMC: Facilitators workshop (60 to 90 minutes)

F00. Understanding Feminism and How Feminism is Relevant to Business: Facilitators’ workshop (3 hours)

FBMC in Action Learning (required):

F5. Using the Feminist Business Model Canvas to Define Your Business: Facilitators’ workshop (6 hrs, with offline work in between two or three session, plus 60- 90 mins to discuss teaching plans)

Facilitator Workshops Paired with Student Workshops

In addition to the workshops required to become a Certified Facilitator, folks can also participate in any of five workshops designed to help them teach the FBMC for different purposes and at different levels of depth and complexity. These Facilitator Workshops are “paired with Student Workshops”, and listed below.

F1. Meet and Compare Business Model Tools: Facilitators’ workshop (90 minutes + 30 mins on teaching plan)

F2. (Introducing Feminist Business Models and the FBMC, 60 mins) Teaching Materials Discussion, 1 hr.

F3. Taking Students on a Tour of the FBMC: Facilitators’ workshop (90 minutes + 30 mins on teaching plan)

F4. (Exploring the Feminist Business Model Canvas, 3 hrs) Teaching Materials Discussion, 1 hr.

F5. Required: Using the Feminist Business Model Canvas to Define Your Business: Facilitators’ workshop (6 hrs, with offline work in between two or three session, + 60 mins on teaching plan)

Please note: For workshops F1, F3, and F5, the workshop covers all the information that will be presented to students, along with an additional conversation about teaching materials and teaching plans. The teaching section adds an additional 30 to 60 minutes to the facilitators’ sessions.

For workshops F2 and F2, we offer a one-hour discussion of teaching plans and materials.

Details about each Facilitator Workshop

Foundational Learning (required)

F0. Understanding the Design and Construction of the FBMC: Facilitators workshop (60 to 90 minutes)

This workshop assumes that facilitators are experienced with business modeling and canvases as tools. These facilitators are familiar with at least one of the conventional business canvases, and understand how to use these canvases as part of a larger entrepreneurship discussion.

This workshop shares the thinking behind the Feminist Business Model Canvas tool, so that you can have a deeper understanding of its strengths, weaknesses, priorities, and innovations. We’ll discuss where this tool fits in the larger universe of business ideation tools, and explore how the FBMC template, canvas, questions and process activate a different mindset about what business is and what it could be for.

We’ll unpack the overall structure of the template, as well as discuss each element of the canvas, how it is defined, how it differs from similar, conventional business concepts. We’ll consider each of the iterations and their associated questions, and we’ll consider how to make the tool more useful. This meta-understanding will help you be more nimble in the ways that you customize how you teach and use the FBMC.

Questions we’ll address include:

What do other canvases do, that aren’t enough for feminist/values-driven businesses?
What were other canvases missing? What gap existed that the FBMC was designed to fill?
What design choices went into the FBMC? Why these elements and not others?
Why so many questions? Why so many iterations?
How does the FBMC reflect and reinforce design thinking? Empathy? Product-market fit? Problem-solution fit? Feminist Product design?

Facilitators in this workshop will have a copy of the full FBMC workbook, and will be asked to read the workbook and sketch out the canvas of a business that they know, in preparation for the workshop. Facilitators will also be expected to offer feedback on the construction and design of the tool as well as how to explore both, so that we can improve.

F00. Understanding Feminism and How Feminism is Relevant to Business: Facilitators’ Interactive Workshop (3 hours)

This workshop introduces folks to ideas, terms, and basic analyses of inclusive, collective feminism. It recaps Chapter 1 of Feminism: A Key Idea, as well as the core concepts of feminist business/ entrepreneurship. We step into this workshop expecting to adjust in real time the scope, speed, and depth of the conversation, based on the interests and needs of participants.

The first half of the conversation will help you understand basic concepts and keywords in feminist thinking, so that none of the words feels opaque and all of them are useful. This discussion will focus on views from North American, English language-centric feminist scholarship.

We will consider:

Why use the definition of feminism proposed in the FBMC
Why feminism isn’t about being ‘feminine’ or just ‘for women’
The relationships between inclusive feminist and anti-oppression perspectives
Defining oppression, privilege, and positionality
Understanding gendering as a power-process
Gender vs. sex vs. sexual orientation
Intersectionality, matrix of domination, standpoint, kyriarchy, essentialism, parity, white feminism, Black feminism
Feminism vs Feminine vs Female
Why feminism focuses on flourishing

The second half of the conversation will focus on how inclusive, collective feminism gets applied to business. Topics include:

• The differences between a conventional worldview on business and a feminist worldview, including different definitions of success, scope, and reason-for-being

• What defines a feminist business

• What defines a feminist revenue model

• Feminist Business Values: what they are, what else they include, where they came from, what words folks might use instead.

Participants will receive some readings/ excerpts, a resources list, and a few exercises to complete on their own.

Facilitator Training Paired with Student Workshops

F1. Meet and Compare Business Model Tools: Facilitators’ workshop
(90 minutes +30 mins on teaching plan))

This workshop, for facilitators who are new to business models and / or canvases, covers the same ground as the workshop for Students — except that this workshop is interactive so that we can also discuss how we, as teachers, could introduce these concepts to students.

• Introduces business models as concepts

• Introduces canvases as tools

• Introduces some cluster of canvases (e.g., Osterwalder, Lean, Running Lean, Flourishing, Aulet) and Feminist Business Model Canvas

• Reviews an application exercise (Kassun-Mutch, 2021)

• Offers slightly deeper intro to the FBMC to show how it calls forth perspectives that differ from common assumptions

• Concludes with summary of strengths of each tool.

Facilitators will review the handout of the “Teaching Version” with overview, definitions, & template (4-5 pages) and offer feedback. They’ll also discuss a preliminary teaching plan.

F2. Teaching materials only, for Introducing Feminist Business Models and the FBMC (30- 60 mins to discuss teaching plan).

Teachers and coaches will already be comfortable with the student content of this workshop from having taken the required facilitators’ workshops.

F3. Taking Students on a Tour of the FBMC: Facilitators’ workshop (90 minutes plus 15 mins on teaching plan)

This workshop helps facilitators take students on a time-bound but complete tour of all the elements of the FBMC.

Introduces how the FBMC differs in mindset, process, and elements.
Takes participants through all the FBMC’s elements with just one or two questions per element. Encourages a bit of a ‘lightning round’ approach, where they sketch broadly versus digging deeply.
Concludes with a different ‘picture’ and ‘story’ of their business idea, that highlights values and social impact.

Facilitators will get the FBMC Tour Workbook (20 pages) to use during class, and to explore after the class to prepare themselves to teach. Facilitators will be asked to contribute a completed Tour Sketch of an FBMC for a business idea of their choice. As part of the discussion, facilitators will be asked for feedback on the teaching plan of the Tour session as well as the workbook, so that we can improve both.

F4. Teaching materials only, for Exploring the Feminist Business Model Canvas (30-60 mins to discuss teaching plan)

Teachers and coaches will already be comfortable with the student content of this workshop from having taken the required facilitators’ workshops.

Offers facilitators the core experience of the FBMC, with enough time and depth to see how the tool helps users transform their understanding of a business idea. This workshop also helps facilitators understand and anticipate how to help students with the challenges of modeling a feminist business.

Introduces/reminds students about business model canvases, with a review of Osterwalder, et al., canvas to offer contrast to the FBMC.
Explains the big picture of the FBMC showing how it differs in mindset, process, and elements.
Reviews the full, five-step process for working with FBMC.
Sketches the whole Canvas with a lightning round, then
Explores the “deep dive” experience by working through as many sections as time can manage, using work outside of the interactive sessions to continue to develop their business model ideas.

Facilitators get enough experience with the tool that they can complete the rest on their own. Following a particular sequence of elements (e.g., Begin with Strengths, then Intent, …. ending with Simple Theory of Change), facilitators can choose to complete or skip sections based on what they think will be the most useful to their learning.

Facilitators receive a full FBMC workbook (70 pages) that has every question for each of the five steps, plus an appendix of supporting background information. They are asked to complete their own FBMC by working through all remaining sections of the workbook. They are also expected to contribute a completed Canvas for a business idea of their choice. As part of our discussion of how to teach this longer workshop, we’ll share ideas on teaching plans to see how we can improve students’ learning experience as well as the FBMC itself.

FBMC Workshop Expectations and Recommendations for Facilitators

Folks who want to use the FBMC in their teaching and consulting will have different levels of knowledge of and fluency in business model canvases, as well as different levels of knowledge about feminism and feminist business. In addition, teachers will have different goals and reasons for incorporating the FBMC into their courses, programs, and consulting work. With these differences in mind, we’ve broken down some different kinds of Facilitators and identified what they will need to know to teach the FBMC comfortably and confidently.

Before teaching the FMBC, all facilitators will need to complete these three core workshops:

F0. Understanding the Design and Construction of the FBMC: Facilitators workshop (60 to 90 minutes)

F00. Understanding Feminism and How Feminism is Relevant to Business: Facilitators’ workshop (3 hours)

F5. Required: Using the Feminist Business Model Canvas to Define Your Business: Facilitators’ workshop (6 hrs, with offline work in between two or three session, + 60 mins on teaching plan)

Depending on their knowledge base, facilitators who teach the FBMC might also need to prepare by taking these workshops too:

F1. Meet and Compare Business Model Tools: Facilitators’ interactive workshop (90 mins)

F3. Taking Students on a Tour of the FBMC: Facilitators’ interactive workshop (90 mins)

Currently, we only offer a 30-60 minute teaching-oriented conversation for F2. Introducing Feminist Business Models and the FBMC, and 4. Exploring the Feminist Business Model Canvas.

We anticipate that the required facilitators’ workshops will give teachers and coaches the content knowledge they need to feel comfortable with student material.

Why all this training? There’s a lot to know, not only about the FBMC, or about teaching the FBMC, but also about the feminism that the tool reflects and supports. For more info on what knowledge Certified Facilitators might need, where, and why, please see this page:

What Facilitators Need to Know About Feminism and Business Model Canvases