Australia
Social Design Academy (SoDA)
Why join?
Our Design Academy welcomes professionals from a wide range of sectors, including non-for-profits, government, and social enterprise, who choose it for its practical teaching from experienced practitioners, connection with a diverse cohort, and the chance to directly apply skills through real-life projects.
The program structure uses a parallel learning and project journey, coaching you through a real world project identified as a priority of your organisation. Each phase is designed to help your team learn key design skills, from discovery through to implementation, and to apply these directly into practice.
“It has been a great team building process, we now all talk a similar language and have a new set of shared experiences to draw on when we are considering innovation and service design.”
- 2023 Participant
Get bespoke design support and coaching to deliver a priority project for your organisation.
Build innovation and design capabilities to apply to complex social issues and systems change.
Be connected to a community of like-minded professionals and organisations.
How it works
The Social Design Academy (SoDA) Australia is an 8-month program that supports organisations, leaders, and practitioners to deliver real-world innovation projects, grow their design capability for social impact, and build conditions for systems change.
It runs each year from February to October* incorporating a mix of online and in-person sessions that support participants across Australia. Participants work as part of a team, or individually, on a project that has been identified as a priority for their organisation or community.
Past projects have included developing a campaign to end youth homelessness in Western Australia, designing culturally secure mental health services, exploring ways of sustaining arts engagement in regional areas, prototyping tools to support community connection, and exploring a community-led approach to end-of-life support.
*Program structure is adapted each year in response to cohort needs.
Workshops
Deep dives into design and innovation tools, skills, and approaches, led by experienced facilitators from the ThirdStory team and guest speakers.
Meetups
An opportunity for deeper connection and conversation, with each session focusing on a specific topic or project co-working and problem-solving.
Coaching
Bespoke advice and feedback as you develop your social innovation project. Teams each have 7* coaching sessions allocated across the program.
Project Showcase
A celebration where participants share their learning and final project outputs with other teams, project sponsors and supporters.
The team behind SoDA
The Social Design Academy is delivered by ThirdStory staff with complementary expertise in capability building, co-design, facilitation, community engagement, research, and systems change. Our team is experienced in leading design work in the social, education and health systems, and will be sharing practical learnings with participants throughout the program.
The Team:
Jethro Sercombe - Director, Innovation Practice
Claire Dodd - Senior Project Lead
Naomi West - Project Officer
Keren Caple - Chief Executive Officer
Find out more
Applications for our SoDA Australia 2027 open on 4th May 2026.
Email us if you have any questions about the program.
FAQs
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The Social Design Academy welcomes professionals from a wide range of sectors, including not-for-profits, government, and social enterprise. In the last three years, we have had 45 participants join from 15 different organisations, ranging from small to large not-for-profits, State Government, academia, and others. We also strongly value the participation of First Nations and people with lived experience in the program.
We recommend organisations sign up for 2 to 3 team members to join the program, to provide peer support and increase uptake of new ways of working.
What if I don’t have a team?
We find that people make the most out of the program when they join in teams, but we can support motivated individuals to undertake the program independently on a case-by-case basis. We can also explore options to team up participants across organisations where relevant.
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SoDA is primarily an online program, with fortnightly workshops facilitated online by our team. However, we recognise the importance of in-person interactions and if/where possible, we try to offer opportunities for participants to connect in person (e.g. meetups where participants are based in the same place). This said, we cannot guarantee in-person events as this will depend on the makeup of each year’s cohort.
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50+ hours of professionally facilitated workshops and learning sessions
7 personalised design coaching sessions (per team)
Curated program materials and readings, including practical toolkits
Experience applying design skills and tools to real-world projects
Opportunities to connect and learn with like-minded peers through the SoDA community, a network of current and previous SoDA participants
Access to experts in design, innovation and systems change
A dedicated space to commit time and energy to building design capabilities in your organisation
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The Social Design Academy program focuses on developing your team’s ability to apply design methodologies to social issues, build conditions for systems change, and lead change through complexity. The program content is delivered through fortnightly online workshops and regular meetups. View our Program Guide for more information on topics covered.
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SoDA is a project-based program, so participants bring real-world projects to undertake as part of the program. Projects are chosen in partnership with participants’ organisations, depending on internal priorities. As part of the recruitment and onboarding process, we support participants and organisations to refine the scope of their project. Projects don’t necessarily have to help you build solid foundations to take your project forward. Many of the teams we support continue growing their projects after the end of the program.
Over the last few years, we have seen projects delivered across a wide range of sectors (e.g., homelessness, disability, child protection, mental health). We have supported projects ranging from a focus on user research, service model redesign, all the way to systems change. For example, last year, we were privileged to walk alongside a cross-organisational team (Amber Lee from Indigo Junction, Elise Jorgensen from Mission Australia, and Si Lappin from Vinnies) who have been tackling youth homelessness in Western Australia. Read more about this project here.
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You will need to dedicate at least half a day per week to this program. This includes time spent in sessions, as well as time spent working on projects. The weeks on which you have workshops will be more time demanding due to workshops lasting 2.5 hours. We expect the time demands of your project work to vary throughout the program, with more and less intensive periods.
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Yes, we deliver a certificate of completion at the end of the program. However, please note that it is not recognised or accredited by professional or academic organisations.
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If your team is interested in taking part in SoDA but cannot join the upcoming cohort or are interested in a shorter version of the program, please get in touch - we’d love to have a chat.
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If you are an organisation interested in supporting a subsidised position, please express your interest here.
