Shape a Solena Circle
in Your Community
Solena Circles launch in 2026, and we're building an early group of women who want to lead the first wave. You don't need formal leadership experience — just commitment, curiosity, and a desire to bring women together around a challenge that matters in your community.
If you're ready to make change, please join us to help design the Circle model across countries and cultures.
Apply to be a pilot CircleWhat is a Circle?
A Solena Circle is a locally led, intergenerational group of 10–25 women who meet regularly for connection, leadership, and one focused community initiative each year.
Each Circle chooses the issue that matters most to them locally — such as safety, livelihoods, leadership, care, or access to opportunity — and Solena provides the training, tools, and global network to support them.
Solena is a collective, with a goal of being self-sustaining.
Each Circle contributes based on local context, which sustain shared training, tools, safety systems, and the global Shared Fund that supports Circles and community initiatives across different resource levels. However, no woman or Circle will be turned away due to inability to pay.
Circles are:
- Locally led
- Intergenerational by design
- Supported by shared tools, training, safety and care systems, and cross-cultural learning
- Focused on one initiative annually, not scattered activities
- Connected globally through twinning
You bring the passion and determination. We bring the structure that helps you grow it into impact.
The Circle Lifecycle
Gather
Women come together, build trust, and choose a shared local challenge. They learn together from gathered resources and trainings from around the world on the Solena platform.
Focus
Based on local knowledge and these learnings, the Circle designs one initiative for the year — practical, doable, and rooted in the community.
Act
The Circle leads the initiative, supported by Solena's training, tools, and shared global infrastructure.
Reflect & Learn
Circles share stories, insights, and experiences with their twinned Circle and the wider Solena Learning Network.
Grow
Circles deepen their work, rotate leadership, and shape their next year based on what they've learned.
This rhythm keeps the work meaningful without being overwhelming.
Founding Circle Leads in 2026 will have access to:
Training & onboarding
Foundations in gender equality, leadership, facilitation, and community care.
Learning Library
Community-tested models, research, and practical tools contributed by Learning Partners around the world.
Tools & templates
Meeting guides, role rotation, shared decision-making, and initiative planning tools.
Twinned Circle
A twinned Circle for learning, story exchange, peer mentorship, and solidarity.
Shared Fund
Tiered dues that sustain Circles across contexts, subsidies for low-resource communities, and microgrants.
Membership dues are set on a sliding scale, with high-resource Circles contributing more and low-resource Circles fully or partially subsidized. No Circle is excluded due to cost. You'll join a global cohort of early Circle leaders helping shape the model in diverse cultural contexts.
The 2026 Cohorts
Cohort 1 · Q3 2026
Six pilot Circles begin
- Six pilot Circles form across more than one economic and cultural context.
- The first full test of the Circle pathway, from interest through to local action.
- Onboarding, facilitation guidance, and safeguarding systems in active use.
- Circle Leads shape the model alongside the Solena team.
Cohort 2 · Q4 2026
The network widens
- Around 24 new Circles join, building on what the pilot cohort learned.
- The Learning Library and training streams expand with Learning Partner contributions.
- Circles are twinned across countries for shared learning and solidarity.
- The first Shared Fund microgrant pilot opens.
Every cohort follows the same pathway
- 1Gather women
- 2Meet regularly
- 3Research & learn
- 4Plan the initiative
- 5Run the program
Circles join in two cohorts during 2026. After that, Circles can join whenever they are ready.
Who Can Start a Circle?
You don't need a title, credentials, or a background in development work.
Ideal Circle Leads are women who:
- care deeply about women in their community
- can bring people together
- value listening and shared leadership
- are excited to learn and experiment
- can commit to regular gatherings
- want to build something meaningful over time
Whether you're a student, a mother, a professional, a retired person, or an organizer — you belong here.
Join the 2026 Founding Circle Lead List
If you want to lead a Circle in 2026, join the early planning list.
You'll receive updates, invitations to preview sessions, and opportunities to co-design elements of the model.
Apply to be a pilot Circle