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 women who meet regularly for connection, leadership, and one focused community initiative at a time.
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, safety guidance, shared learning, and global connections to support them.
Solena Collective is a nonprofit building the shared infrastructure behind a global women-led movement.
Our goal is to build a model that can sustain this work over time. Circle participants who are able to contribute financially are invited to make regular contributions based on their local context. Together with grants, donations, partnerships, and other support, these contributions help fund shared training, tools, safety systems, global learning, and small grants for Circle initiatives.
A woman's ability to contribute financially does not determine whether she can participate in a Solena Circle.
Circles are:
- Locally led
- Intergenerational
- Supported by shared tools, training, safety and care systems, and cross-cultural learning
- Focused on one initiative, not scattered activities
- Connected globally through twinning
You bring your passion for change. Together, we build the relationships, shared learning, and global sisterhood that help local action grow.
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 cycle — 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.
How Solena Supports Circles
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.
Support for local action
As funding becomes available, Circles can apply for small grants to help turn their ideas into community action.
How We Sustain Solena Together
Solena is a nonprofit, and our long-term model is built around shared contribution rather than relying only on grants and donors.
Circle participants who are able to are invited to make a regular financial contribution based on their local context. These contributions are not a fee to access a Circle. They help fund the shared infrastructure behind the movement — including training, practical tools, safety systems, cross-cultural learning, coordination, and small grants for women-led local action.
Different communities have very different resources, so contributions will never look the same everywhere. Women who cannot contribute financially can still participate fully.
Together with grants, donations, partnerships, and other support, these contributions help us build a movement that can sustain itself and invest resources back into women-led action.
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.
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 Pilot Circles
If you want to lead a Circle in 2026, apply to be a part of the pilot!
We'd like to have 30 Circles starting by the end of 2026, and we'd love to have you help us shape this global movement.
Apply to be a pilot Circle