2026: Transformative Solidarity
Connect with leading organizers and forge a network built for resilience.
Activate is a masterclass in movement building.
Explore what community organizing and people power look like during a polycrisis. Together, we will organize around what matters to working people in service of dignity for all humans and the planet.
It’s a rare opportunity to pause, strategize, and recharge over a 5-day retreat-style conference.
What you’ll gain:
- Connect with leading organizers in labour, advocacy, tech, and progressive politics
- Develop your digital campaign skills
- Rest, reset, and sharpen strategic clarity
Plenary Storytelling – Progressive Wins
- Unionizing Victoria’s Uber Drivers
- The Air Canada Strike
- Mayor Mamdami’s Historic Victory
- Beating ICE through Public Pressure
- Save the CBC
Workshops
- AI for Campaigns and Organizing
- Paid Media Beyond Meta
- Coalition Building: How Organizations Work Together to Win
- Entertain Us: Winning Attention on YouTube in the Age of Algorithms
- Messaging, Persuasion & Difficult Conversations
- Deep Canvassing & Persuasion Conversations
Skill-Building Sessions
Re-inspire your work, and be challenged by new ideas. World-class leaders will share game-changing secrets from their winning campaigns and engage directly with fellow participants with:
- One-on-One Advisor Sessions
- Peer Coaching Circles
- Roundtable Conversations
We have been shown our collective vulnerability. It is time for a collective response.
We are living through an affordability crisis amidst global democratic upheaval and climate chaos. When rent, food, and job security are on the line, movements need to speak to people’s real lives and offer practical paths forward. People’s values haven’t changed, but their priorities have.
Join us to ground yourself, find clarity, and fight through the fog of fear.
Past Activate Experts
“People’s values haven’t changed, but their priorities have.”
Shanaaz Gokool
Meet the Experts
Gain insights from leading strategists, campaigners, and organizers, including:
Activate Sessions
Progressive Wins: Stories of Victory in Hard Times
Across the country and beyond, organizers are still winning: union drives, elections, narrative battles, and fundraising campaigns. In this plenary, campaign leaders break down how they won, what strategy worked, and how to tailor their winning tactics for your personal context.
Unionizing Victoria’s Uber Drivers
The Air Canada Strike
Mayor Mamdani’s Historic Victory
Save the CBC
UFCW 1518
Shanyn Elliot, Air Canada Component of CUPE
Tessa Simonds, Managing Director of Blue State
Harvey McKinnon, President Harvey McKinnon Associates
How app-based workers organized in a fragmented, high-turnover workplace, and what this campaign teaches us about organizing in precarious work and the gig economy.
An inside look at a major national labour action and what it takes to win in a high-stakes bargaining fight.
A behind-the-scenes look at the strategy and digital organizing that powered a winning mayoral campaign.
How a national advocacy campaign mobilized public support, influenced decision-makers, and built a broad coalition to defend public media.
“Hope is a discipline. It’s a discipline that you practice: get the facts, understand what is fundamentally wrong, understand what strategies are effective, and strategize with others.”
Angela Glover Blackwell
Workshops: Leadership for the Times We Are In
Leading Through Backlash, Burnout, and Political Change
We are living through DEI backlash, rising authoritarianism, and growing economic pressure. This plenary centers the experience of leaders navigating this moment while building movements, organizations, and power for the long term
AI for Campaigns and Organizing
Mack Hardy
AI is already changing campaigning, communications, and organizing workflows. This session explores practical ways your organization can use AI tools for content, research, targeting, and automation- and where human strategy still matters most.
Paid Media Beyond Meta
Let’s stop giving Zuckerberg our campaign dollars! This session explores how campaigns can reach audiences across emerging platforms and diversify beyond traditional social media channels in a rapidly shifting social media landscape.
Coalition Building: How Organizations Work Together to Win
Coalitions are essential to winning campaigns — but they are also complicated. This workshop explores how to build coalitions, navigate competing priorities, manage conflict, and create partnerships that actually win campaigns.
Entertain Us: Winning Attention on YouTube in the Age of Algorithms
Oliver Pare
The algorithm is non-partisan; it just wants eyeballs. Discover the latest research about how fake content gets traction on Youtube, and how progressive movements can compete.
Messaging, Persuasion & Difficult Conversations
Winning doesn’t just require good messaging, it requires good conversations. This session explores persuasion, deep canvassing, and how to talk to people who don’t already agree with you, including neighbours, coworkers, and community members.
Deep Canvassing & Persuasion Conversations
Deep canvassing is one of the most effective tools for persuasion and movement building. Learn how structured, empathetic conversations can reduce polarization and move people on difficult issues in a time of epic divides.
Come together for 5 days of Transformative Solidarity: Connect with leading organizers and forge a network built for resilience.
Juhi Sohani, Action Co-Lab
Find out why Activate has a Net Promoter Score of 94%
Who Should Join?
- Advocacy leaders & nonprofit campaigners building strong digital programs and mobilization strategies.
- Grassroots organizers & labor union activists looking to strengthen community engagement and digital advocacy.
- Political strategists & movement builders working to secure progressive wins beyond the ballot.
- Tech & digital experts shaping the future of progressive organizing.
We need a diversity of voices in the room. To address economic barriers and ensure frontline community leaders can participate, Hollyhock offers a limited number of scholarships.
Apply for a Scholarship: Learn more about scholarships and apply here.
Explore your own resilience, power, and what it means to lead movements when the ground is shifting beneath us.
Take a look at last year’s ACTIVATE Agenda.
Join the Hollyhock Leadership Institute Newsletter for up-to-date announcements.
Build Community
Grow your network and forge genuine connections with like-minded campaigners and advocates who are dedicated to sharing their knowledge, and lifting one another up.
Activate is for:
We particularly invite anyone who:
- has been feeling burnt out, disconnected, or uninspired
- is looking to collaborate and find new partners, allies, or coalitions
- feels alarmed by fracturing within the movement and wants to find solutions
- is interested in discovering the most cutting edge tools and strategies, and translating that knowledge into your own organizing
- wants to more effectively engage the communities you serve, across generations and demographics
- has big ideas about how we can do things differently
Meet Your Team
The producers and advisory team behind Activate are movement leaders and strategists, curating the conversations and speakers that matter most.
Pricing & Accommodations
Package Pricing:
You can view availability of accommodations and rates on our Registration Page.
Learn more about our accommodation types.
Your all-inclusive campus rates include:
- Program tuition
- Accommodation
- 3 gourmet meals a day
- Unlimited coffee & tea
- Daily movement and wellness activities
- Access to hot tubs, sauna, and campus facilities
Getting Here
Let us handle the logistics. Travel to Hollyhock hassle-free with the Activate Participant Charter. With pickups in Vancouver and Nanaimo, you’ll ride in comfort, connect with fellow participants, and take in the beauty of the journey. Your trip wraps up with a 30-minute boat ride across the Salish Sea—keep an eye out for whales, seals, and eagles.
Short on time? You can also register your interest in a direct seaplane flight to Cortes from Vancouver.
If you’d prefer to organize your own travel to and from Hollyhock, check out our Travel Directions page for suggested options and costs.
Accessibility
We want everyone to feel fully present and supported at Activate. Learn more about accessibility at Hollyhock or reach out to [email protected] for any specific needs.
Scholarships
Hollyhock recognizes that economic opportunity is not currently equal. Our scholarship program is one of our key strategies to expand program access to underrepresented and marginalized communities. A limited number of scholarships are available with awards ranging from partial to full tuition
We encourage applicants from those whose identities intersect with, but are not limited to: Black, Indigenous, People of Colour, 2SLGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, newcomers, youth, and elders
Scholarships are now open! You can apply here.
Partners
“I recommend Activate to anyone looking to recharge, find community, and reconnect with their values or their sense of purpose and agency. You will leave transformed.” – Kate Catherall, Founder and Principal, Slow Clap & Co-founder and Board Chair, Arena
“Activate Hollyhock was like a week of masterclasses in life. The knowledge and skills I gained were invaluable. I’m taking home a refreshed mindset, a deeper understanding of the world, and a notebook full of ideas. This is education re-imagined.”