Learning immersion
Build your capacity to design for change, reduce and repair harm, and transform oppressive practices in your work and systems around you.
$280*
*Equity-based pricing available (pay what you can afford)
If you're here, you're likely pushing for social or environmental change. You may be trying to design products, programs, and policies that center care, equity, and sustainability. You may be trying to root out exclusion and bias from your work. You may be even trying to transform toxic organizational practices and cultures.
But changemaking comes with many challenges. You often face resistance. You may lack guidance and resources. You may not know where or how to start. And you're likely perpetuating harm in your efforts to do "good." Because oppression is deeply rooted in almost everything we do — but we're often unaware of it.
The Grove is a community-centered, self-paced experience that helps you become more intentional, discerning, and values-aligned in your efforts to make change.
It gives you practical frameworks to design for social and environmental change, no matter your context. It helps you navigate through the complexities of change, especially in the face of resistance and capitalist pressures. It supports you in unlearning your oppressive conditioning.1 And it helps you cultivate practices of critical reflection, somatic sensing, and radical imagination.
1 - In simple terms, this is the influence we all carry from systems of domination and control, such as colonialism, racism (white supremacy), sexism (cis-heteropatriarchy), ableism, and capitalism.
The Grove is rooted in the ethos and practice of design changemaking. With an immersion into our unique frameworks, you will:
The Grove is for values-driven people who seek to create solutions, cultures, spaces, movements, and systems that contribute to meaningful change.
You may be a UX designer, researcher, technologist, facilitator, organizational leader, or educator making products more accessible, reducing environmental harm, designing workplaces rooted in care, or building services that truly support marginalized communities.
Your job title doesn't matter here as we believe that everyone designs. Your intentions and expectations, however, do matter. Check out the criteria below to determine if this is the right experience for you:
Think of this space as a quiet grove of trees that you enter with intention, leaving behind the urge for quick solutions. The Grove shows you possibilities, not the "right" way to make change.
Here, you'll engage in the work of detaching from oppressive systems: slowing down to practice critical reflection, unlearn harmful design practices, and realign with your values.
The Grove is housed on an online platform that's accessible for a lifetime. In it, you'll find:
We'll move slowly through cycles of learning and unlearning, each released once a week. You'll be invited into live community dialogues each season (i.e., every 3 months) for one year after enrolling.
Hi, I’m Sandra Camacho (She/Her), a.k.a. Sandra By Design. I'm thrilled to be your changemaking guide!
The Grove is filled with learnings from my 15-year career across Google and my independent practice, having helped thousands worldwide design for change. It distills wisdom from generations of changemakers and practitioners across social movements, geographies, and disciplines.
It also brings a lens of my lived expertise in navigating systemic barriers as a mestiza woman of color, long covid sufferer, and solopreneur/activist with unpredictable income.
These quotes reflect an earlier edition of this (un)learning immersion.
I propose a sliding scale model with three pricing tiers to make this experience accessible to as many people as possible.
Use our equity questions to guide your choice of pricing tier. If you hold financial privilege, you can engage in mutual aid and support equitable access to this experience for those who can't afford it by choosing the "Nurture" tier.
Note: Need to split into two payments? Email us and we'll set that up for you.
A "low cost" tier for those facing financial hardship. Limited slots available — you'll be asked to provide additional info.
A "full cost" tier for those with disposable income, professional development funds, or institutional support.
An "over full cost" tier for those with financial freedom who are able to contribute more to support others.
The Grove can be tailored to your team’s needs—including industry, challenges, and compliance—while staying rooted in a liberatory approach. You can license it as a private, fully customized learning experience.
