WELCOME TO YOUR PLEN INSIDER!
Insights, opportunities, and tools for PLEN members
You've been busy. We've been watching!
Since the March edition, PLEN members in three countries have co-hosted an online event, 27 of you packed a room in Melbourne, and we have quietly grown to 155 organizations, and are welcoming 12 new members in late June.
This edition is our way of feeding that momentum back to you: sessions, tools, funding, and interesting opportunities.
And the big news 👉 Brussels, 18–19 November.
The PLEN Gathering during Better Politics Week 2026 - finally, all of us in the same room again!
1
THE 2026 PLENary
Better Politics Week PLENary session
📍Brussels & Online
📅 18-19 November 2026
We are so excited for this year’s PLENary!
Last year, 36 PLEs from across the world came together in the same room, exchanging learnings and finding their network of support.
This year, the PLENary comes to Brussels for two productive days of networking and collaboration. Around 30 PLEs in the same room, with the wider PLEN joining live through a hybrid window, so wherever you are, this gathering is for you.
Here's what's different this time; we're not handing you a program on arrival, we're asking you to help build it.
Five Session Formats are open to member-led proposals:
-
World Café corners
-
Simulation co-design
-
Ignite Talks on methods that worked
-
Festival of Embedded Innovations
-
Hybrid Window for members joining virtually
If you've got a method worth stealing, a question worth a room of peers, or an innovation that's been embedded somewhere real - this is your invitation.
📅 Proposals due: 30 June 2026
📚 Read the full call for proposals
➡️Submit your proposals here
2
EXCLUSIVE & FREE FOR YOU
Early Access to a New Tool: Switches and Dials (politicians use)
💻Available online
Switches & Dials is a self-directed workbook for political leaders navigating speed, complexity, and scrutiny.
Through a race car metaphor, it helps you map your Switches (the behaviors that should always be on), and your Dials (the ones you turn up or down depending on the situation). Click this link to open the workbook.
We'd love for you to test it with your cohorts and tell us what works, what doesn't, and what's missing.
Funding Collaborative Hub: Co-creation session - coming July!!
💻Online | July 2026
We have some ideas on the table and we want your feedback to make this as great and useful as possible! Join us for a co-creation session where we'll explore these and more:
-
Browse open calls and funding opportunities matched to you
-
Get paired with fellow PLEN members to co-apply and build stronger bids together
-
Be found by funders. We’ll showcase your work to them and help them reach out to you directly
More details coming soon. Sign up here to be at the session with us.
Roadmap to The PLENary: Let's start warming up for the 2026 PLEN Award
💻 Nominate by 31 August
We want to highlight your work worldwide, and this is your chance to put it on the map!
Six months out from The PLENary, we're opening nominations early to start hearing your stories of impact and innovation and sharing them across the community. We want to hear about your innovative and effective projects. Nominate an organization or put yourself forward!
Submit your nomination here by 31 August. We'll feature a selection in the next PLEN Insider, and every submission will enter the full evaluation for the 2026 PLEN Award.
What’s coming next?
-
The Better Politics Accelerator is opening its next cohort for Political Leadership Accelerators (PLAs) in August 2026. Applications open in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
-
The Better Politics Fund is going global. For the first time, political innovators from around the world can apply for funding to support their work.
-
A new call for applications is coming. We can't wait to see what you're building.
-
-
A new report on political leadership capabilities (coming soon).
-
BPF is putting the finishing touches on a new report exploring what it really takes to be an effective political leader. Drawing on decades of expertise across the political leadership ecosystem, the report proposes a Global Framework for Political Leadership Capabilities, mapping the knowledge, skills, and mindsets leaders need at every stage of their journey, from entering politics to holding office and beyond. PLEN Members will be first to access once it is ready to publish.
-
-
Anti-Authoritarian Toolkit (AATK) for Democracy Fighters, by D-Hub: A PLEN-only, online session with the D-Hub Team. Calendar invites will be sent out to all members. Access to the toolkit here
-
Political competence is expected of elected officials from day one, but it is rarely systematically developed.
-
We have spent the last year researching this gap, speaking with Members of the German Bundestag to understand what they need and what's missing. A new Better Politics Foundation report, with support from the Robert Bosch Stiftung, will present key findings and recommendations based on 50 interviews with German MPs and parliamentary staff across political parties.
-
The report will launch in late June at an event in the German Bundestag, where some of the MPs who contributed to the research will take part in a panel discussion.
-
3
FUNDING + EXTERNAL OPPORTUNITIES
L-HUB Exchange Learning: Apply by 20 June
💻 Apply online by 20 June
You've told us peer learning is where the real shifts happen. Here's funding to do it at scale:
The Public Service Leadership Hub has opened its 2026 Peer Learning Exchange Initiative - funding to strengthen cross-network collaboration across organisations working on political leadership and democratic renewal.
Two tracks:
🔄 Track A - Peer Learning Exchanges. Pair up with another organisation, swap practices, bring the learning home.
🌐 Track B - Ecosystem Learning Convenings. Host a convening around a shared question or challenge.
Why this matters for PLEN: the premise of our network is that the answers are already in the room - we just need better ways to move them between organisations. L-Hub is funding exactly that.
📅 Deadline: 20 June 2026
🔗 Apply here
Call for Proposals: FemFirst Research Observatory
📝Submit your proposal by 15 June
The FemFirst Research Observatory supports mid- to senior-career women and nonbinary-identifying researchers and scholars in contributing original research on feminist AI futures in South and Southeast Asia.
The Observatory will support 8 to 12 researchers, each of whom will develop two high-quality, original research papers of 6,000 words each.
4
PLEN IN ACTION
Hall of Fame Nominations: Extended Deadline 14 June
💻 Nominate by 14 June
Better Politics Foundation together with Democracy Culture Foundation announces the call for nominations for this year's 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘀’ 𝗛𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝗳 𝗙𝗮𝗺𝗲 to celebrate political leaders who have made outstanding contributions to advancing democracy.
Nominate candidates from your alumni; the awardees will be recognized at the Athens Democracy Forum (29 Sep to 2 Oct).
🔗Learn more &📝Apply
🌿 Contemplative Policy Retreat - (PLEN Special Rates)
📍 Yorkshire, UK
📅 26–29 June 2026
The Global Centre for Rehumanising Democracy (GCRD) is hosting the Contemplative Policy Retreat on AI, Democracy, and Human Flourishing - and they're offering PLEN members a special group rate. There are four themes:
-
Democracy Under Algorithmic Pressure
-
AI & Consciousness - The Inner Life of Machines
-
The Moral Architecture of an AI World
-
AI & Spirituality
Participants will co-create the Broughton Declaration on AI, Democracy, and Human Flourishing.
🌍 Nalafem Summit 2026
📍 Nairobi & Online
📅 1-2 July 2026
Power Meets Capital - When Women Back Women.
Nalafem is convening women political leaders across generations for two days of strategy, alliance-building, and collective commitment.
🏆Three months after the 2024 edition in Namibia, one of its patrons, Dr. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, became Namibia's first female president.
This year's summit, supported by the Solidarity Alliance, lands in Nairobi, Kenya.
🏳️🌈 Victory Institute Candidate & Campaign Training
📍 Denver
📅 9-12 July 2026
The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute's flagship four-day training prepares thousands of LGBTQ+ candidates, campaign staff, and community leaders to win.
Alumni include Colorado Governor Jared Polis & U.S. Representative Robert Garcia.
The format is a non-partisan campaign simulation, focusing on the specific obstacles to LGBTQ+ candidates.
Women's Training Extension: LGBTQ+ women applicants can stay on for an additional two days, 12–14 July.
5
GET INSPIRED!
PLEN Members co-hosted an online session
Arayüz Campaign (Türkiye) brought together Próxima Geração and Project Apollo for an online event exploring how to work with political leadership on youth - with reflections drawn from European experience.
The event took place on 28 April 2026. Read more
Melbourne PLEN Gathering (27 members)
The breakfast gathering took place during Women Deliver being hosted in Melbourne/Naarm to bring together Australian and visiting PLEN members and relevant organizations. Read more
RenovaBR event joined by Better Politics Foundation team in Brazil:
We thank RenovaBR for inviting the BPF team to share our learnings about political participation and tools for leadership development with their PLI cohort. Read more
Don't forget to include the PLEN logo in your events co-organized by PLEN Members or joined by PLEN Members, and share within your networks!
6
JOIN WHATSAPP & SHARE YOUR NEWS
📲 Big win, launch, or insight?
Share it in the WhatsApp Community channel. We’ll select highlights for the next PLEN newsletter.
📣 Join the groups and share wins, events, and opportunities
💡 Bring questions, dilemmas, and emerging ideas
➕ Suggest and activate new region or topic-specific groups
📲 DON’T MISS our last PLEN updates:
🌍 We have quietly grown to 167 organizations from 59 countries
🚨Call to Action: Review your information on our website and flag to us any potential feedback.
7
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
🎙️The Better Politics Podcast
Conversations with political leaders about how we get the courageous, trusted and ethical leaders the 21st century demands.
📝 The Better (Political) Leadership Substack
Practical, evidence-based reflections on leadership, trust, and the human side of politics.