Public benefit program
Free for the people who serve the public.
This is the part of the charter that costs us money. It is also the reason the company exists in the form it does.
The offer
Two ways this is free.
Full-time government and nonprofit employees take our online courses free. If you're unemployed or underemployed, tuition waivers are available. You apply when you register at learning.sd-agile.com.
Government and nonprofit employees
Full-time employees of federal, state, and local government agencies, and of non-denominational 501(c)(3) organizations. You apply when you register — no purchase order, no procurement cycle.
Unemployed and underemployed
If you are between jobs, or working below your skill level and trying to change that, tuition waivers are available. Ask when you register. These go through the same review as nonprofit access requests.
Who pays
Somebody has to pay. It isn't you.
Being straight about who does pay is the only way the free part stays credible.
Free
Full-time government and nonprofit employees take the online courses free, and their certification is heavily discounted. Government agencies and qualifying nonprofits also get the SaaS community version of the platform free. Anyone unemployed or underemployed can request a waiver — for tuition and for the certification fee.
Paid
Government contractors, systems integrators, and commercial organizations. Preferred rates are available, but only through the SD-Agile Partner Program — not for being a contractor.
Paid by everyone
A sovereign instance — the Azure Marketplace image or the cloud-neutral download — is licensed and paid for by everyone, including government and nonprofits. Free covers our cloud, not your cloud.
The part that isn't free
Training is free. Certification is not.
It would be easy to leave this off a page about free access. We would rather you heard it here than found out at the end of a course.
Everything above is about training — the courses, the material, the six languages. Earning the credential is charged separately, and that fee is a large part of what pays for the free side.
The fee moves with your situation the same way tuition does: waivers if you are unemployed or underemployed, heavy discounts for government and nonprofit employees, and bulk pricing for organizations certifying a team. You apply for all of it the same way — when you register.
How to apply
You apply when you register.
There is no separate application on this site, and no form here that goes into a void.
Create an account at learning.sd-agile.com. The registration flow asks what kind of organization you are with; government agencies and qualifying nonprofits go down a path built for exactly that. Eligibility is verified there, not here.
Waiver requests take the same route. Say so during registration and it goes to the same review queue. If you are not sure whether you qualify, register anyway and ask — the worst case is somebody reads your note and tells you.
For organizations
Free platform access, on our cloud.
The offers above are about courses. There is also a longer-standing program for qualifying organizations, and it has one important boundary.
Qualifying government agencies and 501(c)(3) organizations get free access to the SaaS community version of the SD-Agile Platform, plus the methodology resources — particularly organizations working in public health and social services, employment and career services, and veteran support.
The boundary: that covers our cloud, not yours. If you need a sovereign instance running inside your own environment, that is licensed and paid for by everyone. Organizations must also operate under a non-partisan, non-religious, and non-violent mission consistent with the benefit company charter.
Go find out.
Registering takes about two minutes, and browsing the catalog does not require an account at all.