Tools for Citizens program supports civil society actors, community groups, organizations, institutions and foundations to identify and address organizational and functional needs by providing easy and accessible DIY tools, methods and workshops which were co-developed by Civil Society for Civil Society
The Toolbox | Content analysis
During the last three years (2017-2019), we worked together with Civil Society representatives from Turkey and Greece in order to co-create the content of the Toolbox. We collected and developed tools, methods and workshops, covering 13 different thematic areas.
In 2019, COMM’ON led the process of translating and contextualizing the Civil Society Toolbox to the greek context, making it available for the Greek community.
The overall content includes: 13 predesigned workshops (linked to thematic areas) 59 method cards (with step by step process) 46 background papers (theoretical models)
27 worksheets (exercises & templates)
Which are the thematic ares that the Toolbox covers?
INTERNAL COMMUNICATION & DECISIONS Develop healthy internal communication and decision-making processes inside your team. Identify ineffective communications practices; explore new models; or find solutions to conflict laden relationships. WORKING WITH VOLUNTEERS Lay a solid foundation and sustainable way for working with volunteers. Define volunteer roles and tasks, develop a support structure for volunteers, and create a strategy to recruit the right volunteers. ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES Improve roles and responsibilities in your team. Analyze whether responsibilities are fairly and logically distributed, if you need more hands on deck, and uncover new practices for internal knowledge sharing or communication. VISION & MISSION Develop your vision and mission statement. Based on your values and ideals, create a collective narrative and understanding which will guide your organization. STRATEGY Identify the best way to achieve impact or solve social challenges in your specific field of work. Create a new strategy from scratch or revamp an old strategy. RISK & RESILIENCE Improve your organization’s risk and resilience management. Get an understanding of your team’s risk tolerance, assess the risks of your organization, and develop a concrete plan for responding to potential risks. FINANCIAL MODEL Increase your organization’s financial stability and sustainability. Analyze your current funding strategy, explore new models and learn how to approach donors or try out an earned income model. KNOWLEDGE & LEARNING Improve your institutional knowledge management and learning. Get to know new methods of detecting, transferring, and storing information, experience, and know-how in your organization. COLLECTIVE IMPACT Build effective collaborations and partnerships for collective impact. Create a shared vision and develop an effective structure of roles within the partnership; set up agreements on communication, information sharing and strategic steps for your collaboration. CROWDFUNDING Develop a successful crowdfunding campaign. Analyze your network of supporters; identify potential crowd- funding anchors and build an effective crowdfunding strategy. WORKING WITH FUNDERS Build trust and strengthen cooperative relationships with institutional funders. Determine the kind of change you want to create within your funding relationships and learn how to develop a compelling narrative and communication strategy that supports the dialogue with funding partners. COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Plan and design a community event. Evaluate whom to invite to the event; identify the need and purpose of engaging the community and develop an action plan for implementing the community event. EVALUATIVE LEARNING Explore practices of developmental evaluation that encourage learning and innovation in your organization. Get an understanding of the purpose of creating an evaluative learning practice; identify areas where this practice can be applied and define how you can continue to practice evaluative learning in your working routines.
Find out more about the Toolbox: www.civilocietytoolbox.org
Available in English, Greek, Turkish, French | Russian and Ukrainian will be available in 2020
Tools for Citizens program was developed within the cooperation of MitOst (Germany), Anadolu Kültür (Turkey), Socius (Germany), COMM’ON (Greece) and AoHAthina (Greece) with the consultancy of Laden Yurttagüler and Yörük Kurtaran (Turkey), the contribution of HIGGS (Greece) and Impact Hub Athens (Greece) and the support of Robert Bosch Stiftung (Germany).