The Naturehood Toolkit

THE NATUREHOOD CHALLENGE TOOLKIT Explore The Nature Of Your Neighborhood with Practical Tools For Community Action

I N T RO D U C T I O N

THE NATUREHOOD CHALLENGE TOOLKIT Explore The Nature Of Your Neighborhood with Practical Tools For Community Action

Contents Part 1: Introduction .................................. page 6 Part 2: Explore & Engage ...................... page 18 Part 3: Understand & Assess .............. page 30 Part 4: Brainstorm ................................. page 44 Part 5: Define & Develop ..................... page 56 Part 6: Implement & Test .................... page 70 Part 7: Resources ................................... page 80

“Design for sustainability, it is turning out, is not about designers telling other people how to live. It’s about the co-creation of tools and enabling platforms that make it easier for people to share resources – such as energy, matter, time, skills, software, space or food. Developing grand visions for futuristic new systems is an important part of the mix – but so, too, is nurturing a continuous wave of small adjustments.”

JOHN THACKARA 4

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Tools in this Toolkit EXPLORE & ENGAGE We want to explore & engage our community: Knowledge Hunt

page 22

3x3x3 Drill

page 23

Guided Tour

page 24

Causes Diagram

page 26

We Saw, We Heard Insights

page 28

UNDERSTAND & ASSESS We want to understand & assess the assets within our community: Three Horizons Model

page 34

How Might We?

page 36

Design Principles

page 38

Asset Mapping

page 40

8 Forms of Capital

page 42

BRAINSTORM We want to brainstorm ideas for our community: Case Studies

page 48

Discover Natural Models

page 50

Jam Session

page 52

Creative Workshop

page 54

DEFINE & DEVELOP We want to develop a project to implement in our community: Theory of Change

page 60

Ripple Effect

page 62

Define Success

page 64

Life’s Principals Checklist

page 66

IMPLEMENT & TEST We want to implement and test a project in our community: Prototype Testing Plan

page 74

Critical Tasks List

page 76

Spider Diagram

page 78

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PT 1

Introduction Who is this toolkit for, how does it work, and what function does it serve in the world?

This toolkit emerges at a time when we are just beginning to realize the breadth of our interconnectedness in the global world and the need to transition towards a more sustainable ways of living that are socially, economically and environmentally just for all who inhabit the earth.

In a world of change and transition, we need new ways to experiment that allow us to see what works and what doesn’t in a low-risk, local environmental.

Because of this, its important for people at the local level to start having conversations about the ways in which they want to live with one another and transition into this new world together. There is no one policy, project or vision that can lead us towards a more sustainable future. Diversity of thought and action in this transition will allow place-based solutions that work for the people and environment where the experimentation is taking place. When communities are able to reconnect with one another and their local environment, connections are made that strengthen our neighborhoods and make our communities better for all who inhabit them.

“In a world of rapid and profound transformation, we are all designers.”

EZIO MANZINI, DESIGN WHEN EVERYONE DESIGNS

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Who is this toolkit for?

What can this toolkit be used for?

This toolkit is designed for neighborhood and community associations to explore the Naturehood Challenge in their communities. While you don’t have to be a neighborhood association to take part, we have found that when neighborhood associations are working at their best that they provide a vital link between residents and local government officials. When this trust is built between residents and local government, further collaboration and change can be fostered in local communities – but that change has to start from within. This is community development from the inside out. We hope that changemakers in local neighborhoods can use this as a tool to foster stronger communities where residents feel empowered to make change.

This toolkit is composed of 22 tools to empower neighbors to explore and engage with one another; understand and assess the assets within their community; brainstorm ideas to reconnect residents to one another and the natural world; define and develop those projects; and implement and test projects to see what works, what doesn’t, and what can be improved. The first step towards collective action is conversation. Building trust and cooperation between neighbors at a local level is a way to build community resilience from the bottom-up. This toolkit is all about experimenting in local communities with better ways to live with one another and to reconnect to nature and the larger ecological systems that support our lives. While this is the framing that supports the Naturehood Toolkit, it can also be used to support other community work or neighborhood beautification projects.

For Community or Neighborhood Association Leaders If you a are a community or neighborhood association leader, this toolkit can help you activate other members of your community by showing them that their skills, gifts and opinions are a valuable contribution to the neighborhood.

Many communities still struggle with seeing their deficits and problems before recognizing their assets and skills. The tools in this guide will assist you in having conversations within your neighborhood that can help uncover the hidden potential within your community. By coming together and realizing a shared vision for your community, this will set a more positive tone for your community’s development rather than getting stuck in a never ending problem space.

For Long-Term Residents Looking To Make A Difference In Your Community If you’ve been living in a neighborhood for an extended period of time, you are probably keenly aware of the issues affecting that community and the changes it may be experiencing. Whether by an acute shock or chronic stress affecting your neighborhood, you may feel activated to make a positive change that makes your community a better place to live. This toolkit will guide you towards having inclusive and constructive conversations with the people in your neighborhood that will allow you to work through these issues and create a shared vision for a better future.

When should this toolkit be used?

The time is now. The Naturehood Challenge is an ongoing call-to-action for people in local communities to active their creative capacity to make change in their neighborhoods.

The people have the power to build a better world, and this toolkit is meant to be a source of empowerment to say, “yes, we can make our communities a better place to live, and I have these skills and assets to bring to the table.” Each tool in this book takes between 30 minutes to 2 hours to complete and would be an engaging and interactive activity to add to any community or neighborhood association meeting.

Where can this toolkit be used?

As populations are starting to move from the suburbs back into cities, urban neighborhoods are experiencing a lot of rapid shifts and will continue to feel the pressure to adapt to changing social, economic and environmental conditions.

Research for this toolkit took place in neighborhoods in Savannah, Georgia, however, any neighborhood or local community is encouraged to take part in the challenge.

For New Residents in a Community that are Interested in Creating a Naturehood Project When you move into a new neighborhood, either from out of town or even in the same city, it can be hard to know where to get involved and start building a social network within your community. If your neighborhood doesn’t have an association, or you want to start your own group of changemakers, the tools in this toolkit can help you get out into your community and learn about it’s history, it’s residents and it’s hidden potentials. Communities are always growing and adapting to changing conditions, but it’s important to work with the people around you and learn about their vision for the neighborhood as well as your own.

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PT 1

Background What insights and principles guided the creation of the Naturehood Challenge Toolkit?

The Naturehood Challenge emerged from a thesis project researching the effects of the consumer economy on community development and the disconnect of people from one another and the natural world. Primary research was conducted in Savannah, GA with leaders of grassroots organizations and community members engaged in sustainability initiatives within the city. Based on the key learnings from that research, the following design principles were created in order to address some of the issues that were emerging around community work and changemaking. These principles were then used to create the Naturehood Toolkit, and are the ultimate goals of this Naturehood Challenge experiment.

“Sustaining human life on Earth is too complex a task to embark on before understanding what being human is in the first place.�

ALEXANDER MANU 8

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Guiding Principles: Connect people in local communities through common purpose, rather than common ideology.

While bonding and bridging organizations both provide valuable social capital for a community, bridging organizations have an important role to play in moving towards a more sustainable future by connecting people through a shared purpose, in contrast to bonding organizations where people come together over shared interest. Bridging organizations provide a space for diverse people to come together and rally around a common purpose or place. The Naturehood Challenge will likely create bonds between people who have a shared interest in making their community a better place to live, but our hope is also to create a bridge between community members who may never have spoken or worked together before in order to create more inclusive spaces for collaboration towards sustainability.

Guiding Question: How might we foster bridging initiatives in local communities that bring diverse community members together to work towards a common goal?

Foster conversations in local communities that build trust and lead to collective action.

Respectful, inclusive conversations between community members lays the foundation for future collective action.

Every community and neighborhood is different, but in the communities studied for this research it became clear that lack of trust between residents is a huge barrier to community development. Conversation is the first step. How can we work together towards a shared purpose if we aren’t able to talk to one another and determine what that shared purpose is? Trust between community members and local government also needs to be fostered and rebuilt so that community work will have the support it needs to grow.

Guiding Question: How might we break the cycle of apathy between citizens and their local government and foster conversation in local communities that leads to collective action?

Foster relationships between people in local communities and build social networks.

Social capital plays an important role in community health and well-being, as well as providing the foundation for community development that is empathetic and inclusive.

While conversations are the first step towards collective action, relationships between community members are the glue that holds a community together. Social change and building more inclusive communities is a slow process that builds up over time, but it starts with person-to-person connection.

Guiding Question: How might we foster relationships between neighbors in local communities and build social networks?

Activate the creative capacity of people in local communities so that they can visualize their goals for their neighborhood.

Designers have an important role to play in activating the creative capacity of communities to visualize and actualize their goals for their neighborhood or community. The Naturehood Toolkit is designed for local communities to selforganize around a common purpose in reconnecting with one another and their place, and the tools provided will unlock the creative potential within the community to recognize and mobilize their assets.

Guiding Question: How might we design tools for local communities that unleash their creative capacity to visualize their goals and mobilize their assets?

Make it easier for changemakers to activate new people and avoid burnout.

Changemakers are those dedicated individuals within a community that are fighting for change, and can become burnout if they start prioritizing the health and well-being of the community over their own. The Naturehood Toolkit is designed for changemakers to have the tools to get more community members activated and involved in community conversation. By bringing more people to the table and activating their creative capacity, the hope is that more people within the community will feel empowered to get involved and make change.

Guiding Question: How might we design tools for changemakers that allow them to avoid burnout by activating more people within their community to become changemakers themselves?

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PT 1

The Naturehood Challenge How might we come together in local communities and reconnect with nature and one another?

(Re)connecting with People and Place.

The Naturehood Challenge is an ongoing call-to-action to reconnect with nature and one another in our local communities. In Western nations, our worldview is largely dominated by consumerism, product-based well-being and overconsumption which have produced many social, environmental and economic consequences for our communities and the global world. The Naturehood Challenge is a provocation to return to those things that cannot necessarily be bought – relationships between family, friends and neighbors and a connection to our local ecosystems. We hope that the Naturehood Challenge can strengthen our communities by bringing people together and connecting them back to one another and the nature that surrounds us every day.

The Naturehood Challenge: How might we come together in local communities and reconnect with nature and one another?

This toolkit will help you: 1. Explore your neighborhood and engage with your neighbors 2. Understand what assets you have available and assess how they can be utilized 3. Brainstorm ideas to better the community in which you live 4. Define and develop a community project with your neighbors 5. Implement and test your project to see how it works 6. Share your Naturehood Story!

“The only sustainable way to get out of the current worldwide financial and ecological crisis is to promote new economic models, new production systems, and new ideas of well-being.�

EZIO MANZINI

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Moving from a world that values economic profit over the health and well-being of people and our planet...

PROFIT

PEOPLE

PLANET

OUR CHALLENGE

PLANET

PEOPLE

PROFIT

... to a world that recognizes that the economy is a part of society, and that for society to thrive we need a healthy and abundant environment to live within.

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PT 1

Building Your Team This toolkit is designed for neighborhood associations or organizations to implement the Naturehood Challenge in their local communities. If your neighborhood doesn’t have an association or you want to take your challenge in a different direction, keep in mind that the main goal in organizing a Naturehood Project is to create connections between community members. Any Naturehood Team should be inclusive and welcoming to new members of the community that want to share their skills and assets with your project. While starting a Naturehood Project with your best friends would be awesome, the challenge is about getting out of our comfort zone and meeting new people in our community that you may never have worked with or even spoken with before.

Tips for Having Community Conversations: The first step towards collective action is conversation.

Having respectful and inclusive conversations can seem like a no-brainer, but so often we can find our communities torn apart by the ways in which we talk to one another.

Practicing these guidelines during conversations in your community meetings or interactions with neighbors will help build a more respectful and empathetic community.

The following guidelines are used by a group called Common Grounds that holds community discussions at The Foundry Coffee Pub in Savannah, Georgia every Wednesday night.

Guidelines for Civil Discourse: • This is a discussion, not a debate • “Try something on” • It’s okay to disagree; • It’s not okay to blame, shame or attack yourself or others • Practice ‘self-focus’; speak from personal experiences • Consider “both/and” speaking • Notice both process and content • Be aware of the intent and the impact of your words

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“Stewardship builds the capacities of people to design, create, operate and evolve regenerative socio-ecological systems in their place.”

REGENESIS GROUP

I N T RO D U C T I O N

Skills Sharing

TIME: 1 hour

WE WANT TO BUILD A NATUREHOOD TEAM by discover what skills and assets we bring to the table

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT: Encourage your group members to share their unique skills and determine what other skills you may need to reach your team’s goals. If you’re taking the Naturehood Challenge as a neighborhood or community organization, you’re probably used to working together and know how you operate.

However, even for groups that have known each other for a long time it can be beneficial to sit down and have an explicit conversation about what each unique team member brings to the table. Once you have this conversation, you’ll be able to see what other types of people you may need to join your team.

As your Naturehood Team grows, make sure to return to this step and add the skills of your new team members to your asset inventory.

ROLES: Team members

MATERIALS: Printer Paper Pen or Marker

HOW TO USE IT: 1. Hand out two sheets of paper to each team member On the first sheet of paper, ask people to write their names at the top and then list the skills and talents that they have. List everything that may be relevant to exploring your Naturehood Project. Also list one recent accomplishment.

2. Create something With the second sheet of paper, ask people to create something that expresses who they are and what they like. They could create a drawing or a collage. Group members could also make a skit, a dance, sing a song about themselves, and so forth.

3. Share your skills Ask each team member to share their pages. Take notes about what they share, and consider taking pictures and compiling everyone’s responses, especially if your group intends to add new members in the future.

4. Assess your skills and needs.

Once everybody has shared, ask people to put up their two sheets of paper on the wall. As a group, discuss the papers and write a new list of the skills your team has a lot of, as well as the skills you may still need. Keep this visible where you meet, so group members are reminded of these skills.

Source: Adapted from the Collective Action Toolkit

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New Ways of Thinking Transitioning to a new world will require different ways of thinking about our problems and how to address them. This toolkit combines multiple ways of thinking into a cohesive toolbox to explore with your community.

Design Thinking & Human Centered Design Design thinking is a creative problem solving process that focuses on rapid prototyping of ideas, iterative means of lopping back to things you’ve already explored when new things emerge, and human centered design strategies.

Human centered design brings the end users into every step of the design process; we’re designing with our community, not designing for them.

Systems Thinking Systems thinking helps us understand the interconnections between things. A change in one area can have consequences in another area that’s seemingly unrelated. Systems thinking also helps us address the root cause of a problem and not keep putting band-aids over the symptoms.

Asset-Based Thinking Asset-based thinking differs from needs-based thinking in that it starts on a positive note by looking at what’s going right, rather than what’s going wrong. When we start with our assets, skills and gifts rather than our needs and deficiencies, we leave feeling more empowered to take action in our own communities.

Biomimetic Thinking Biomimicry is a process that looks to nature for inspiration in solving human problems. The biomimicry mantra is that nature has been around for 3.8 billion years and has wisdom to share with us if only we are able to quit our human cleverness and listen. While nature might not provide all of our solutions for us, this way of thinking reminds us that we are not the only creatures on this planet trying to survive, and maybe we aren’t the most clever either. Let’s have the courage to ask more questions about how things work and listen to what nature has to tell us about learning to live more sustainably on this planet we call home.

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Its a Process.

While the tools in the book are given categories and a road map to follow, its important to recognize that this work is never ‘done’. Design thinking follows an iterative process in which we are constantly revisiting, revising and reconstructing our projects so that they have the impact that we’re intending.

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I N T RO D U C T I O N

1 Knowledge Hunt

EXPLORE & ENGAGE BRAINSTORM 4

3

Creative Workshop

Guided Tour

2

5

3x3x3 Drill

We Saw, We Heard Insights

4

1

Causes Diagram

Case Studies

1 Three Horizons Model

5 8 Forms of Capital

UNDERSTAND & ASSESS 2

Road Map This is a road map for exploring the tools within this toolkit. Each section is color coded and leads into the next section of tools. While your group may decide that using every tool isn’t necessary, some of the tools require work from previous tools in order to function properly.

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How Might We?

3 Design Principles

I N T RO D U C T I O N

1

3

Theory of Change

Define Success

2

DEFINE & DEVELOP

Ripple Effect

4

3

Life’s Principles Checklist

Jam Session

1 Prototype Testing Plan

2

3

Discover Natural Models

Spider Diagram

2 Critical Tasks List

4

IMPLEMENT & TEST

Asset Mapping

17

I N T RO D U C T I O N

PT 3

Explore & Engage

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I N T RO D U C T I O N

19

PT 2

Explore & Engage This section contains tools that will allow you to explore your community and engage with your community members. These tools will help challenge the assumptions you have about the community in which you live by gathering secondary and primary research. Exploring and engaging is about getting out into your community and talking to your neighbors, empathizing with their stories and bringing them into the conversation with you. Ask your neighbors to get involved and share the skills and interests they have to make your Naturehood Project even stronger. The more dedicated team members you have, the more change you can make. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up prototyping two Naturehood Projects in your neighborhood. How great would that be?!

QUESTIONS THAT THE TOOLS IN THIS SECTION WILL HELP YOU ANSWER: 1. What do we know about the issues affecting our community and what do we need to learn more about?

2. How can we gather stories from our neighbors about their lived experience in this community?

3. What are the root causes and contributors to the major issues affecting our community?

4. How can we synthesize everything that we’ve learned in order to move forward?

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E X P LO R E & E N G AG E

START HERE

1

PROPOSED EXPLORATION

Knowledge Hunt

3 Guided Tour

2

5

3x3x3 Drill

We Saw, We Heard Insights

4 Causes Diagram

NEXT SECTION

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E X P LO R E & E N GAG E

Knowledge Hunt WE WANT TO EXPLORE & ENGAGE OUR COMMUNITY by developing meaningful questions to explore

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT: Find out what your team already knows about your neighborhood and what else you’d like to learn. Depending on who is a part of your team, you may all have different knowledge about the history and issues affecting your community. Have a conversation and determine what you collectively know about your community. Then you can determine what you need to know more about in order to create your Naturehood Project. Start compiling relevant research and data about your interests.

TIME: 45 minutes with a team of 5-10 people

MATERIALS: Printer paper and pens

ROLES: 1 Facilitator 1 Recorder Participants

Optional: Tape, pins, camera, markers

HOW TO USE IT: 1. Give everyone a sheet of paper Ask each person to write down a question, big or small, that is relevant to the group’s problem. Limit the group to one question for each sheet of paper.

2. Pin up the questions After everyone has written down a question, pin or tape up all the questions. If you don’t have enough wall space, you can spread them out on the floor.

3. Answer the questions Have everyone walk around the room and respond to as many questions as they can by writing their answers directly on the pieces of paper. If someone thinks of a new question, write it down and add it to the others.

4. Share and prioritize unanswered questions Read all the questions and responses aloud to the group.

Identify important questions the group still needs to answer by putting a check mark or star next to them. Make a list of these questions and decide how the group can answer them.

22 Source: Adapted from frog’s Collective Action Toolkit

E X P LO R E & E N G AG E

3x3x3 Drill

TIME: 1-2 hours

WE WANT TO EXPLORE & ENGAGE OUR COMMUNITY by getting out and talking to community members

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT: Walk around your neighborhood and collect three stories from three different people in three different places.

Hopefully you can start to empathize with what you hear from your neighbors. This drill is a quick and easy way to start getting stories from people in your community about their experiences. If you’re working on a Naturehood Project for your community, its important to get as much feedback and input from your neighbors as possible in order to make it impactful and inclusive. Depending on how much time you have, you can interview five or ten people in your community, rather than just three. This is just an initial exercise to get you started.

ROLES: Team members Interviewees

MATERIALS: Notebook Pen or Marker

HOW TO USE IT: 1. Decide what questions you want to ask Pick one to three questions that you want to explore that are relevant to your Naturehood Project. It could be questions like, “When was a time you felt truly connected to this community?” or “How do you engage with nature in our neighborhood?” Your questions will change depending on what direction you want your Naturehood Project to take.

2. Go to three different locations in your community Take a walk around your neighborhood and talk to people on three different streets or sections of your community.

3. Ask your question to three different people If you find multiple people in one place, feel free to get responses from everyone. Just make sure you get two more people in two more places!

4. Document the stories to report back to your team Bring a notebook to record people’s answers to your questions so that you can report back to your team on what you’ve learned. If you want to focus more on the conversation than on writing everything down, ask if your interviewee is comfortable with you recording their answer to transcribe after you’re done.

Source: Adapted from Think Wrong, Future Partners LLC

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E X P LO R E & E N GAG E

Guided Tour

TIME: 1-2 hours

WE WANT TO EXPLORE & ENGAGE OUR COMMUNITY by taking a tour of our neighborhood with fresh eyes

ROLES: 1 Tour Guide 1 Community Engagement Coordinator Participants

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

A guided tour will allow you the explore the nature of your neighborhood in terms of the people and natural world that surrounds you every day. Getting out and exploring with fresh eyes and activating your teams assets is a great way to build momentum and bring new people into the conversation.

1. Find a tour guide Every community is different. In this case study mentioned on the next page, there was a local biologist who gave ecology tours during a litter pickup event. While not every community may have a biologist living next door, we all have our own skills and backgrounds to share. What could you give a tour about?

Are there any community elders that could give a history tour?

2. Organize your event Once you find a tour guide and have a better understanding of what your tour will consist of, start inviting your neighbors and community members out for the big event. Maybe they’ll have something else to contribute to the big day.

3. Make it happen On the day of the event, come prepared with some questions about what you’d like to take away from this experience. What did you expect to happen? How many community members that attended already knew one another? How can we make this event more inclusive for the next time?

24 Source: Adapted from frog’s Collective Action Toolkit

E X P LO R E & E N G AG E

Case Study: Naturehood Tours and Litter Pickup On Saturday, April 14th, a biologist and community organizer lead a group of volunteers around their neighborhood to learn about their local biodiversity and clean up litter along the way. Savannah is known for it’s Live Oak trees, Spanish Moss and proximity to the marsh and marine ecosystems along the Georgia Coast – but this program shows that you don’t have to go all the way to Tybee to experience the beauty of the natural world. The Naturehood Tour and Litter Pickup event is designed to allow people to learn about the nature in their neighborhoods and internalize how litter has an impact on their local ecosystem. By cleaning up litter in your neighborhood, you’re making a tangible impact on the health of your local ecosystem by not allowing that trash to end up flowing through storm drains and into local waterways.

By getting out and taking action with your neighbors, you’re building social bonds that make your community stronger and more resilient.

This event was prototyped in Savannah’s Historic Downtown neighborhood the weekend before the 2018 Savannah Earth Day Festival. Learn more about how the prototype worked and what the team learned from getting out and testing a project in their community:

HOW DOES IT WORK? Organizers brought gloves, trash grabbers, burlap bags, cups for cigarette butt collection, clipboards and litter checklists for documenting during the duration of the tour. Groups of 2 people were paired together: one person was in charge of documentation and the other was in charge of litter pickup, and they could switch roles when needed. The biologist led the group and discussed biodiversity along the way, some at designated stopping points and some as they emerged along the tour route. After the tour, the organizers separated the recycling from the trash and disposed of what was collected.

IDEAS FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS: 1. Naturehood Tours could to expanded by reading out to local universities and finding interested biologists and ecologists who are interested in running Naturehood Tours.

2. Tours don’t have to just be focused on local biodiversity. A neighborhood elder could give history tours while doing litter pickup along the way.

EXTENDING THE CHALLENGE: 1. What kind of tour would you lead in your community?

2. What skill sets do your neighbors have that they could lead a tour about?

3. How does litter impact your community and what makes it different from the litter in other neighborhoods?

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E X P LO R E & E N GAG E

Causes Diagram

TIME: 1-1.5 hours

WE WANT TO EXPLORE & ENGAGE OUR COMMUNITY by exploring the root causes of issues that affect us

ROLES: 1-2 Facilitators Participants

MATERIALS: Parchment paper Sharpies Post it Notes

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

What is the root cause of a problem? Often there isn’t one simple answer. The bigger the problem, the more likely it is that the roots will be widespread. The Causes Diagram helps you think of a problem in a thorough manner and provides a structured way to analyze it. It pushes you to deconstruct all possible causes for the problem rather than the obvious ones. Use it to analyze a new problem or highlight the gaps in an existing one. It differentiates causes from effects or symptoms, giving you a better idea of the solutions needed to solve a problem permanently, and helps to build a shared understanding of what it is you’re working on.

1. Identify the core problem you are trying to resolve Discuss and define with your team what the main issue is that your Naturehood Project is trying to address. You may have more than one Core Problem to explore.

2. Write down the symptoms of that problem What symptoms of this problem do you see manifesting in your community? These may be people involved with the problem, systems, equipment, materials, external forces, etc.

Try drawing out as many symptoms as possible.

3. Discuss the underlying causes Now fill out the underlying causes to those symptoms, and explore the contributing factors that amplify those causes.

4. Review your answers Once the worksheet has been filled out, go through each symptom and cause with your team and consider if they are correctly placed, and discuss what you can learn from this in terms of clarifying the goals of your Naturehood Project. Be careful to not mix the causes of a problem with its symptoms as you note these down - a cause is the reason why something happens, while a symptom is usually what we see as the end result of the problem.

5. Getting stuck? Try the 5 Whys.

If you’re getting stuck on a particular cause and effect of your core problem, try asking yourself ‘why?’ five times to help you dig deeper towards the root cause.

26 Source: Adapted from Nesta and Rockefeller Foundation’s DIY Toolkit

E X P LO R E & E N G AG E CAUSES DIAGRAM

CORE PROBLEM What is the core issue that your Naturehood Project is tackling?

You may want to explore more than one.

DIRECT SYMPTOMS What are the symptoms of that problem that manifest in your community?

DIRECT SYMPTOMS What are the symptoms of that problem that manifest in your community?

UNDERLYING CAUSES What are the identifiable causes of that symptom?

UNDERLYING CAUSES What are the identifiable causes of that symptom?

CONTRIBUTING FACTORS What factors contribute to those underlying causes?

CONTRIBUTING FACTORS What factors contribute to those underlying causes?

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E X P LO R E & E N GAG E

We Saw, We Heard

TIME: 55 mins for a group of 10

WE WANT TO EXPLORE & ENGAGE OUR COMMUNITY by discussing our findings and locating patterns

ROLES: 1 Facilitator Team Members Recorders

MATERIALS: Sticky Notes Pens Camera

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

This tool is a way to find connections between the data that you’ve collected during the Knowledge Hunt, 3x3x3 Drill and the other tools in this section. We Saw, We Heard will help you move into the Understand & Assess section with a better grasp on the issues affecting your community, as well as some of the underutilized assets within your community that may also be emerging through your research.

1. Prepare your data Go back through your Knowledge Hunt and 3x3x3 Drill findings and write down one data point per sticky note.

Prep your data

10

mins

We Saw, We Heard Total Time: 1 hour

Compile your data

5

mins

Cluster your data

20

mins

Discuss data + create insights

20

mins

2. Compile your data Once all the team members have completed Step 1, put all of your stickies notes down on a large table.

3. Cluster your data Each team member then takes one sticky note at a time and sticks it onto the wall. Start to cluster sticky notes that are similar in meaning to one another. It’s important not to get stuck on key words; cluster based on what the data means for you. Keep clustering until you have your final groups of 8 or less sticky notes.

4. Discuss your findings After clustering, create a sticky note that categorizes each grouping. Each group should have one sticky note that represent how they all related to one another. What stands out? What patterns are emerging?

5. Create insights What have you learned about your community? Create 5-7 insights that represent what you’ve learned. You’ll come back to these throughout your process.

28 Source: Adapted from frog’s Collective Action Toolkit

E X P LO R E & E N G AG E WE SAW, WE HEARD INSIGHTS RAW DATA Once you’ve clustered your data together, collect them all here for your record.

CATEGORY What category title best represent all the raw data points that you clustered together?

INSIGHT What do these data points teach you about your community?

RAW DATA

CATEGORY What category title best represent all the raw data points that you clustered together?

INSIGHT What do these data points teach you about your community?

RAW DATA

CATEGORY What category title best represent all the raw data points that you clustered together?

INSIGHT What do these data points teach you about your community?

RAW DATA

CATEGORY What category title best represent all the raw data points that you clustered together?

INSIGHT What do these data points teach you about your community?

RAW DATA

CATEGORY What category title best represent all the raw data points that you clustered together?

INSIGHT What do these data points teach you about your community?

29

E X P LO R E & E N GAG E

PT 3

Understand & Assess

30

E X P LO R E & E N G AG E

31

PT 3

Understand & Assess This section of tools will allow you to understand and assess the assets within your community and create a shared vision of a desired future for your neighborhood.

Every community has different assets to utilize to tackle their unique problems, and understanding them is key to developing an impactful Naturehood Project. Your team will need to refer back to your findings from Exploring & Engaging in order to create guiding questions and principles for how you want your project to continue. These will help you in the next section where you’ll be Brainstorming potential Naturehood Projects for your community.

QUESTIONS THAT THE TOOLS IN THIS SECTION WILL HELP YOU ANSWER: 1. What is the current state of the world and what is the future state that our project is working towards?

2. What guiding questions and principles can we create to lead our team towards an impactful project?

3. What are the assets within our community that we can utilize in developing our Naturehood Project?

32

U N D E R STA N D & A S S E S S

START HERE

1

PROPOSED EXPLORATION

Three Horizons Model

3 How Might We

2

5

Design Principles

8 Forms of Capital

4 Asset Mapping

NEXT SECTION

33

U N D E R STA N D & A S SE S S

3 Horizons Model

TIME: 1-1.5 hours

WE WANT TO UNDERSTAND & ASSESS THE ASSETS WITHIN OUR COMMUNITY by defining our vision and how we plan to get there

ROLES: 1 Facilitator 1 Time Keeper Participants

MATERIALS: Parchment paper Sharpies Post it Notes

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

Bill Sharpe of the International Futures Forum developed the Three Horizons model as a way to challenge current assumptions about the world, map emerging practices and discuss how to move into a desired future state. The model depicts the prevalence (mapped on the x-axis) over time (mapped on the y-axis) of each of the three horizons.

Horizon 1 (the red line) shows how the dominant systems we adhere to are losing fitness for purpose in a changing world, such as our reliance on fossil fuels to fuel the global economy. Horizon 3 (the green line) represents a future state where the planetary capacity for personal and group transformation is sufficient and growing. Horizon 2 (the blue line) visualizes the transformative capacity building journey towards Horizon 3. Therefore, Horizon 2 is a state of transition towards the ideal future state. The Three Horizons Model is a powerful tool for articulating the change we want to see in the world, specifically in the context of communitybased development where communities are the key actors in determining the future development of their community.

1. Identify Horizon 1 What current institutions, ideas and practices used to be acceptable and common place, but are now losing their fitness for purpose? What values and practices could be damaging to your community moving forward?

34 Source: Adapted from Bill Sharpe, International Futures Forum

2. Envision Horizon 3 What is your community’s vision for the future? What practices and values does your community want to see brought into the future?

3. Strategize about Horizon 2 Brainstorm about what can you do as a community to bring Horizon 3 into being. What small steps can you take together to get to your desired future? Where does your Naturehood Project fall along Horizon 2?

U N D E R STA N D & A S S E S S THREE HORIZONS MODEL 1st Horizon Current paradigms, assumptions, data, and infrastructure

2nd Horizon Incremental adjustments Transformational experiments

3rd Horizon Emerging paradigms, ideas, and innovations

Pockets of the future found in the present

HORIZON 1 What practices and values are currently accepted in the mainstream that your community identifies as being damaging moving forward?

HORIZON 3 What practices and values does your community want to see brought into the future? What is the desired future that your community envisions?

HORIZON 2 What can you do as a community to bring Horizon 3 into being?

What small steps can you take together to get to your desired future?

Where does your Naturehood Project fall along Horizon 2?

35

U N D E R STA N D & A S SE S S

How Might We?

TIME: 1 hour ROLES: 1-2 Facilitators Participants

WE WANT TO UNDERSTAND & ASSESS THE ASSETS WITHIN OUR COMMUNITY by creating guiding questions to explore

MATERIALS: Parchment paper Sharpies Post it Notes

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

Translate your insight statement into opportunities for design by re-framing them as questions. Now that you’ve identified some problem areas to explore for your Naturehood Challenge, try re-framing your insights into questions to turn your challenge into an opportunity. A properly framed How Might We question doesn’t suggest a particular solution, but gives you the perfect frame to explore potential projects.

1. Turn insights into questions Start by looking at the insight statements that you created out of the We Saw, We Heard tool. Try rephrasing them as questions by adding ‘How might we’ at the beginning.

2. One insight can have multiple HMWs The goal is to find opportunities for design, so if your insights suggest several How Might We questions, that’s great.

3. Make sure your HMWs are broad enough Now take a look at your How Might We questions and ask yourself if they allow for a wide variety of solutions. If they don’t, broaden them. Your How Might We’s should generate a number of potential solutions and will be the launchpad for your brainstorming.

4. Make sure your HMWs are narrow enough Finally, make sure that your How Might We’s aren’t too broad. It’s a tricky process but a good How Might We should give you both a narrow enough frame to let you know when to start your Brainstorm, but also enough breath to give you room to explore wild ideas.

36 Source: Adapted from IDEO’s Field Guide to Human Centered Design

U N D E R STA N D & A S S E S S HOW MIGHT WE?

INSIGHT Copy your insights from the We Saw, We Heard tool here.

HOW MIGHT WE...

Turn your insight into a guiding question for your team to explore.

INSIGHT

HOW MIGHT WE...

INSIGHT

HOW MIGHT WE...

INSIGHT

HOW MIGHT WE...

INSIGHT

HOW MIGHT WE...

37

U N D E R STA N D & A S SE S S

Design Principles

TIME: 1-1.5 hours

WE WANT TO UNDERSTAND & ASSESS THE ASSETS WITHIN OUR COMMUNITY by creating guiding principles that utilize our skills

ROLES: 1-2 Facilitators Participants

MATERIALS: Parchment paper Sharpies Post it Notes

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

Design principles are the guardrails of your solution – quick, memorable recipes that will help you keep further project ideas consistent with your goals. These principles describe the most important elements of your solution and give integrity to your project. You’ll also find that they’ll evolve as you design things, so don’t be afraid to revise them if they no longer fit your purposes. Keep them short and memorable, like, “Talk like people talk” or “Keep women at the center of business.”

1. Start with your insights Look at the insights from the We Saw, We Heard tool and copy them into the first row of boxes. You can also include any other findings that have been emerging as major themes.

2. What are their core principles?

Consider the core principles underlying those themes. Frame these as positive statements that might tell you how and what your project will become. Remember, design principles operate as a group, and it’s likely that you’ll need to identify several.

3. Look at the design principles you’ve identified Are they short and to the point? Try to avoid overly complicating them. If it feels like there are multiple ideas going on, break them into smaller part. Review your design principles and make sure they cover the key aspects of your project. Modify any that don’t.

4. Modify along the way Be ready to modify your design principles as you start to build prototypes and test your ideas. Some design principles won’t reveal themselves until you’ve actually designed and tested something, but once you spot them they’ll become essential.

38 Source: Adapted from IDEO’s Field Guide to Human Centered Design

U N D E R STA N D & A S S E S S DESIGN PRINCIPLES INSIGHT Copy your insights from the We Saw, We Heard tool here.

DESIGN PRINCIPLE What is the core principle underlying this insight?

INSIGHT

DESIGN PRINCIPLE

INSIGHT

DESIGN PRINCIPLE

INSIGHT

DESIGN PRINCIPLE

INSIGHT

DESIGN PRINCIPLE

39

U N D E R STA N D & A S SE S S

Asset Mapping

TIME: 1-1.5 hours

WE WANT TO UNDERSTAND & ASSESS THE ASSETS WITHIN OUR COMMUNITY by mapping the assets we have in our community

ROLES: 1 Facilitator Team Members Participants

MATERIALS: White board or paper Markers Sticky Notes Google Maps

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

Mapping the assets you have within your community can help you identify hidden potential as well as possible partners and collaborators for your Naturehood Project.

Asset mapping is the opposite of needs mapping which is often done at the outset of any community development project. While needs and issues will still need to be addressed, starting with your communities skills and assets is a way to shift the conversation towards community empowerment in being able to mobilize their own resources, rather than needs based approaches in which outside ‘experts’ provide solution services to a community.

1. Start with the gifts and skills of individuals Start with the skills and assets of people in your own team by using the Skills Sharing tool in the introduction section.

Next, extend outside your teams skills and into the broader community. This step may require getting out into your community and talking to people about what they have to share. Don’t be afraid to get more people involved in your process.

2. Move on to larger citizen’s associations What types of associations and organizations exist within your community or neighborhood? Identifying these early on in the process will help you see who you could potentially partner with or get feedback from throughout your project development.

3. Expand to your local institutions What are the larger organizations outside of your community that could be assets to your project? The best projects come from collaboration, and identifying important stakeholders early on can help you in the Implement & Testing phase of the process.

40 Source: Adapted from the ABCD Institute

U N D E R STA N D & A S S E S S ASSET MAPPING

LOCAL INSTITUTIONS What other local institutions could you partner with or use as a resource?

CITIZEN’S ASSOCIATIONS What other local institutions could you partner with or use as a resource?

Local Businesses and Industries

Places of Worship

Block Clubs

Schools, Colleges, Universities

GIFTS OF INDIVIDUALS Community Youth

Income

Talents & Skills

Elderly

Artists

Local and State Parks

Libraries Neighborhood Associations

Cultural Groups

Hospitals

41

U N D E R STA N D & A S SE S S

8 Capitals

TIME: 1.5 hours

WE WANT TO UNDERSTAND & ASSESS THE ASSETS WITHIN OUR COMMUNITY by mapping the types of capital available to us

ROLES: 1 Facilitator Participants Recorders

MATERIALS: Printer paper Pens Camera

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

Ethan Roland of AppleSeed Permaculture created the 8 Forms of Capital and Currency framework to describe a way of designing a financial system that acts more like an ecosystem. By recognizing the complex flows between different types of capital, we can see that financial capital is only one piece of the puzzle and that value within a community is created in many other ways. This tool will help you activate your learnings from Asset Mapping and expand them to see how value is either created or wasted in your community based on the flows between the different types of capital. As with financial capital, any of the capitals can be in the form of equity or debt. Just as you may owe a debt to a bank, you can also ‘owe’ favors within your social capital.

1. Map the different forms of capital in your community By mapping what forms of capital are accessible to your community, you can start to see which of the areas can still be improved and expanded upon. A neighborhood with a wealth of financial capital may be lacking in social capital and connections between community members. A neighborhood with a lot of intellectual and cultural capital may be lacking in some of the other capitals. What makes your neighborhood different from the neighborhood across town?

2. Discuss the currency being created by that capital 3. Discuss what value is being created or wasted 4. Discuss a path for moving forward Now that you see which capitals your neighborhood is abundant in and which are lacking, you can start to have conversation about steps for improving the capitals that are lacking. How can you increase your neighborhood’s social and living capital, and can you utilize any of the other capitals in order to make that happen?

42 Source: Adapted from Appleseed Permaculture’s 8 Forms of Capital Framework

U N D E R STA N D & A S S E S S TYPE OF CAPITAL

TYPE OF CURRENCY

TYPE OF VALUE FLOW

SOCIAL CAPITAL:

CONNECTIONS:

INFLUENCE, RELATIONSHIPS:

MATERIAL CAPITAL:

MATERIALS, NATURAL RESOURCES:

TOOLS, BUILDINGS, INFRASTRUCTURE:

FINANCIAL CAPITAL:

MONEY, FUNDING:

FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS AND SECURITIES:

LIVING CAPITAL:

CARBON, NITROGEN, WATER:

SOIL, LIVING ORGANISMS, LAND, ECOSYSTEM SERVICES:

INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL:

IDEAS, KNOWLEDGE:

WORDS, IMAGES, ‘INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY’:

SPIRITUAL CAPITAL:

PRAYER, FAITH, INTENTION, KARMA:

SPIRITUAL ATTAINMENT:

EXPERIENTIAL CAPITAL:

ACTION:

EMBODIED EXPERIENCE, WISDOM:

CULTURAL CAPITAL:

SONG, STORY, RITUAL:

COMMUNITY:

43

U N D E R STA N D & A S SE S S

PT 4

Brainstorm

44

U N D E R STA N D & A S S E S S

45

PT 4

Brainstorm This section is all about exploring and brainstorming potential Naturehood Projects for your community.

You might already have some ideas in mind or have heard of other projects in other communities that you want to see implemented in your own. This is a good time to find case studies for inspiration, as well as getting out into nature and being inspired by what’s already growing in your neighborhood. Holding a creative workshop in your neighborhood is another great way to get ideas and feedback from your neighbors about the ideas they have for creating a community project. Finally, once you have a set of ideas on the table, it’s time to go back to the Design Principles you developed in the last section and compare your current ideas to those principles. These will help you develop the strongest project for your community that matches all the hard work you’ve done gathering research and insights from your neighbors.

QUESTIONS THAT THE TOOLS IN THIS SECTION WILL HELP YOU ANSWER: 1. What projects already exist in the world that can provide inspiration for our team?

2. How can we use nature as a source of inspiration for our Naturehood Project?

3. How can we gather creative input from other members of our community?

46

B R A I NSTO R M

START HERE

1

PROPOSED EXPLORATION

Case Studies

3 Jam Session

2 iSite: Ask Nature

4 Creative Workshop

NEXT SECTION

47

B R A I NSTO R M

Case Studies

TIME: 45 mins

WE WANT TO BRAINSTORM IDEAS FOR OUR COMMUNITY by seeing what has been successful in other places

ROLES: 1 Facilitator Team Members Recorders

MATERIALS: White Board Printer paper Pens Camera

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

Finding case studies will allow your team to find inspiration in things that are working in other places so that you can brainstorm how they might be adapted to the context of your community. These case studies could be potential people to reach out to for advice on starting a project in your community. Seeing what works in other places and envisioning what those projects could look like if they were adapted to your community’s context can help your team start to see what steps would need to be taken to make that a reality. Using a SWOT analysis to analyze your case studies will help you determine what makes them successful and what the threats to that success might be.

1. How are other communities connecting with one another and their place?

Do some research, either individually or as a group, and see what other communities are experimenting with. Document where they’re located, how long they’ve been running for and what their successes and failures have been along the way. Come back together as a group and discuss your research findings.

Completing a SWOT Analysis involves identifying and mapping the internal and external factors that are assisting or hindering you in achieving your goal. The SWOT Analysis provides a good framework for reviewing current strategies and directions, or even to test an idea while exploring solutions. It is particularly helpful to do a SWOT Analysis before the start of a project.

2. Analyze your case studies As a group, analyze the case studies that you gathered.

What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the success of your case studies? Using the SWOT analysis on your case studies can help you think ahead for when you’re developing your own community project.

48 Source: Adapted from IDEO’s Field Guide to Human Centered Design

B R A I NSTO R M CASE STUDIES & SWOT ANALYSIS CASE STUDY NAME & BACKGROUND INFORMATION What’s the name of the project? Where was it piloted? Who organized it? Contact information? Find as much information as you can/

EXTERNAL

INTERNAL

HELPFUL

HARMFUL

S W O T

STRENGTHS What are the internal factors that make this project unique or more successful than other case studies that you considered?

WEAKNESSES What are the internal factors that may weaken the success of the project in the long term? How could these be turned into strengths?

OPPORTUNITIES What are the external factors that could create opportunities for growth or further success? What trends are on the horizons that could be incorporated?

THREATS What are the external factors that may pose a challenge to the success of this project? Could you face similar threats with your own project?

49

B R A I NSTO R M

Discover Natural Models WE WANT TO BRAINSTORM IDEAS FOR OUR COMMUNITY by asking nature how it would tackle our challenge

TIME: 1 hour ROLES: Individual exercise MATERIALS: Notebook or paper Pen or pencil

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

Discovering natural models is all about going outside and finding inspiration in the nature that surrounds you every day. Even in urban neighborhoods, there are plants and animals that are finding a way to thrive within the built environment. These species may be going through some of the same challenges as you are in your community. How are they tackling the problems that affect them in their urban home? Discovering Natural Models encourages us to quiet our human cleverness and learn from what other species may have to teach us about living sustainably and cooperatively in our own communities. Social species like ants and bees have a lot to teach us about cooperation and collaboration. What else can we learn from them?

1. Go for a walk outside Find organisms/ecosystems that are doing what humans want to do (e.g., insulating). Observe nature and note strategies you find and the context in which you found them.

2. Find a quiet spot to listen and discover Practice the art of listening and discovering rather than hunting and searching. Sometimes life reveals amazing adaptations when you least expect it.

3. Consider both literal and metaphorical models While it may appear that nature doesn’t do exactly what you want your design to do, it probably has much to offer if you consider the function and the context metaphorically.

4. Find your Naturehood Mascot We’re you particularly inspired by any species that you identified on your walk? Go back and do some research to see what strategies that plant or animal uses to survive.

How might they be applied to the challenges in your own neighborhood? If you find a species that inspires you, try making it your Team Mascot as a source of inspiration throughout your Naturehood exploration.

50 Source: Adapted from the Biomimicry Resource Guide

B R A I NSTO R M DISCOVER NATURAL MODELS SKETCHING AND ANNOTATING SPACE Walk around your neighborhood and find a place to sit for 30 minutes.

Spend the first 10 minutes sitting quietly and observing the environment around you. Pay attention to the sounds, smells and textures you can sense.

Spend the next 10 minutes drawing the plants, animals or landscape around you to the best of your ability.

Spend the next 10 minutes annotating to your drawings. Describe the colors, size, shape and any other interesting features you may want to research later.

Spend the last 30 minutes at home or with your group researching the species that you found and learning about their strategies for survival.

SPECIES NAME:

SPECIES STRATEGY:

APPLICATION TO YOUR CHALLENGE:

SPECIES NAME:

SPECIES STRATEGY:

APPLICATION TO YOUR CHALLENGE:

SPECIES NAME:

SPECIES STRATEGY:

APPLICATION TO YOUR CHALLENGE:

51

B R A I NSTO R M

Jam Session

TIME: 45 minutes

WE WANT TO BRAINSTORM IDEAS FOR OUR COMMUNITY by gathering as many ideas together as possible

ROLES: 1 Facilitator Team Members Community Members

MATERIALS: Parchment paper Sharpies Post it Notes

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

Create as many ideas as possible with your group, exploring different solutions and building on each other’s ideas in a supportive manner. Having a designated time to sit down with one another and discuss all of your ideas is a great way to build momentum for your Naturehood Project. When everyone is able to brainstorm together, ideas can merge and grow in an organic way. By the end of a brainstorming session, the idea you come to will be a culmination of many different ideas merged into one which will contribute to group ownership of the project and process.

1. Identify a topic Look at all of the ideas you’ve captured to date. Identify a topic the group would like to explore. A good topic will be directly related to your goal, and it will inspire your group to immediately generate ideas.

2. Put paper on the wall Put a piece of paper on the wall and draw a large arrow on it. On one end of the arrow, write “Easy.” On the other end, write “Impossible.” Divide the group into two teams.

3. Develop ideas For 20–25 minutes, ask each team to write or draw ideas related to the topic on individual pieces of paper. Create a range of ideas from the possible to the impossible. Give each idea a title.

4. Share and choose your favorite ideas Share the title and a one-sentence description of each idea with the group. Place the idea where it belongs on the Easy to Impossible arrow. After the ideas have been presented, have each person draw a star next to the most exciting idea to them. Ideas with the most stars can be pursued.

52 Source: Adapted from frog’s Collective Action Toolkit

B R A I NSTO R M EXTRA RESOURCE PAGE: THE SEED BANK WHAT IS A SEED BANK? Use this page to keep track of random ideas that come to your group as you’re working through this toolkit. You may have ideas for a Naturehood Project right at the off-set of your exploration phase. Write them down here and come back to them when you have all of your ideas ready to choose from at the end of Brainstorming.

NATUREHOOD PROJECT IDEA Explain your idea in one sentence or draw a sketch to help convey your idea to your other teammates.

53

B R A I NSTO R M

TIME: 1-1.5 hours

Creative Workshop WE WANT TO BRAINSTORM IDEAS FOR OUR COMMUNITY by working together to explore creative solutions

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT: A Creative Workshop is an opportunity to bring together and collaborate with a number of different people involved with or affected by your work. They might include the people you’re trying to reach, the partners you’re working with, experts brought in from similar fields, or any combination of these (and other) groups who would benefit from talking to each other. It is a good way to both collect and share different experiences, as well as co-create potential solutions.

HOW TO USE IT: Creative workshops can have different purposes: • Generating and exploring a range of ideas • Selecting and building upon the best ideas • Creating a clear vision for how the ideas can be made real at a later stage

ROLES: 1-2 Facilitators Participants

MATERIALS: Parchment paper Sharpies Post it Notes

Here are some points to consider while planning one: • How long will the workshop be, and where will it take place?

• Who will attend the workshop, and what is the mix of knowledge and skills?

• What will be the schedule for the day?

• Will you be working in small groups? How will they share their ideas?

• What materials and tools will you use?

• How will you document the results?

The following worksheet is only one example of how a Creative Workshop can be conducted. Depending on your needs/constraints, feel free to modify (add/subtract/ reorder) each time you plan a workshop.

A clear step-by-step schedule of activities, and timings for each activity will help make the workshop a success. It is important to plan your workshop well.

54 Source: Adapted from the Nesta and Rockefeller Foundation’s DIY Toolkit

B R A I NSTO R M CREATIVE WORKSHOP

5 MINS Introduce the workshop plan

30 MINS Define how the target user will make use of your offering (eg. Create a journey map for each persona)

15 MINS Share the outcomes of the journey map with the rest of the teams Share opportunities where the group thinks it can create or add value

20 MINS Define who the session is focused on (eg. Work in small groups on creating personas)

15 MINS Put these up on a wall where everyone can see them

30 MINS Further build on the opportunities identified by the tools you used

55

B R A I NSTO R M

PT 4

Define & Develop

56

B R A I NSTO R M

57

PT 5

Define & Develop This section is focused on how to define and develop your Naturehood Project. Now that you’ve honed in on what idea you want to develop, it’s important to clarify your intentions as a group by defining what it means for your project to be successful. A small, positive change in a community can have far reaching ripples. Discuss with your team how you think your Naturehood Project will impact the members of your team, the community you live in, and even the world!

QUESTIONS THAT THE TOOLS IN THIS SECTION WILL HELP YOU ANSWER: 1. What is your teams definition of success for your Naturehood Project?

2. What assumptions are you making about how your project will benefit your community?

3. What are the wider benefits of your work and how will they ripple out to effect the broader community?

4. How does your project measure up against the Design Principles of Life?

58

D E F I N E & D E V E LO P

START HERE

1

PROPOSED EXPLORATION

Theory of Change

3 Define Success

2 Ripple Effect

4 Life’s Principles Checklist

NEXT SECTION

59

D E F I N E & D E V E LO P

Theory of Change

TIME: 45 mins

WE WANT TO DEFINE & DEVELOP OUR IDEA by understanding our intent to change a system

ROLES: 1 Facilitator Participants Recorders

MATERIALS: Printer paper Pens Camera

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

Setting up a Theory of Change is like making a road map that outlines the steps by which you plan to achieve your goal. It not only helps to clearly articulate and connect your work to your bigger goal, it also allows you to spot potential risks in your plan by sharing the underlying assumptions in each step. In large organizations, when there may be several projects running simultaneously, the Theory of Change helps to map these different projects first and then consider how they link and relate to each other.

1. Start with the problem and your vision Start by discussing the main problem you want to solve, and your long term vision for the change you want to make.

2. Be specific Complete the other boxes, such as your key audience and your entry point to reach them. Try to be as specific as possible to help you come up with more effective actions that you can take.

3. Work outwards from problem to impact Write down the people that are most affected by the issue that you’ve identified and who you hope to help with your work. Then think about where to start your work, you may need to find a place, a person or a thing that will be your first port of call. Try to think of some practical, action oriented steps to take to make changes – like creating partnerships, or making tweaks to existing processes.

4. What would immediate results or outcomes be?

These could be tangible results that you can show to other people to clarify how your work is making a difference. List the key outcomes that your activity would lead to: these are the preconditions that you need to realize your vision. As you fill each of the boxes in the worksheet, it is critical to also reflect on the key assumptions that underpin these steps in your work. This may help you to spot potential risks or connections between the different projects.

60 Source: Adapted from the Nesta and Rockefeller Foundation’s DIY Toolkit

D E F I N E & D E V E LO P THEORY OF CHANGE WHAT IS THE CORE PROBLEM YOU’RE TRYING TO SOLVE?

KEY ASSUMPTIONS:

WHO IS YOUR KEY AUDIENCE?

KEY ASSUMPTIONS:

WHAT IS YOUR ENTRY POINT TO REACHING YOUR AUDIENCE?

KEY ASSUMPTIONS:

WHAT STEPS ARE NEEDED TO BRING ABOUT CHANGE?

KEY ASSUMPTIONS:

WHAT ARE THE MEASURABLE EFFECTS OF YOUR WORK?

KEY ASSUMPTIONS:

WHAT ARE THE WIDER BENEFITS OF YOUR WORK?

KEY ASSUMPTIONS:

WHAT IS THE LONG-TERM CHANGE YOU SEE AS YOUR GOAL?

STAKEHOLDERS:

61

D E F I N E & D E V E LO P

Ripple Effect

TIME: 30 mins for a group of 3

WE WANT TO DEFINE & DEVELOP OUR IDEA by deciding what kind of impact we want to have

ROLES: 1 Facilitator 1 Recorder Participants

MATERIALS: Printer paper Pens Camera

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

Decide what kind of social, economic and environmental impact you want your group to have – from improving people’s lives in your community to changing your country or the world. Discussing potential impacts of your project will help you see the interconnections between your community and the broader world. In our highly interconnected world, both positive and negative consequences can ripple throughout an ecosystem. Thinking through how you want your positive impact to ripple out can help you think through possible negative repercussions that could emerge as well.

1. Divide into teams Form teams of three. Hand each team a piece of paper and ask them to write the problem they’re trying to solve at the top. Then draw a circle in the center of the page that contains the names of the group members.

2. Imagine the impacts for your neighborhood Have each team imagine what would happen if their problem were solved. Then write around the first circle what the social, economic and environmental effects that your problem being solved would have on your neighborhood.

Draw a larger circle around these names and label it with the name of your city or town.

3. Imagine the impacts for your city Again, imagine if your problem were solved, and write down the social, economic and environmental effects that it would have on your city. Draw as many circles as you need for effects on your region, nation, or the world.

5. Share the Ripple Effects over time Have the teams post their papers and discuss the similarities and differences. Choose a circle to focus on and the effects you’d like to see. Write these on a clean sheet of paper along with a timeline of when you’d like to see this happen. Put this sheet on the wall so the team can use it later.

62 Source: Adapted from frog’s Collective Action Toolkit

D E F I N E & D E V E LO P RIPPLE EFFECT

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THE CORE PROBLEM

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Imagine what social, economic and environmental impacts would affect each location if your core problem were solved.

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D E F I N E & D E V E LO P

TIME: 90 minutes

Define Success

ROLES: Project Team Recorder

WE WANT TO DEFINE & DEVELOP OUR IDEA

MATERIALS: Printer paper Pens Camera

by defining what it means for our project to succeed

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

Getting your team together to discuss and map out what success looks like for your project allows you to set key milestones for accomplishing your goals and will give the team something to work towards. This tool will help you stop and determine how you’ll know when your project has made its intended impact. How will the project be meeting goals in a month? In 6 months? In a year?

1. Reflect on your principles, goals and challenge Returning to your Design Principles, How Might We questions, and the insights gathered from the We Saw, We Heard tool will help your team frame what success looks like for your Naturehood Project.

2. Consider success from different angles What makes the project a success for your team may be different to how other stakeholders view it’s success. What does success look like to other community members? To your city or county government?

3. Consider external measures of success Are there any external measures of success that the team needs to consider? Are funders or partners going to hold the project accountable to meeting certain standards?

64 Source: Adapted from IDEO’s Field Guide to Human Centered Design

D E F I N E & D E V E LO P DEFINE SUCCESS RECAP CHALLENGE:

RECAP INSIGHTS:

RECAP GOALS:

WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE FOR YOUR OTHER COMMUNITY MEMBERS?

WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE FOR YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT?

SUCCESS CRITERIA

WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE FOR YOUR TEAM?

ANY EXTERNAL MEASURES OF SUCCESS? Are funders or partners going to hold the project accountable to meeting certain standards?

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D E F I N E & D E V E LO P

Life’s Principles

TIME: 30-45 mins ROLES: Team Members

WE WANT TO DEFINE & DEVELOP OUR IDEA by measuring it against ecological principles

MATERIALS: Pen and Paper

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

Biomimicry Resource Handbook: “A biomimicry-based evaluation would improve the evaluating stage by using survival strategies important in the natural world as standards. When Life’s Principles are used as a measurement tool, each individual principle is assessed for each aspect of the project, recognizing that many of the values would depend on the specifics of the project and project location.

In this way the evaluation can pre-test for real success that functions well in the context of the world.

The checklist is designed not as a yes/no kind of tool, but rather encourages you to ask yourself for each of the items, “How well, if at all, does our project….?”

Designs that follow this checklist will likely emerge as welladapted to Earth’s operating conditions. Utilizing nature’s design lessons will lead to human artifacts that enhance the Earth’s capacity to support ALL life over the long haul.”

2. Evaluate which principles may or may not apply All of the Life’s Principles may not apply to your project, and that’s okay. Fill in the boxed for those you think would apply.

1. Consider the elements of your project What materials, energy and other resources will you project need to function and sustain itself? Is your project a one time event or is it a program that will need to evolve and adapt over time to new feedback?

3. Expand on your checklist How does your project address the Life’s Principles that you’ve selected? This checklist is an exercise in exploring the impacts of our projects and how they can live more like a living organism that evolves over time and takes only the resources it needs in order to sustain it’s ecosystem.

66 Source: Adapted from the Biomimicry Resource Handbook, Biomimicry Institute

D E F I N E & D E V E LO P LIFE’S PRINCIPLES CHECKLIST IS THE PROJECT LOCALLY ATTUNED AND RESPONSIVE... by using readily available materials and energy? by cultivating cooperative relationships? by leveraging cyclic processes?

DOES THE PROJECT ADAPT TO CHANGING CONDITIONS... by embodying resilience through variation, redundancy and decentralization? by incorporating diversity? by maintaining integrity through self-renewal?

by using feedback loops?

HOW LOCALLY ATTUNED AND RESPONSIVE IS OUR PROJECT?

DOES THE PROJECT EVOLVE TO SURVIVE...

HOW WELL WILL OUR PROJECT ADAPT TO CHANGING CONDITIONS?

IS THE PROJECT RESOURCE EFFICIENT...

by replicating strategies that work?

by recycling all materials?

by reshuffling information?

by fitting form to function?

by integrating the unexpected?

by using multi-functional design? by using low energy processes?

HOW WELL DOES OUR PROJECT EVOLVE TO SURVIVE?

DOES THE PROJECT USE LIFE-FRIENDLY CHEMISTRY...

HOW RESOURCE EFFICIENT IS OUT PROJECT IN TERMS OF THE MATERIALS AND ENERGY WE PLAN TO UTILIZE?

DOES THE PROJECT INTEGRATE DEVELOPMENT WITH GROWTH...

by doing chemistry in water?

by combining modular and nested components?

by building selectively with a small subset of elements?

by building from the bottom up?

by breaking down products into benign constituents?

by self-organizing?

DOES OUT PROJECT USE LIFE-FRIENDLY CHEMISTRY?

DOES OUR PROJECT INTEGRATE DEVELOPMENT WITH GROWTH?

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Life’s Principles Expanded

68 Source: Biomimicry Resource Handbook, Biomimicry Institute

D E F I N E & D E V E LO P

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D E F I N E & D E V E LO P

PT 5

Implement & Test

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PT 5

Implement & Test This section of tools will help your team plan and test your project in order to implement a pilot of your project in your community. A key learning from this section is that a project is never fully complete. We can always learn and make edits to a project in order to ensure we’re reaching our goals. Getting feedback from your community is essential because it allows your team to see what’s working and what isn’t working. Getting feedback from your neighbors also shows them that you value their opinions and wish to welcome them to the table to discuss how to make your community a better place for all who live there.

QUESTIONS THAT THE TOOLS IN THIS SECTION WILL HELP YOU ANSWER: 1. How can we create a smaller version of our project and test it out to get feedback from our community?

2. What do we need in order to make our project happen?

3. How should we go about developing a pilot?

4. How can we create a feedback mechanism that allows us to keep growing and expanding on our project to better reach our goals?

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I M P L E M E N T & T E ST

START HERE

1

PROPOSED EXPLORATION

Prototype Testing Plan

3 Spider Diagram

2 Critical Tasks List

NEXT SECTION

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I M P L E M E N T & T E ST

Prototype Testing Plan WE WANT TO IMPLEMENT & TEST OUR PROJECT by collecting feedback at different project phases

TIME: 45 mins for a group of 10 ROLES: 1 Facilitator Participants Recorders

MATERIALS: Printer paper Pens Camera

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

The Prototype Testing Plan gives a basic, but useful overview of the different ways in which you can test your Naturehood Project, as well as when to test it. You can build a prototype using various materials, or simply draw or act out your idea.

The Prototype Testing Plan also helps structure the testing process. It is most efficient if you go through a structured series of steps. This way you can continually improve your work, while avoiding getting lost once collected feedback starts piling up. The worksheet indicates two periods when it is usually beneficial to test your idea: in the early stage of development, and in the later stages just before full implementation.

1. Determine what you want to prototype Based on what your team discovered in the Brainstorming section, determine which project idea you want to prototype.

2. Bring your idea to life and make it tangible Use the Critical Tasks list to organize the who, what, when and where of your prototype and get everything ready for the event.

3. Test the prototype in your community If you’re creating a community cleanup or ecology tour in your neighborhood, gather community members on a weekend and test it out. Get all the moving parts and pieces in motion and see what emerges.

4. Create a feedback mechanism to gather data How are you going to gather feedback from your community members in a way that is useful to further developing your project? A feedback mechanism could be a survey, a short interview, or asking participants to draw out how they think the prototype could be improved.

5. Use your feedback to create another prototype!

Take the data you gathered and use it to improve on your prototype and created an even better version to test.

74 Source: Adapted from IDEO’s Field Guide to Human Centered Design

I M P L E M E N T & T E ST PROTOTYPE TESTING PLAN HYPOTHESIS Specify the main idea or hypothesis that you want to test.

QUICKLY TRY OUT YOUR IDEA TO JUDGE WHETHER IT CAN WORK IN REAL LIFE. Act out parts of your idea when you meet with your community. Pretend that your idea is launched. How will they know of it and use it? You can use the Experience Map as a guide. Try acting out different possibilities to learn about alternative ways of doing things. Draw the experience of finding out and using your work in the form of a story to see if you’ve not missed any step.

TEST YOUR IDEA AGAIN AFTER HAVING DEVELOPED IT FURTHER, TO EXAMINE DETAILS BEFORE LAUNCHING IT. Act out your idea again. You can use the Blueprint as a guide to check whether the different elements are matching up properly? Again draw the experience of using your work in more detail than before. Test out if all the steps in your story are working well together.

MAKE A LIST OF ALL THE THINGS THAT YOU NEED TO MAKE YOUR IDEA REAL. List things like activities, resources, people and materials that you need to make your idea realistic enough to implement.

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I M P L E M E N T & T E ST

Critical Tasks List

TIME: On-going, can be used at multiple times during project duration

WE WANT TO IMPLEMENT & TEST OUR PROJECT by executing our plan without feeling overwhelmed

ROLES: Team leader or Project manager

MATERIALS: Printer paper Pens

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

The Critical Tasks List is a way to ensure that what you set out to do is actually possible within the time-frame and budget you have available. This is useful when working alone, but becomes even more important when you need to focus and align your work with others. The list provides a common reference point which everyone can use to keep track of how things are progressing. This enables you to manage your projects by focusing on the tasks at hand.

List all the activities to be carried out, together with who they are assigned to, the budget available, the deadline for completion and the process for final sign off. Don’t fear specificity. Deliberate the activity with the people assigned to it and add in as much detail as possible. You can also break up specific roles people play to perform a specific activity. You should regularly monitor and review the progress of your critical tasks, both in terms of staff resources and budgets. Any deviation from the plan should be acted upon or agreed and amended.

76 Source: Adapted from the Nesta and Rockefeller Foundation’s DIY Toolkit

I M P L E M E N T & T E ST CRITICAL TASKS LIST ACTIVITY:

ASSIGNED TO:

BUDGET:

DEADLINE:

SIGN OFF

ACTIVITY:

ASSIGNED TO:

BUDGET:

DEADLINE:

SIGN OFF

ACTIVITY:

ASSIGNED TO:

BUDGET:

DEADLINE:

SIGN OFF

ACTIVITY:

ASSIGNED TO:

BUDGET:

DEADLINE:

SIGN OFF

ACTIVITY:

ASSIGNED TO:

BUDGET:

DEADLINE:

SIGN OFF

ACTIVITY:

ASSIGNED TO:

BUDGET:

DEADLINE:

SIGN OFF

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I M P L E M E N T & T E ST

Spider Diagram WE WANT TO IMPLEMENT & TEST OUR PROJECT by measuring its impact over time

TIME: 45 mins ROLES: 1 Facilitator Team Members Recorder

MATERIALS: Printer paper Pens Camera

WHAT IT IS AND WHY I SHOULD USE IT:

HOW TO USE IT:

The spider diagram is a way to see how well your project ideas are meeting up to your design principles. It can either be used during the brainstorming and developing stages to decide between multiple ideas by seeing which meets your teams criteria the best; or it can be used when you’re finalizing and testing your project in order to make your current idea stronger and able to reach all of your design principles.

1. Print our one sheet per idea you want to test.

This tool is to test the strength of individuals ideas according to your design principles. Write the name of the idea in the center space.

2. Write your design principles along the outside.

Your team may not have exactly six principles, so just use the spaces needed for the amount of principles you have.

3. Define your rating system.

Label each of the three levels to help you better judge how your idea is meeting your design principles. If one of your design principles is to Make Community Event More Inclusive, and then define with your team what Inclusivity looks like to you and designated what those three layers of inclusivity are.

4. Rate each of your ideas.

Take the time to discuss why certain ideas are reaching some principles while others aren’t. How can you make your ideas better meet your teams goals?

5. Overlap your ideas and see what emerges.

Compare the results from all of your ideas and discuss the best path to move forward.

78 Source: Unknown

I M P L E M E N T & T E ST SPIDER DIAGRAM

PRINCIPLE #1

PRINCIPLE #6

3

PRINCIPLE #2

2 1

PRINCIPLE #5

PRINCIPLE #3

PRINCIPLE #4

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I M P L E M E N T & T E ST

PT 6

Additional Resources

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R E S O U RC E S

PT 6

Shoulders of Giants This resources section is about providing you with with other toolkits, projects and organizations that inspired the Naturehood Challenge. This toolkit is composed of many tools that are already being widely used in social impact work and other sectors. Each of the tools has a source listed beneath it to lead you back to its origin if you want to explore that tool further. In this section, you will see other toolkits that inspired this work and other movements and organizations whose missions and visions inspired the creation of this toolkit.

The Naturehood Toolkit emerged from a culmination of the ideas and methodologies represented in this section, and we encourage you to explore these resources to see what else inspired you and can benefit the community in which you live.

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TRANSITION TOWN NETWORK

Transition is about communities stepping up to address the big challenges they face by starting local. They seek to nurture a caring culture, one focused on supporting each other, both as groups or as wider communities. The term transition town refer to grassroots community projects that aim to increase self-sufficiency to reduce the potential effects of peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability.

Learn more at transitionnetwork.org

BIOMIMICRY INSTITUTE

The Biomimicry Institute empowers people to create nature-inspired solutions for a healthy planet. Biomimicry is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies. The goal is to create products, processes, and policies—new ways of living—that are well-adapted to life on earth over the long haul. The core idea is that nature has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. After billions of years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival.

Learn more at biomimicry.org

ABCD INSTITUTE

Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) is at the center of a large and growing movement that considers local assets as the primary building blocks of sustainable community development. Building on the skills of local residents, local associations, and local institutions, asset-based community development draws upon existing community strengths to build stronger, more sustainable communities for the future.

Learn more at resources.depaul.edu/abcd-institute

ASK NATURE

Innovators are full of questions. Nature has answers.

AskNature provides innovators with the world’s most comprehensive catalog of nature’s solutions to human design challenges. This curated online library features free information on over 1,800 (and growing!) natural phenomena and hundreds of bio-inspired applications. From systemic problems like climate change to more localized issues like managing waste, AskNature presents information that helps designers and innovators solve challenges using materials and processes that are healthy for people and the planet.

Learn more at asknature.org

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R E S O U RC E S FROG’S COLLECTIVE ACTION TOOLKIT

The Collective Action Toolkit puts design-thinking tools into the hands of local change agents to transform communities. The Collective Action Toolkit was created to help bring groups together to accomplish a shared goal. It consists of an action map and activities six areas. These activities offer different ways to develop solutions to make change happen in a community or organization. Part of frog’s commitment to social impact, the Collective Action Toolkit is a set of activities and methods that enables groups of people to organize, collaborate, and create solutions for problems affecting their community.

NESTA AND ROCKEFELLER’S DIY TOOLKIT

The DIY Toolkit has been especially designed for development practitioners to invent, adopt or adapt ideas that can deliver better results. This is a toolkit on how to invent, adopt or adapt ideas that can deliver better results. It’s quick to use, simple to apply, and designed to help busy people working in development.

Learn more at diytoolkit.org

Learn more at: frogdesign.com/work/frog-collective-action-toolkit

FIELD GUIDE TO HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN

At IDEO.org, part of our mission is to spread humancentered design to social sector practitioners around the world. The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design reveals our process with the key mindsets that underpin how and why we think about design for the social sector, 57 clear-to-use design methods for new and experienced practitioners, and from-thefield case studies of human-centered design in action. The Field Guide has everything you need to understand the people you’re designing for, to have more effective brainstorms, to prototype your ideas, and to ultimately arrive at more creative solutions.

Read more in the Field Guide to Human Centered Design

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OPEN IDEO

Design thinking is in our genes. For decades, IDEO has pioneered the human-centered design approach to solving complex problems. We believe to solve today’s complex problems, there need to be better ways to come together, share ideas, and coordinate action around the globe. In 2010, IDEO asked—how might we open up our method, enabling people everywhere to spark innovation where it’s needed most? Our answer: OpenIDEO. Learn more at openideo.com

R E S O U RC E S PLACEMAKING

As both an overarching idea and a hands-on approach for improving a neighborhood, city, or region, Placemaking inspires people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the heart of every community. Strengthening the connection between people and the places they share, Placemaking refers to a collaborative process by which we can shape our public realm in order to maximize shared value.

More than just promoting better urban design, Placemaking facilitates creative patterns of use, paying particular attention to the physical, cultural, and social identities that define a place and support its ongoing evolution.

Learn more at pps.org

BUILD A BETTER BLOCK

The Better Block project started in April 2010, when a group of community organizers, neighbors, and property owners gathered together to revitalize a single commercial block in an underused neighborhood corridor. The area was filled with vacant properties, wide streets, and few amenities for people who lived within walking distance. The group brought together all the resources from the community and converted the block into a walkable, bikeable neighborhood destination for people of all ages complete with bike lanes, cafe seating, trees, plants, pop-up businesses, and lighting. The project was developed to show the city how the block could be revived to improve area safety, health, and economics if ordinances that restricted small business and multi-modal infrastructure were removed.

Learn more at betterblock.org

PERMACULTURE

Permaculture is a creative design process based on wholesystems thinking informed by ethics and design principles.

This approach guides us to mimic the patterns and relationships we can find in nature and can be applied to all aspects of human habitation, from agriculture to ecological building, from appropriate technology to education and even economics.

The techniques and strategies used to apply these principles vary widely depending on the location, climatic conditions and resources that are available. The methods may differ, but the foundations to this holistic approach remain constant. By learning these principles you can acquire valuable thinking tools that help you become more resilient in an era of change.

Learn more at permacultureprinciples.com

SLOC FRAMEWORK

The SLOC scenario lies at the intersection of three main innovation streams: the green revolution (and the environmentally friendly systems it makes available); the spread of networks (and the distributed, open, peer-to-peer organizations it generates); and the diffusion of creativity (and the original answers to daily problems that a variety of social actors are conceiving and implementing). We will refer to it as the SLOC Scenario, where SLOC stands for small, local, open, and connected. These four adjectives, in fact, neatly synthesize the socio-technical system on which this scenario is based: a distributed production and consumption system in which the global is a “network of locals”—that is, a mesh of connected local systems, whose small scale makes them comprehensible and controllable by individuals and communities.

Read more about SLOC in Ezio Manzini’s book, Design When Everyone Designs

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PT 6

Analysis of Tools The tools provided in this guide are intended to provoke new ways of thinking about how to tackle problems in local communities. The accompanying page is an analysis of the 22 tools within this toolkit and which modes of thinking are activated by each tool as framed within the context of this toolkit. Depending on the context and framing of how each tool is used, these categories may shift. Categories were also determined based on where the tools orginated from and what their intended prupose and context were in that source.

This analysis will also help you determine how to use each tool and their intended use within the framing of the Naturehood Challenge.

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Spider Diagram

Critical Tasks List

Prototype Testing Plan

Life’s Principals Checklist

Define Success

Ripple Effect

Theory of Change

Creative Workshop

Jam Session

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DESIGN THINKING

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Case Studies

8 Forms of Capital

Asset Mapping

Design Principles

How Might We?

Three Horizons Model

We Saw, We Heard Insights

Causes Diagram

Guided Tour

3x3x3 Drill

Knowledge Hunt

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