Introducing the frog Collective Action Toolkit

Today, frog released the Collective Action Toolkit (CAT). The CAT is a package of resources and activities that enable groups of people anywhere to organize, build trust, and collaboratively create solutions for problems impacting their community. I was part of the team that helped create the CAT—you can read about my involvement in an article posted today in FastCoDesign.

frog developed the CAT to help groups of people create positive change in their communities. Inspired by frog's collaboration with Girl Effect and the Nike Foundation (which I participated in) the toolkit provides a dynamic framework that integrates knowledge and action to solve challenges. Designed to harness the benefits of group action and the power of open sharing, the activities in the toolkit draw on each participant’s strengths and perspectives as the group works to accomplish a common goal.

While intended for use by leaders in local communities, the CAT draws from both frog's social innovation work and their expertise in encouraging grassroots innovation within startups and large-scale organizations. It can be used as an accelerant for group problem solving, whether by local community groups, schools, nonprofits, corporations, and so forth.

Here's a presentation I gave about the CAT at The Feast Conference in New York City in October to a group of social innovators:

You can use the CAT with a group within your organization or your community to: 

Solve problems: No matter what size of problem you’re looking to solve, the activities in the CAT can help your group investigate and generate solutions for community problems. For example: you might be motivated to help people around you get access to healthier food, reduce how many people are becoming sick because of an infectious disease, construct a new building, or start a small business.

Build new skills: Gain important life skills with you group and understand how to best put them to use. For example: critical thinking, listening to others, asking better questions, generating ideas, active collaboration, creating better stories, and inspiring and sustaining collective action.

Gain knowledge: By pooling what you know and who you know, you can better support each other in your group and beyond. For example: with your group, you can gain perspective on a community problem or need, as well as reach out to more people that could support those solutions.

In the coming weeks, I'll be sharing more about the Collective Action Toolkit on my blog on frogdesign.com and here on ChangeOrder—how it came about, as well as upcoming pilots that we'll be conducting with organizations and educational institutions such as Savannah College of Art and Design's Design for Sustainability program. 

Until then, you can download it free by visiting http://www.frogdesign.com/collective-action-toolkit.