building capacity for community development

Custom skill-building workshops by Tamarack

Tamarack’s Learning Centre offers customized workshops, coaching, and individualized consulting to support communities directly and empower them to achieve greater impact. The following is a list of capacity-building workshops that are available to communities, organized by the five interconnected practices that lead to community change.

All of Tamarack’s workshops are customized to respond to the unique challenges facing each organization, collaboration, and community. The workshops below can be adapted in format and duration to be facilitated as webinars, presentations, half-day workshops and full-day workshops. Tamarack will work directly with you to design a workshop to achieve your goals, engage participants, and build capacity.

Building Capacity for Community Change Workshop

As communities drive towards improving population level outcomes, Tamarack Institute has learned that changemakers must build their skills in five interconnected practice areas so that they can make a significant impact. These five practices are: Collaboration; Community Engagement; Collective Leadership; Community Innovation and Evaluating Impact. This interactive workshop will introduce each of these five practices and explore how, together, they are integrated to create a supportive environment to sustain community change. Tools and resources to support the application of each practice will be introduced and applied.

Collaboration Workshops

Exploring the Collaboration Opportunity

Collaboration―with funders, allies and community partners―is a significant part of how our work gets done these days. However, not all forms of collaboration are the same. Collective Impact is a disciplined form of multi-sector collaboration that has proven to be highly successful in addressing an array of complex social and environmental issues. This session will introduce you to the Collective Impact Framework and help you assess if it’s the right approach to advance your goals. Hear case studies of Collective Impact in action and discover practical tools to assess the 3 pre-conditions and 5 conditions of Collective Impact to create a robust action plan.

Collaborative Governance and Leadership

A challenge for effective collaboration is reaching agreement about decision-making and governance of the shared work of collaborating partners. This workshop explores the unique governance challenges that multi-sector collaborative’s face, considers the pros and cons of different backbone structures, and highlights strategies and practices to effectively navigate the process-product tension and multiple levels of accountability implicit in collaborative work. Participants will deepen their understanding of the principles of collaborative governance, to develop practices that build trust and keep key leadership stakeholders engaged.

Collective Impact 3.0

In 2016 Tamarack’s Liz Weaver co-authored a paper entitled Collective Impact 3.0: An Evolving Framework for Community Change, a paper that looked closely at the practice of Collective Impact and proposed five ways to build the next iteration of the Collective Impact Framework. This session offers an opportunity to accelerate the effective implementation of Collective Impact by drawing upon lessons and successes from the field. Participants will discover the importance of embracing a systems lens and will explore how Collective Impact initiatives can initiate and lead the type of disruptive innovation needed to generate high impact results.

Leading Collective Impact: From Theory to Action

This workshop is designed specifically for staff, consultants and facilitators supporting the development and implementation of Collective Impact initiatives. Participants will develop an appreciation of the phases of maturity within a Collective Impact effort and explore the four pillars that create a strong foundation for success. Case studies will highlight and explore each of the five conditions of Collective Impact and how they support one another. Participants will be introduced to a rich array of facilitation tools―and be encouraged to share from their own experiences―to provide all with an in-depth learning experience that they can use to help further the design and implementation of their own successful Collective Impact initiative.

Advancing Systems Change with Collective Impact

This workshop is designed specifically for individuals and teams who want to explore the Collective Impact framework and why it is well-suited for navigating complexity. Learn to incorporate a systems lens; and consider the shifts in thinking required to unleash the full potential of collective impact to generate transformative change in communities and systems. Discover tools to help unite diverse stakeholders around a common, aspirational vision, how to track your collective impact. Participants will be introduced to a rich array of facilitation tools―and be encouraged to contribute their own experiences.

Community Engagement Workshops

Authentic Community Engagement

Why engage? It’s a simple question, but one that most people don’t spend enough time exploring. Too often we engage ‘because we’re supposed to’ rather than ‘because we absolutely need to’. In this workshop we will challenge the status quo and push our thinking beyond our comfort zone. Learn the 7 foundations for authentic engagement, critically evaluate why you’re engaging and challenge yourself to go deeper. Throughout this workshop we will use the Community Engagement Planning Canvas to connect theory and practice and hold us accountable to designing authentic engagement practices.

Creating the Culture for Engagement

What kind of culture is needed to make it easier to step out and take risks? What are the ways to convert challenging community engagement scenarios where practitioners are commonly held back by fear, into stretch opportunities that allow all parties to come together and learn? In this workshop we will share different scenarios for when and how inauthentic engagement shows up and explore strategies for addressing fear and building cultures of engagement.

Communicating for Shared Outcomes

Learn the principles of effective communication and understand the value of building relationships and capacity to achieve shared outcomes. In this workshop we will explore examples of communication done well and learn why we often miss the mark. Challenge yourself: What would it take for your engagement to be truly personal, accessible and centered around connection? Assess your own communications and engagement activities, plan what you’ll do to reduce the barriers, and brainstorm solutions together.

Inquiry & Deliberation

Deep dive into methods for deep collaborative engagement where communities are involved in inquiry, co-design and deliberation. In this workshop you will explore the community's role in change efforts from a variety of perspectives. In this workshop you will: Understand the decision-making process for how to engage the community in co-design; Explore various methodologies through examples and tools; Learn how to link deep engagement processes together with consultative processes; and engage in an open discussion about what works and what doesn’t.

Building an Asset Based World - ABCD 101

Asset-based community development (ABCD) shines a spotlight on the inherent strengths and capabilities of individuals. Unlike traditional approaches that begin by identifying problems and deficiencies, ABCD centers around recognizing and leveraging peoples existing assets. By acknowledging and harnessing these strengths, Individuals are empowered to proactively contribute to positive change within their communities. This workshop introduces the four actions of ABCD, the mind shifts to center community and how to build plans and programs that center assets.

Weaving the Community Fabric - How to Asset Mapping (NEW)

The power of “Asset Based Community Development” (ABCD) is in its focus on individual and community assets. It starts by identifying and leveraging people’s gifts and strengths which equip communities with the skills and tools needed to create local opportunities. Mapping out the community assets is an important step that allows communities to respond to the needs and challenges in their neighbourhoods. This workshop introduces the fundamentals of ABCD, the theory and practice of asset mapping so that you weave the community assets into your programs and plans. This workshop is very interactive!

Building Strategies that Centre Community (NEW)

Learn about why building strategies the old way will not work in our new reality. Our communities have changed over the past 60 years, and we are facing more Poly crises, polarization and disconnection in civic life. We need to rethink the process for developing strategies that authentically engage community and centre people. Using an asset approach to building strategies will help you to understand the roles that people, groups and organizations can and should play in the strategy. Explore asset mapping, mind shifts and new strategies through interactive group work, examples and tools.

Building Strong and Sustainable Groups (NEW)

We know that the fundamentals of community change are collaboration and building partnerships to make sustainable change in our communities. Sounds simple, find people and ask them to sit at the table and plan for action. However, there is more to it than a table, chairs and people. Building a successful group takes time, resources, relationships and trust. In this workshop, you will be introduced to the foundational steps that will help you to identify the right people, equalize power dynamics, build a sense of belonging and evaluate your group's work.

Collective Leadership Workshops

Turf, Trust & Collaboration

Learn simple, practical tools and approaches to building trust. Participants will be able to bring these tools and resources back into their collaborative efforts to renew engagement and shared ownership. You’ll also learn to build engagement, befriend your nemesis, counter-balance efforts, deepen engagement, build commitment and trust self-assessment. This workshop will identify practical steps to deploy when trust breaks down.

Mindsets for Navigating Eco-System Change

To achieve large scale impact, leaders need to navigate complex systems that are continually shifting and changing. Diagnosing the nature of the problem, understanding the components that make up the complex system and determining how you, as a leader, might effectively influence the system are key components in eco-system leadership. This workshop offers participants an opportunity to explore the leadership approaches most effective for addressing large-scale systems change.

Resilience & Sustainability in Collaborative Efforts

Collaborative, systems-change efforts focus on long-term, systems-level changes rather than shorter term programmatic outcomes. How do you sustain the momentum, pace and resources needed for your collaborative’s work? This workshop introduces participants to resources designed to help build both resiliency and sustainability in your collaborative work. You’ll learn; How to apply the lens of resilience, develop an appreciation of how the nature of collaborative work evolves over time, how to sustain momentum and commitment, tools and frameworks for assessing and strengthening the resilience and long-term sustainability.

Community Innovation Workshops

Human Centred Design for Community Change

Human-Centered Design and Design Thinking are rapidly rising as tools for innovation across the public, private, and voluntary sector. How can community change makers use these exciting approaches to strengthen and deepen their work? You’ll also learn approaches for engaging community members to identify the barriers they face and create bold visions for the future. Tools to spark creative, community-led approaches to the challenges that communities face, and tools to help you test new approaches and work with community to ensure that they deliver the right impact.

Facilitating Co-Design

How can you bring diverse members of your community together to develop creative new ideas, innovative approaches to persistent problems, and build alignment and momentum for action? This workshop will give you the tools and practice to host and lead collaborative Co-Design sessions effectively. You will: Learn a step-by-step approach to designing inclusive collaborative gatherings that meet the needs of your community; Explore best practices in community engagement and innovation; Understand the principles and techniques to guide facilitation and help troubleshoot tough situations; Experience interactive exercises, case studies, and real-world vignettes to make ideas and methods concrete.

Designing and Supporting Communities of Practice

When seeking to accelerate change, there is significant value in peers connecting to share their work, learn from each other, brainstorm new ideas, problem-solve, leverage synergies, and amplify impact. We have learned that the most effective communities of practice are peer-led and peer-engaged. How then do you create the environment for Communities of Practice to emerge and thrive? In this workshop, we will share our lessons learned in what makes these peer communities successful, take you through the steps to design and support Communities of Practice, and show you can how intentional design can lead to an engaged peer learning network.

Evaluating Impact Workshops

Evaluating Collaborative Change Efforts

Large-scale community change efforts require that we employ less conventional ways to doing evaluation. Collaborative evaluation approaches support a shared vision of what we want to learn and apply to our work as we move forward. This workshop is focused on learning how to employ collaborative evaluation approaches that support the design and development of, for example, shared measurement systems, outcome and measures, and demonstrates how we are affecting community change through our collaborative evaluation work. This workshop offers us opportunities to figure out the most appropriate ways to apply strategic learning gained through evidence resulting from evaluation processes and practices that demonstrate the impact of collaborative community change efforts.

Participatory Approaches to Evaluation

Evaluation within a context of systems change requires a more engaged and active participation by stakeholders in the community. From youth-led to culturally responsive evaluation practices, there are several meaningful ways to increase the value of doing evaluation at the community level. Participatory evaluation strategies work to strengthen communication and ownership of evaluation implementation and reporting and the adoption of evidence resulting from these processes. This workshop also aims to address how to increase participation in evaluation by employing a set of criteria focused on transparency, learning, and consent (T.L.C.).

Developing a Continuous Cycle of Evaluation

Large-scale, and/or long-term community-led evaluation is necessary if we want to understand the impact from our community change work. If we hope to implement and learn from long-term community change efforts, then we also require a foundational understanding of how to engage in continuous and systematic evaluation that draws upon developmental, formative, summative and impact evaluation approaches. In this workshop we will explore the stages of a continuous cycle of evaluation and how to employ this cycle to achieve greater community change through continuous collective learning.