Tools & Resources

This resource provides a framework, together with more than 80 methods and tools, for evaluating place-based work in the Australian context.

This resource helps collaborators to scope a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) plan for place-based initiatives, drawing on Clear Horizon’s standard MEL planning tools.

A Place-based Evaluation Framework and Toolkit, co-commissioned by the Department of Social Services and Queensland Government Department of Communities, Disability Services and for evaluating place-based delivery approaches. The toolkit has over 80 methods and tool to choose from.

M.Q. Patton, an American evaluator whose approaches and tools are recognised and used to evaluate place-based initiatives, has identified a useful set of principles for evaluation, which are Effectiveness Principles. More resources including a webinar  on the…

This resource explains how prototyping can help you bridge the evidence gap by creating context specific evidence through experimentation. 

This resource is a compilation of tools and techniques for working in groups and facilitating meetings and workshops.

This resource explains that big visions can be too generic to develop actional strategies around, and thus advocates breaking them down into several smaller goals.

This resource identifies different levels of thinking and intervention regarding systems, emphasising that most of what occurs, particularly root causes, sit below the surface.

This resource describes six conditions of systems change: policies; practices; resource flows; relationships and connections; power dynamics; and mental models.

This resource helps individuals think systemically about social change, explore what is happening below the surface on issues they care about, and determine how they and their organizations can pursue large-scale change in a disciplined and holistic manner.

A paper on Theory of Change for complex initiatives aiming at systems change.

There are many more tools and approaches that can be used to engage with and learn about your community, have a look through the following websites for inspiration: 100 Conversations, appreciative inquiry, there are also a number of arts-based methods that can be useful…

This resource unpacks key concepts of ‘co-design’ and explains how the range of design-based traditions that sit under the co-design banner have something very important to bring to social innovation.