Digital Toolbox for Rockstar Community Organizers
/Here’s a big shout out to all the community-organizing, people-engaging, smile-inducing, neighborhood-improving, change-making rock stars out there. You do this work because you love it. And good thing, because your to-do list is probably packed with jobs that you never wanted to do, from managing budgets to making posters to baking treats. How could any one person be expected to do all the stuff you need to do to make a project happen?
Maybe you’re a visionary and have amazing project ideas, but you’re a hot mess when it comes to coordinating and scheduling volunteers. Or maybe you’re great at organizing, but you’re wondering whether to use fuchsia or chartreuse comic sans on your event posters (no. just no.). There are apps and digital tools for everything from scheduling your nail clippings to creating artsy filters for your grocery receipts, so there must be tools to make organizing easier. But who has time to find them?
Here at Community Workshop, we spend a lot of time using, testing and researching tools for community projects. We’re sharing a cheat sheet of the top tools we use ourselves for projects and recommend to our clients. Every tool listed here is free (though it may have paid options), easy to use, looks great, and is certified awesome for community organizing.
Just for Community
Here’s our secret stash of digital tools made for community planners and organizers like you. Many aren’t well known, but it’s worth getting acquainted.
ShareYourself
Manage community projects, tasks and teams
share yourself.org
Unlike many tools, ShareYourself is built especially for community organizers to manage small, community projects. You can create a project, set tasks, recruit volunteers, track progress, get and give advice, and even find funding opportunities.
Nextdoor
Connect with your neighbors
nextdoor.com
Wish you knew your neighbors better? Want to organize your neighborhood for action? Need a way to communicate about missing pets and free books? Create a neighborhood network and get chatty on Nextdoor.
Also see: Front Porch Forum
ioby
Crowdfund your grassroots projects
ioby.org
Need funding for a grassroots community project? It’s usually a bette project when your community cares enough to donate. ioby makes it easy to create and manage a crowdfunding campaign.
Also see: Patronicity
Recovers
Organize disaster recovery and mutual aid
recovers.org
Volunteer mutual aid systems can be essential when disaster strikes. Recovers is a free, one-stop-shop for coordinating disaster response, but you could use it in non-emergency situations too. Community members can easily sign up to help or ask for help. Organizers can post info and track status of needs and volunteers.
MapHub
Build interactive online maps
maphub.net
Need to create an interactive map for a walking tour or community assets? Share points of interest or new trails? MapHub is a promising new tool to easily create and customize maps with points of interest, shapes, and lines. It’s still in beta so we can’t make promises about final features, but it looks great so far.
Also see: Google Maps
SignUp
Manage and recruit volunteers
signup.com
Scheduling a big event with a lot of volunteer slots? SignUp is a great way to manage the process. Create individual volunteer slots on one day or more. Add a description, where to meet, and any other info. Share your SignUp, and you’re off and running. Volunteers can choose a slot and add themselves, change their slots, trade and add notes.
Tricider
Collect ideas and vote the best ones up
tricider.com
Most community projects involve tons and tons of ideas. The challenge is deciding which ones to pursue. Tricider gives the power to the people. Ask a question and collect ideas and options from your team or community. Then let the community vote them up or down. All voice matter, and everyone sees exactly how decisions are made.
Kauses
Share, read and collect input on PDF docs
kauses.org
PDF documents and reports are everywhere, so it should be easy to share and gather feedback on them, right? You’d think so, but it’s easier said than done. That’s why our friends at Urban Interactive Studio created Kauses. You can upload a PDF, adjust comment settings, and gather and review feedback, and embed it in other places.
More Great Tools
Sometimes you just need the basics. Here are some of our favorites for building websites, creating graphics, and hosting events.
Build a nice website with Weebly or Ucraft
“Do I need to make a website for my community project?” We hear this question all the time, and the answer is “maybe.” You probably need some kind of web presence — somewhere to post information and share it out with the community. If you can do that on an existing website, great. If there is no appropriate existing site, then you probably need to put up a simple, free site to be a home base. Weebly and Ucraft are two sites that let you create simple, beautiful sites for free — in minutes.
Store and share everything with Google
If you are working collaboratively with a team (on a budget), you probably need to create and share a lot of things. Google Drive is a great option to create and share files like spreadsheets, word processing and slideshows. But Google also offers a boatload of other free, integrated collaboration tools. Check out Google Calendar, Google Photos, Google Forms, Google Groups, Google Hangouts, Google Maps, and Google Keep.Host a video call with ZOOM
Ever joined a webinar or video call that worked perfectly, with everyone managing to get connected on time? It’s about as common as a municipal budget surplus. But ZOOM makes it easier than all the other platforms we’ve seen, and video calls are free (!) for up to 40 minutes and 100 participants. It can have security challenges, so brush up on how to stay safe.Tame your team communication with Slack
Email threads can quickly get out of control, especially when you’re working with multiple players. Slack is a digital messaging tool that keeps all of your messages in one place. It also organizes them by threads and hashtags, so you can easily track things down.
Make great graphics with Canva
Need to design a poster or a Facebook image? Canva is by far the best tool out there. It has dozens of templates that look beautiful and are sized the right way for everything from social media to print publications. Use stock images or upload your own.Create a network map or mind map with MindMeister
One of the first steps in all of our projects is to create a network or stakeholder map to understand who’s in the community. MindMeister is a great tool for creating and visualizing network maps, flow charts, and logic models and brainstorms.
Create a poll with Typeform
There are dozens of survey platforms out there. Nearly all of them cost money, once you go beyond a set number of responses and question types. Some of them offer complicated analysis and question formats. But if you just need a simple option that looks great, works smoothly and stands out, you can’t beat Typeform. It’s easy to setup and easy for users, whether you’re creating a survey or a simple response form.Communicate data with Infogram
Done with your survey? Now you just need to share the results. Please don’t make a Word document with lots of annoying charts that no one can read. Just use Infogram. It will help you make a beautiful, interactive report of your data that you can send out as a link, embed in a website, or even download and print.Schedule a meeting with Doodle
Scheduling meetings is yucky. Scheduling them with multiple people, and trying to do it over email or in person is even yuckier. Doodle makes it as painless as possible. Set up a poll with different meeting options, send it around, and choose the best option.Build an infographic with Piktochart
Infographics make it sooooo much easier to share and explain complicated concepts, but you don’t need to be a professional designer to make one. Piktochart offers nice templates and tons of stock graphics to help you create a great infographic for your project.
What do YOU need help with? Leave a comment and let us know, and we’ll go on the hunt for a great digital tool to help you out.
PS. Please remember that there are many great team members and community members out there who are not tech-savvy, or who can’t access digital tools or info. Whenever you choose a digital tool, keep them in mind and be sure to have an alternative, a backup plan, and a way to help people learn.