OUR WORK
This is not a linear checklist. It is a way of working: adaptive, iterative, and grounded in the specific needs and knowledge of each community it serves.
The process draws on design thinking, systems thinking, and applied innovation, and it is built to move with the complexity of real problems rather than flatten it. Every cycle builds on the last. The goal is not just to address the presenting challenge, but to develop the conditions where communities can continue to respond to new ones.
EXPLORE. FRAME. SHIFT. REFLECT
The Community Innovation Process
PROJECTS
Community challenges do not arrive with clean edges or obvious solutions. That is precisely why this work is worth doing.
Community Innovation Projects are where the Explore, Frame, Shift, and Reflect process meets real context.
These are not thought experiments or pilot programs. They are active efforts to understand complex problems and prototype responses that could hold over time.
Each project is distinct. Each one builds the collective knowledge that the next project can draw on.
SOME OF OUR PROJECTS
Collaborative
project
design
If you are interested in developing a project together in the future, we encourage you to connect with the Network. By reaching out, you can participate in co-designing an initiative, ensuring that your perspective and expertise contribute to shaping the project’s direction and outcomes.
Research
The Community Innovation Research Repository
Good decisions need good information.
The Research Repository exists to make that information accessible to everyone doing this work, not only those with institutional resources to generate it.
The repository is open to all members of the Community of Practice and free for anyone in the broader community to join. It grows through collective contribution and is designed to serve collective action.
what you will find in the repository
Data and trend mapping drawn from on-the-ground community work
Case studies that document what was tried, what held, what did not, and what it means for efforts that follow
Frameworks and findings to support community planning, funding applications, and strategic decisions
This is not a static archive. It is a working resource that grows more useful as more people contribute.
tools for
community co-design
These are not templates to fill in. They are frameworks for thinking together, canvases for making ideas visible, and structures that bring more voices into the design process.
Each tool is built around the understanding that the people closest to a challenge are also closest to its solution.
The tools help groups access that knowledge and shape it into something they can act on together.
Explore the toolkit, bring a tool to your next gathering, and see what your community can build.
Example of one of the tools/canvases we use