Communications, Outreach and Engagement
The Communications, Outreach and Engagement project is quite broad and wide-reaching.
It has several aims;
- To enhance communication within the CoLab and associated networks. To connect individuals and organizations. To try to create a sense of belonging.
- To do engagement research into network weaving practices and processes, from the local level to the international level.
- Focusing on network weaving, in particular offering cross-network training and knowledge sharing events.
- To do outreach work from the CoLab to the wider permaculture audience. This will bring attention to the work we are doing in the CoLab and the resources we offer.
- To prototype bringing in national and regional networks in order to support the CoLab and the wider permaculture movement. Aiming to bridge projects across bioregions through resources and cross-community engagement.
Team
Charlie Wilson – comms, copywriting, reporting officer
Hans Ryding – research, outreach
Aimee Fenech – training & supporting, outreach
Area
Network weaving, Diversity, participation and engagement, Next Steps project
objectives 2023
Objective 1: Identify our audiences and prioritize audiences for the first part of the work as a prototype. Until August.
Objective 2: Put together a persona/s for the identified prioritized audiences. Until end of October.
Objective 3: Collate information from around the colab about services, circles and projects in order to update the website – to be used as a basis for the outreach package – ongoing work until end of year.
Objective 4: Collate information about current outreach. Until end of year.
Objective 5: Collate feedback and consent from relevant teams on updates to the website pages, including circle pages, services, resources and onboarding. Until the end of the project.
Objective 6: Writing monthly newsletters. Releasing new and edited webpages (projects, services, resources, etc.), on a half yearly basis.
OUTCOMEs 2023
Objective 1: This was completed. A taxonomy was created.
Objective 2: We identified several personas and which were the most important to target. Persona pages have been created on the website speaking to each persona with a different “voice” and offering them different links. These need to be reviewed and finalised.
Objective 3: A major overhaul of the website has been completed. This took a major part of our time and budget for the year. It was realized that the website was going to be a major tool for outreach work and that it needed a lot of work done on it. This work will continue in the second year of the project but to a lesser degree. Services pages have been added. A resources page has been added. The circle pages are up to date. The projects pages have all been updated, with new projects added.
Objective 4: I am not sure that this objective was met. It will be added to Year 2 objectives.
Objective 5: Consent was obtained and updates were given from teams. This was sometimes a difficult task with a lot of chasing up needed.
Objective 6: The monthly newsletters were all completed and sent out on time. Many new web pages have been released. Some of them will be added to the resources tab below.
objectives 2024
Objective 1: Enhance communication within the (CoLab) network and externally to connect individuals and organisations.
- Writing monthly newsletters.
- Releasing new and edited webpages (projects, services, resources, etc.), on a half yearly basis.
- Add adhoc events and job openings as request in #colab-communications-engagement.
- Quarterly roundup of NS project updates.
- Representation in the General Circle monthly meetings (good for weaving).
- Video to introduce CoLab.
Objective 2: Engagement research into network weaving practices and processes across from local to international – focusing on pinpointing needs.
- Picture forming – What is the objective of this exercise? – Who is engaging (with CoLab) and how are they engaging (from inside / outside). How and what are we measuring? How do non-engagers (with CoLab) engage with one another and with resources (more generally) (so that we can work out how to help them engage with CoLab resources). What are the needs of different users? Output useful to this team and others.
- Plan work according to outcomes of picture forming and needs and according to budget allocation.
Objective 3: Outreach work from CoLab to the wider permaculture audience.
- Review persona work from year 1.
- Collate information from around the colab about services, circles and projects in order to update the website – to be used as a basis for the outreach package – ongoing work.
- Collate information about current outreach.
- Collate feedback and consent from relevant teams on updates to the website pages, including circle pages, services, resources and onboarding.
- Finish work on the website started last year (review and implement).
- Write outreach pieces to be published in permaculture magazines / social media and network websites & mailing lists. (what’s our aim? Increase membership, join mailing list, or increase engagement with resources).
- Mail out to target organisations by persona type. (collate email list, draft copy of email, possibly translate to eg. Spanish).
- Publish and curate resources from NS and other working groups artefacts.
- Set up Outreach Database (and use for prioritising, categorising, tracking etc).
Objective 4: Prototyping to bring in national and regional/other networks to support the wider permaculture movements & the CoLab
- Outreach prototype with Nordic permaculture (capped budget as per slack convo about this at 22 hours).
- Outreach meetings with external community network eg. EUPN.
Objective 5: Network weaving and building on the work started with capacity plus in particular cross network training and knowledge sharing events.
- Training to CoLab members who wish to represent CoLab / promote services.
- Representation in the General Circle monthly meetings (good for weaving).