Tools for renewal: Co-designing tools to support social enterprises to engage in conversations with their communities during renewal projects

Calvo, Mirian

Abstract

The project presented in this report aimed to collaborate with communities and social enterprises in the co-designing and development of tools that facilitate community engagement for renewal projects. The resultant tool, called "Seeing differently', has been co-designed in a close-nit collaboration between Leapfrog and the Newbold Trust – a social enterprise committed to sustainability in the beautiful North East of Scotland.

The Newbold Trust is located in a seven-acre property containing a large Victorian house in the outskirts of Forres, a small town in the North of Scotland, on the Moray coast, approximately 25 miles east of Inverness. Currently, the trust uses the Victorian house as a guesthouse and its physical assets to host a large variety of workshops oriented towards nurturing positive change, such as meditation, yoga or permaculture.

At the beginning of this year, the trust initiated a transformative process shifting away from an organic and unstructured community to a social enterprise. This internal shift involved renewal of both its physical assets, and its identity as a social enterprise. The community reflected on their role within the local community and the insight was that, although they have been in Forres for the last 35 years, the community felt isolated from community life in Forres and the Moray area. The Newbold Trust, described to the Leapfrog team the need to initiate a long-term community engagement process with the communities living and operating in the area. Additionally, they were willing to explore in which ways the renewal of their physical assets could become an activator of positive change within the wider communities. To do this, they wanted to involve local communities in the renewal of their facilities, as well as in the re-shaping of their identity. Therefore, central to this project was: how can social enterprise practitioners and community members co-design and develop tools to support a community engagement process for a renewal project?

Following scoping conversations to co-develop the proposal, we devised a strategic plan. After a series of workshops, where walking became the vehicle to engage with several communities, the tool was conceived to capture the insights of the participants of a deliberative walk. This report outlines the series of workshops and the outcomes of the project at each stage. It also describes the final tool co-designed with our partner. This tool and others are free to download from our project website leapfrog.tools

Citation

Calvo, M. (2017). Tools for renewal: Co-designing tools to support social enterprises to engage in conversations with their communities during renewal projects

• Report Type: Project Report
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Sep 14, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 19, 2018
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: co-design, tools, social design, design ethnography
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/878884
• Publisher URL: http://leapfrog.tools/project/tools-for-renewal/