From Unlock15
Align on Your Impact Goals
Get crystal clear on the change you want to achieve, in the near-term and long-term. Impact is a very loosely used term universally, and can be used to describe an influence or effect on virtually anything. Taking time to explore and align on your impact goals will ensure that your team and stakeholders are all working towards the same vision of success.
Art Spin bike tour
The aim of the tour is to challenge traditional contexts of exhibiting art by producing new creative content in unconventional locations, while at the same time promoting urban cycling and sustainable communities. See also RAD performance in Vienna as an example.
Building durable groups with low hierachies
Defining goals, structures, roles and means of decision making are all crucial parts of founding and maintaining collectives, cooperatives, and other groups. Many aspects of organisation however remain ad hoc, informal and opaque, creating the possibility of power imbalances, misunderstandings and exclusion. The link will lead you to website with key questions that any group should consider and define during its formation.
Centralized participation plattform
"Mitgestalten.wien" is an example for a centralized participation plattform. We used it to run a survey for Unlock15 in Vienna about the future development of a street. "decidim.org" and "govocal.com" are plattforms that can help you set up a centralised participation plattform.
Community mapping
Collaboratively mapping maps about a neighbourhood can shed light on factors that influence everyday transport-related decisions.
Developing a convincing story for your campaign
The framework of "Story-Based Strategy" helps you figure out your campaign’s narrative strategy. It’s composed of tools or worksheets that you can use to analyze the opposition’s story, the current popular narrative about your issue, and develop a way of pitching or talking about your issue that will win over the folks you need to win!
Efficient decision making in low hierachy settings
Sociocracy is a governance and decision-making method designed to enable self-organization in groups and organizations without traditional top-down authority. Rather than relying on majority votes or hierarchical decisions, sociocracy is based on the consent principle: a decision is valid as soon as no member of the circle has a serious, well-founded objection — meaning arguments count, not the number of votes.
Gamification of climate friendly behaviour
Gamification is the application of game-design mechanics — such as points, rewards, competitions, challenges, and progress tracking — to non-game contexts in order to motivate behaviour change. In the context of urban sustainability and mobility, it turns everyday choices like taking public transport, cycling, or saving energy into visible, rewarding actions that feel meaningful and fun rather than obligatory.
Low effort survey in public space
The picture stems from Ljubljana, where the urban design studio prostorož set up benches in public space. They attached a QR-Code, where people could vote if they wanted this bench to stay. In a short period of time about 400 people voted, that they would like the bench to stay because they frequently use it. On this basis prostorož talked to the people in charge of that area. The survey was enough evidence for them to let the benches stay! What a success!
In case this inspires you to take action: Make sure that the QR-code is made out of solid material, that endures the time you want the survey to last. The tool material link will lead you to a website where different survey tools are offered, a lot of them without additional costs.
Newspaper of Tomorrow
When different stakeholders come together, they bring different perspectives. This is of great value for participatory and collaborative work. However, there is a risk that objectives and goals are different and difficult to combine. Creating a shared vision in the group becomes then an essential part of a project. This tool can be very helpful to reach this objective in a creative way.
Onboarding framework
The Onboarding Framework is a structured yet flexible tool designed to help grassroots civil society initiatives welcome and integrate new volunteers with as little friction as possible.
The framework helps initiatives answer three core questions: What does a new volunteer need to know, feel, and do to get started? Where do their skills and interests fit best? And how can the organization make that first step feel easy, welcoming, and worthwhile?
By providing a clear path from curiosity to commitment, the Onboarding Framework reduces dropout at the earliest stage, builds a sense of belonging from day one, and ensures that volunteer energy is channeled effectively — strengthening the initiative's capacity from the bottom up.
Petition: Collect signatures to back up your local vision!
You have a very clear picture of the local change you want to achieve? You want to show decision makers how much support your vision locally has? Then a petition might be your cup of tea to drive change.
Plenary for Emotions
A plenary for emotions is a structured group format that creates dedicated space for emotions and interpersonal dynamics within a collective or initiative — separate from task-oriented or decision-making meetings. Rather than pushing emotions to the margins of group life, the Emo-Plenum treats them as essential information: a signal about the health, motivation, and tensions within the group.
It is recommended to have a person that facilitates the plenary. This means guiding through the structure and keeping an eye on the time. This is how a Plenary of Emotions can be structured:
- Round: Each person expresses how they feel. In regards to the group but also in general. Resist the temptation to react to what has already been said and focus on yourself. The round is finished when everybody has shared something.
- Round: In the same order as before people can react to what has been said by others. The focus lies on validating and relating to emotions of others not jumping into problem solving mode right away. The round can go as long as people have to say something.
- Round: Collect next steps from what has been said. This can happen but doesn't have to.
Presswork to spread your vision
Presswork helps you to spread your vision of change. With a little preperation and a good idea, your work could be covered in the local news by tomorrow. Attached you will find a guide in english and german for successful presswork.
Public Engagement Onion
The Public Engagement Onion is a visual framework originally developed by the Wellcome Trust that maps the different levels and forms of public engagement — from broad, one-directional communication to deep, two-way collaboration.
Like the layers of an onion, the model moves from the outside in: the outer layers represent activities such as broadcasting information or raising awareness, where the engagement is relatively wide-reaching but shallow. Moving toward the center, activities become more interactive and participatory, culminating in shared decision-making and co-creation at the core.
Staging evidence for safer school streets
Excel sheets come to your mind when thinking of evidence? Think twice! The initiative "Wir machen Wien" showed powerfully how to not only collect valuable evidence, but also how to stage it in a dramatic way. They counted bikes, pedestrians and cars in a street in front of a school. The data showed a vast majority of the users (422) use the street by foot or bike. Nevertheless, the street is designed for cars, that represent a minority of the users (47). They designed wooden signs that clearly showed this discrepancy to passers-by, which sparked conversations. They also staged a photo, that you can see attached. They used the photo in a press release, which made local newspapers cover the story.
Task & Maintenance: What Makes Groups Work?
This tool is a quick, easy tool that is effective at helping groups understand the different roles in making groups work: different leadership skills.
Tools to help communicate within a group
Communication platforms like slack or discourse have dedicated channels for different projects and teams, keeping discussions focused and easily searchable. On the scale of a small initiative they don't cost anything.
Understanding your target groups
Card Sort is a simple yet powerful method for uncovering what matters most to your target audience. Participants rank a set of word or image cards by preference, quickly revealing key priorities and opening the door to deeper conversations about personal values and motivations.