The Challenge
To build the capacity for planning and implementing more successful health and
environmental promotion programs world-wide. To engage program planners and
implementers in sharing their experiences and learning from one another via the Internet.
Our Approach
The Web site Tools of Change: Proven Methods for Promoting Health and
Environmental Citizenship is a collaborative effort between Cullbridge™ and such
partners as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Health Canada, Natural Resources
Canada, the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Environment Canada, and
Canada's National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.
Founded on the principles of community-based social marketing, this site links a
growing bank of case studies and ‘lessons learned’ with planning guides and
worksheets, to help program planners and implementers learn more quickly from their
collective experience. It highlights approaches that have been particularly successful so
that they can be replicated and built upon, as well as "turnkey" programs that
have been ‘pre-packaged’ for use by others. The site is full of examples that
are presented to each user in a customized manner, according to his or her interest
profile. Users can save their planning work between sessions, and can download the
resulting draft plans and work summaries to common word processors for further refinement.
Collaborators
Our primary collaborators to date have been Market Access
Communications, and Larry Hershfield Consulting. (See also our collaborators for the
CBSM Toolkit, on which the site is based.)
Impacts
Since 2001, its second year of operation, the site has been
averaging a million hits a year from a tightly targeted audience of
program planners and facilitators.
Based on information gathered from site use, and from
telephone interviews with partner organizations and registered sites users, the
Tools of Change Web site:
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Strengthens the capacity-building programs and
resources provided by other organizations by helping them to offer more
substantial social marketing assistance to their members, extend their
reach, and plan more effective programs; and
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Directly enhances the work of program planners and
facilitators by helping them to more effectively promote actions by
Canadians, share detailed information and experiences from their outreach
activities and programs, learn more quickly from their collective
experience, increase their awareness of available tools and models, and
obtain approvals and/or funding for projects.
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