The tools are designed to help you and your community foundation act on the recommendations in On the Brink of New Promise. The starting place for all of what follows is the On the Brink of New Promise Report and its Executive Summary. The tools can be used in many different ways and sequences (some of which are laid out in the instructional Guide to Using the Toolkit), but they fall into four general suites of work:
An introductory Powerpoint Presentation about the future of community philanthropy that you can use with your board, staff, and community
The Presenter’s Guide walks you through a number of ways that you can use the presentation with your organization and community
The Scenario Discussion Guide offers a playful way to help you start imagining how the future might unfold
The Community Change Discussion Guide helps you to stimulate discussion about how your community is changing and what those changes might mean for you
The Strategic Roles Assessment tool allows you to think about what leadership roles your organization can and should play in your community
Prototyping Community Solutions helps you to brainstorm about what it would actually take to address critical needs in your community
The Renewing Strategy worksheet provides some integrating questions to draw together your learning from other exercises
Monitoring Local Change suggests simple ways your organization can build its capacity to continuously watch and assess changes in the environment around your foundation
There are many other resources and tools created by others to address such important issues as governance, finance and business models, accountability, future trends, and community change. Please see the Related Tools section for suggestions.
