Stacking
Overview Stacking is a simple tool wherein the facilitator or meeting leader establishes the order in which people will speak. This provides an opportunity for everyone’s voice to be heard. […]
Community Learning Model
Inclusive Community Event Checklist
Overview What does it take to hold an event that can include a diverse group of people? Different people have different needs—sometimes they’re even conflicting…so how do we create meaningful
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Situation-Behavior-Impact-Intent
Overview When working with others in a collaborative setting, conflict is sure to arise. If left unaddressed, a group may experience a shift in attendance and participation, an impact in
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Simple Coding for Qualitative Analysis
Overview Qualitative analysis is the act of finding themes and patterns in a set of non-numerical data. It can be used to gain insight into people’s experiences, perceptions, and emotions.
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Oops, Ouch, Woah
Overview The Oops, Ouch, Whoa protocol is a tool that can be used to acknowledge and address racism, classism, heterosexism, sexism, ableism, ageism, and other forms of systemic oppression when
Elevar: Trusting Community to Lead the Way
Pictured above: Members of Elevar’s Steering Committee alongside Eagle Valley Community Foundation Staff at the 2024 Civic Canopy Summit – Catalyzing Culture Change. It takes vision and conviction to challenge
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Community Learning Model Rubric
Overview Collaboration is messy, complex work. For many, it can feel like wandering through an unknown wilderness, with an uncertain destination. Fortunately, research on effective collaboration can provide effective guidance.
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Tools and Trolls: Lessons from the Canopy Summit
“Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never make it out alive.” I’ve had my rendition of Elbert Hubbard’s infamous quote written on a blue Post-it and stuck to my computer
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GRPI Diagnosis for Team Effectiveness
Overview When teams run into conflict, folks are quick to point the finger at another person in the group as the one to blame. Organizational scholar, Richard Beckhart found that
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Community Capacity to Shift Paradigms
A new teammate at the Canopy recently asked me about the term we use “transferring capacity”—we even have a neat graphic to explain how we believe that our role is
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Appreciative Inquiry
Overview Originally proposed by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva, Appreciative Inquiry is a strengths-based approach to organizational & community-level change. Appreciative Inquiry leads groups through a change process while learning,
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Bringing Partners Together: Launching Collective Action
The Idea It started as an idea to meet a need. Carlton Mason, Director of CASA of the 7th Judicial District, saw a real need for youth in his program.
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Changing the Way We Think About Systems Change
“The System is Broken” In a time when the political left and the political right can’t agree on even basic facts, they do agree on one thing: “The system is
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Food Justice Funders Collaborative: Getting Going
The Food Justice Funders Collaborative began with the seed of a great idea. If we could just get all the food funders together, in a single meeting, we could leverage
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Unpacking the “D” word: Dialogue
How many times a day do you hear, “We should have a dialogue”? It’s a well-intended question because it recognizes that something needs to be discussed and talked about. The
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Polarity Mapping
Overview All of us have felt tension between different ideas present within a group. It can feel as if we are on two sides of a canyon or just don’t
Breaking the Cycle of Burnout: Practices for Endurance
“I have burnt out severely several times in the past years…and recovered.” When I heard Dean Spade utter these words in a video over the winter break, my whole body
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From Conflicts to Coalitions to Statewide Collaboration: A Case Study of Systems Change
Bringing people together to find collaborative solutions to common problems can feel like pitching a small tent in a hostile environment. Inside the warm container of a coalition, norms of
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Recruitment Reflection
Overview Increasingly, communities are calling for their local institutions to involve community members in the decision-making process. Organization leaders may even be required through a grant or a law to
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Pueblo Food Project: Embracing Decay in the Cycles of Coalitions
If anyone knows how to get their hands dirty, it’s the folks at Pueblo Food Project (PFP). Whether they are growing food in untraditional places, helping new food entrepreneurs grow
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Introducing: Canopy Learning Online
Fall is here, and with it is also coming the release of our newest offering: Canopy Learning Online! For a long time, we have dreamt of making our tools and
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Fishbowl
Overview A fishbowl is a method for dialogue that creates a smaller space for conversation within a larger group. It is designed to have a deeper discussion between a few
Letting Go of “Perfect”
“What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?” is a question that often finds me through books, social media, loved ones, and my therapist. I don’t particularly like
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The AEOC: Balancing Responsiveness and Long-Term Goals
Northwest Aurora is home to a vibrant community made up of one of the most diverse populations in Colorado. It is also a historically underserved region facing increasingly constant challenges
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Socratic Inquiry
Overview The best ideas and thoughts are those that can withstand the tension of examination and scrutiny. Socratic Inquiry is a method that gives power to questions rather than answers.
Turn the Curve
Overview Facilitators use Turn the Curve to help a group take a data-based approach to solving their issue. By using the metaphor of a leaky roof, Turn the Curve makes
Bringing a Collective Impact Training to Montrose
Since 2018, The Civic Canopy has served as a capacity-building partner for The Colorado Health Foundation’s locally-focused work. This partnership has equipped the Canopy team with time and resources to
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Line-of-Sight
Overview The name of this tool, Line of Sight, refers to maintaining a clear vision of the steps required to reach a goal or desired outcome. This tool revolves around
San Luis Valley Local Foods Coalition
From Grassroots Food Movement to Transformative Local Foods System Liza Marron founded LFC in 2008 to restore the grassroots food movement in the San Luis Valley. Liza says, “People were
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Sí, Se Puede: Helping Grassroots Changemakers Navigate Conflicting Visions of Equity
Photo Credit: Alamosa Citizen In 2021, a group of community members came together with a seed of an idea: how could we help students without documentation access a college education?
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RACI Chart for Role Clarity
Overview The acronym RACI refers to four different roles: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. It is a tool that helps define roles, delegate tasks, and hold one another accountable. Whether
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Maintaining Momentum: Keeping Collaboration Going When We’re All Busy
There’s that magic moment that happens when people come together who are working on the same issue, but never realized they had company. Coming together with others who are working
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Prioritizing by Impact and Feasibility
Overview When there are multiple ideas competing for your time, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed and at a loss for where to prioritize your attention. It can be
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When Difference Arises in Facilitation
Over the past few weeks, we’ve shared a few tools around the topic of facilitation. These tools include agenda-crafting, setting agreements, questions to ask while facilitating, and grounding practices like
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Before and After Action Review
Overview Before and After Action Review (BAR-AAR) is a reflection tool to promote Emergent Learning and helps groups of people strengthen their ability to think about and learn from their
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POPRA Tool
Overview When starting a meeting or a project, POPRA provides groups with a shared understanding of what they’re doing together, why they’re doing it, and how they’ll do it. The
Fist-to-Five
Overview Fist-to-five is a simple voting tool used to make a decision that requires a group to come to full agreement. This is known as consensus. It can also be
Second Chances in The New Year
Taking a New Approach to Old Resolutions “Don’t you just love New Years? You get to start all over. Everyone gets a second chance.” – Lenora, Forrest Gump
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Don’t Make the Same Mistake: Lessons from Our First Hybrid Meetings
Just when we got the hang of virtual meetings, the world began shifting once again. As each week welcomes new COVID-19 guidance, it can feel a little bit like doing
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Supporting the Resistors
The conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on all three counts for the murder of George Floyd was hailed by police and community members alike as a rare
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Ignite, Kindle Your Fire for The Movement
A year ago, I was enthused to enter a new decade with a renewed vision for my next chapter of life and community. How I was going to get to
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Case Study: East5ide Unified|Unido
A person’s zip code can better predict how long they will live or what health challenges they will face than their genetic code. To people living in 80205 in Denver,
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Case Study: Revitalize the Rio
In 2017, community partners noticed there were goals in city plans around “embracing the Rio Grande River as a community asset,” yet no clear plan on what that meant, what
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Case Study: Syringe Access Providers Coalition
When the Canopy started working with the Syringe Access Providers Coalition (SAP) in 2017, the group had a way of working together but knew that it needed to be stronger
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Case Study: Communicating for Social Change Toolkit
Usually, the saying goes, “all talk and no action.” This project flips that idea on its head. Instead, the Canopy wanted to explore the impact of the stories we tell
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Case Study: Early Childhood Shared Messaging Bank
The Civic Canopy provided backbone support to the Early Childhood Colorado Partnership (ECCP) for over seven years. This included facilitating meetings and action teams, updating membership lists, hosting the website,
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Case Study: AmeriCorp Planning for Youth Peer Support Specialists
Initiated by the Colorado Department of Human Services, Office of Behavioral Health, COACT connects leaders in the field of youth services, human services, and education. COACT knew they were interested
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Case Study: Yampa Valley Health Consortium
In 2019, Yampa Valley partners reviewed the recent regional public health assessment data which indicated residents across Routt and Moffat Counties identified mental and behavioral health, substance use disorders, certain
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Case Study: Strengthening Working Families Initiative
The lack of affordable, quality child care is a problem so familiar; it can feel unlikely to ever change. Families and providers can feel skeptical about joining yet another initiative
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Case Study: Data Across All Sectors for Health Mentorship
In today’s world, collecting data isn’t the problem. It’s making sense out of it. The All In network works to helps communities across the U.S. use data to improve community
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