Download a PDF of this graphic and make it by yourself. Use this mapping exercise to see what assets you have available to you, and to whom you can reach out for support.
COMMUNITY
Find your people
Now that you have done your research and found a science-based solution, you are ready to gather your people.
Personal factors like time constraints may push you in the direction of individual action.
That's okay! Even if you decide to go it alone you can rest assured that you'll have a wider community ready to support you. This sub-section will be about finding different people and groups to help you achieve your goals. Here are some potential ways to find passionate people like you.
Here are some potential ways to find passionate people like you
- Having a community, online or in-person, big or small, local or far away, can be a game-changer in your ecosystem restoration efforts.
- Another way to bring people together is to form "eco teams" or small groups of concerned citizens to brainstorm and solve challenges.
- Finding or building a community can help your action gain attention, allow you to gain insight from the more experienced, and afford you some support throughout your journey.
Finding like-minded people
This figure can be used to guide you in your search for finding people and communities to support and join you on your action.
Online Forums
There’s an online forum for everything, and most certainly for environmentally-minded folks. Try social media or local community platforms.
Hold an Internet Meeting
Host a get-together and post about it on social media and around your community, you never know whom you’ll find!
Friends
Talk to the people around you. You never know if someone in your circles is already thinking about this issue. If not, keep talking, people care if there is a degraded ecosystem, you may be able to create your own community just by sharing your knowledge.
Join a Community
Find communities or organizations with similar challenges and goals and join them. Ecosystem Restoration Camps, for example, has groups and initiatives all over the world.
Cultivate your people
Once you have identified and engaged with your community members, you can now begin thinking about how your skills and experiences can fit together most efficiently.
Diversity of experiences and ideas are important to take into consideration. Open discussion and solid organization will allow you to properly position your people to create change.
To take advantage of the resources that your community can offer you, you first need to recognize the types of people and organizations that can support and share their assets to make your grassroots action a success.
Understanding the skills, and weaknesses of your group is an important step to ensure that you choose an efficient and long-lasting solution.
Discovering your community assets
This map can be used to better understand the resources and network available to you. Mapping the assets in your community will give you an idea of the types of resources that you can use to push your solution forward once you are ready to take action.
You'll find that the mapping is divided into two categories: "What do they have" and "Who are they?". The first category on the left can be used to map the resources available to you. On the right, you can map the provider of resources or to whom the assets can be attributed.
Continue
Organize