Templates
The CoLab offers templates/toolkits to support your project at any stage -- whether you are exploring ideas, defining your project, engrossed in the work, or executing it.
You can access the available templates below and use them as you plan or implement your project. Many of these templates were developed in-house at the Lang Center. If you need additional guidance or would like a brief workshop on any of the templates (or project designa and implementation in general), please get in touch with us.
- a. Framework for Selecting a Project
A structured approach to reflect on past experiences, identify challenges and opportunities, brainstorm project ideas, and narrow them down based on alignment, impact, and feasibility. Includes a SWOT analysis to finalize the best-fit project.
Template
- b. Impact Gaps Analysis
Identifies gaps between the current state and desired outcomes of an issue. Focuses on recognizing "frozen areas," bottlenecks, and leverage points to drive meaningful change.
Templates
- c. Stakeholder & Community Partnership Assessment
A tool for evaluating and strengthening community partnerships. Uses SWOT analysis to assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, ensuring alignment with community needs.
2x2 CATEGORIZING STAKEHOLDER Template
COMMUNITY PARTNERship ASSESSMENT TEMPLATE
- d. Systems Mapping
Visualizes the various components and relationships within a system to identify connections, dependencies, and leverage points for intervention. Systems Mapping is offered as a multi-session module at the CoLab. Use the link below to learn more about the sessions.
MORE INFORMATION
- e. Project Planning
Provides a step-by-step guide to set objectives, define deliverables, and allocate resources. The goal of the template is to help keep any project organized and flexible.
Template
Project Timeline- f. Action Plan + Timeline
The template helps break down goals into actionable steps with clear deadlines, and emphasizes accountability and prioritization of various project deliverables.
Template
- g. Social Business Model Canvas (SBMC)
The Social Business Model Canvas helps map systems, define social value propositions, and design financially sustainable impact-driven models for your social impact project/work.
Template
SBMC Online- h. Ripple Effects Mapping
Ripple Effects Mapping is a tool to visualize the direct and indirect impacts of your project or initiative. It helps track outcomes, uncover unintended effects, and inform future courses of action (strategy) for your work.
More Information
Workshops, & Training
We offer both scheduled workshops and the flexibility for students, FACULTY, AND STAFF to set up meetings anytime to discuss their ideas and projects.
Systems Thinking for Social Change
Every year, the CoLab runs a five-session module on Systems Thinking for Social Change, offering an opportunity for participants to learn how to analyze and map systems. Systems Thinking is an approach to understanding any issue's complex, interconnected forces. Rather than focusing on isolated parts, systems thinking encourages looking at the whole picture -- how different elements interact and influence one another, and create patterns. This approach allows you to identify root causes rather than symptoms, recognize leverage points where small changes/actions lead to significant outcomes, and design sustainable and meaningful projects.
These workshops and modules are primarily designed for students. View a sample of a systems map produced at the end of the module and a story on the College's website about Oxford's Map the System competition, which Swarthmore students participated in.
Please contact Nimesh Ghimire if you are a Swarthmore faculty, staff, or community partner interested in these workshops.
