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The Community Tool Box is a global resource for free information on essential skills for building healthy communities. It offers more than 7,000 pages of practical guidance in creating change and improvement.

To get started on the CTB, just click on one of the purple tabs at the top of the page or to the right under "What do you want to do today?"

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Ask an Advisor gives personalized replies to many community questions, from an expert in the field.

You can also view previously-asked questions and answers by searching the “Browse” feature. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Welcome to the Community Tool Box

What do you want to do today?

Learn More about Using the CTB

Read a brief description about how to use the CTB and find a related framework for guiding your community work.

See Table of Contents

Practical step-by-step guidance in specific community-building skills is available in over 300 sections.

Do the Work

Toolkits outline key tasks, examples, and support for 16 core competencies or skill areas.

Solve a Problem

Troubleshooting guides identify common challenges in doing this work, reflection questions, and links to supports.

Use Promising Approaches

Support for implementing key processes to promote change and improvement, and links to databases for best practices.

Connect with Others

Learn from others by asking a question of an advisor and linking to other online resources.

Search the CTB

Look for a specific topic within the CTB by typing a keyword or phrase into the orange box at the top right-hand side of the page and clicking "Go."

 

New to the Tool Box...

Check out the latest materials posted to the Tool Box:

Chapter 37, Section 2: Information Gathering and Synthesis

Chapter 37, Section 3: Data Collection: Designing an Observational System

Multnomah County Health Department implements MAPP (Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships)

Chapter 2, Section 13. MAPP: Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships

Revised Writing a Grant Application for Funding Toolkit

 

Thank you for making a difference!

What's New at the Tool Box?

New! Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice

Community Tool Box partners Vincent Francisco and Tom Wolff have helped create this important new Journal of Community Psychology Practice. This first issue contains articles of community practice projects from throughout the world, videos and interviews with community psychology practitioners, and tools and book reviews. Click here to access the Journal.

 

Sustaining Public Engagement

Everyday Democracy and the Kettering Foundation collaborated to produce Sustaining Public Engagement: Embedded Deliberation in Local Communities, a research report providing insights into how public engagement initiatives can grow into a regular practice involving people from many different parts of a community and spanning multiple issues. The new report by Harvard University researchers argues that the most successful of civic engagement efforts are those that address not only particular public issues, but also improve the quality of local democratic governance. Sustaining Public Engagement will be of interest to researchers and community organizers.

Click here to be taken to a page where you can download this report for free.

 

Leadership Training in Ethnic Minority Communities

Does leadership training work?  Here's one convincing recent example suggesting that it does, and that it can also bring positive benefits to neighborhood leaders in ethnic minority communities.

In Long Beach, California, neighborhood leaders took part in a six-month training program in community organizing and leadership skills. Over half the participants were Latino or Cambodian; nearly 70% were women.  Results showed that skill levels increased from pretest to posttest, and that following graduation "many members continued to exert positive change efforts in their communities."

Source:  Building Strong Communities: An Evaluation of a Neighborhood Leadership Program in a Diverse Urban Area, by Cecilia Ayon and Cheryl D. Lee, Journal of Community Psychology, 2009, 37 (8) [November] 975-986. Available here.