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Question:
can i get someone to help me develop my project ? have written the
idea down but now formalizing it is becoming a challenge!
Answer:

Hi Marshel,
 
Welcome to the Community Tool Box and Ask an Advisor, we hope we can provide you with timely, useful, and directly applicable information that will help you go from an idea to a fully functional project! First, let me say that it's a real pleasure to be on the ground floor of this project with you. We are fortunate that the Community Tool Box has many, many resources that will inform your thinking and help you move forward. Taking a project from an idea to full fruition follows a fairly logical progression, but it will take a lot of work and diligence on your part to make it happen. It's not necessarily the best idea that becomes a project, rather it's the person who can nurture the idea through a series of steps after much planning and strategizing, working through the set-backs, and persisting through to success! I won't lie to you, going from an idea to a fully functional project won't happen overnight, but it can happen if you are thoughtful, mindful, and persistent.
 
First, one thing you might want to consider is modeling your project after similar, successful projects - there is no harm in replicating a successful project especially if it has been rigorously evaluated and consistently positive findings were found; in fact, I would highly encourage it. Let me guide you to this path to find similar projects: on our home page, click on the button at the top of the page, Help Taking Action, and scroll down to Databases of Best Practices. You'll have to do a little digging, but with a little effort expended could pay huge dividends. You might also be interested in reading stories about successful projects: on our home page, click on the button at the top of the page, Connect, scroll down and then click on Community Stories. On the right side of the page you'll notice a map with a key underneath. You can enlarge the map and then look for projects that fall within the domain of your own just to get a sense of what other people are doing in their own communities - fascinating stories from around the world!
 
Second, most of the other resources that I think will be useful to you can be found by clicking on the "Learn A Skill" button at the top left of our home page. We'll begin at the Table of Contents and work through the most appropriate sections/chapters/toolkits for the stage that your project is in at present. Straightaway, I think it would be helpful for you to get a broad overview, you know, the "big picture" to give you some perspective. On our homepage, click on the "Learn A Skill" button, click on Table of Contents, and scroll down to the section entitled Community Tool Box and frameworks for guiding, supporting and evaluating the work of community and system change. I think that reading Chapter 1 - Our Model for Community Change and Improvement and Chapter 2 - Other Models for Promoting Community Health and Development will be a good place to start. Within each chapter you can pick out the sections that you think are most relevant (i.e., you can probably skip the sections on evaluation as that will come later).
 
Third, the next thing I want you to consider is whether there is a need for your project in the community. Ask yourself, what problem is my project designed to solve or what type of improvement will my project make in my community? To answer these questions, after clicking on the Table of Contents I want you to look at the very first section, Community Assessment - Information about how to assess community needs and resources, get issues on the public agenda, and choose relevant strategies. Specifically, look at Chapter 3. Assessing Community Needs and Resources and toolkit 2 - Assessing Community Needs and Resources. There are 24 sections in Chapter 3, but it really is important to know your community and where your project fits.
 
Fourth, you will need to develop a strategic plan and organizational structure for your project. Go to our home page and again click on the "Learn A Skill" button, click on Table of Contents, and scroll down to the section entitled Developing a Strategic Plan and Organizational Structure - Information about developing a strategic plan and organizational structure, recruiting and training staff and volunteers, and providing technical assistance. At this stage, I think the most useful chapters will be Chapter 8 - Developing a Strategic Plan and Chapter 9 - Developing an Organizational Structure for the Initiative; the related toolkit is 5 - Developing Strategic and Action Plans. Okay, these chapters will really inform your thinking about the steps you need to take to go from your idea to project fruition; you have to have a plan to get where you want to go I always say.
 
Last, the resources I'm going to mention here are really where the "rubber meets the road" as far as I'm concerned and more directly applicable to your question specifically. The chapters below will pull together everything we've talked about thus far. Yes, it's important to consider replicating a successful project, yes it's important to do a community needs assessment, and yes it's important to have a strategic plan, but the chapters and toolkits in the section entitled Analyzing Community Problems and Designing and Adapting Community Interventions - information about analyzing community problems to design, choose, and adapt interventions for different cultures and communities should be of greatest use to you moving forward. Again, click on the "Learn A Skill" button at the top of the page, scroll down to the section I just mentioned and then look at Chapter 17 - Analyzing Community Problems and Solutions (similar to conducting a community needs assessment as mentioned above), Chapter 18. Deciding Where to Start, Chapter 19 - Choosing and Adapting Community Interventions, and toolkit 7 - Developing an Intervention. Take your time going through each chapter and section so you don't miss anything.
 
As you can see, the Community Tool Box has many resources available, but those I mentioned will get you moving in the right direction. With that Marshel I thank you for visiting us here at the Community Tool Box and for your interesting and compelling question. If you're not satisfied with the answer provided, please visit us again and we'll work together to come up with a better solution; remember, you're never alone. Be well, take care.
 
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Question Date: mar, 05/03/2016