Access Playbooks Like This One...and Much More. Taking collective action has never been easier.
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Expert Strategies
Tap into proven playbooks and step-by-step guides developed by leading organizations.
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Guided Action
Turn inspiration into impact with interactive workflows that break down complex advocacy tasks into manageable steps.
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Group Organizing
Everything you need to coordinate your parent group's efforts.
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We are a collective of communities and organizations catalyzing local change through collective action. Discover and join communities working together to protect childhood in the digital age. Taking collective action has never been easier.
The Balance Project Method
We believe that active collaboration, healthy debate and consensus-building are the keys to success for true change. Our approach is built with this in mind and offers opportunities for input from all relevant stakeholders: parents, children, teachers, administrators, mental health professionals, occupational therapists, etc.
0. ESTABLISH: Get yourself situated!
Build your team, set your goals and establish your approach.
TBP Overview Session
We can set up time to talk through TBP overall - our vision, mission, goals, tone, approach, etc. It will be important for you to understand this information so you can answer questions and discuss our approach in alignment with our vision.
Community Planning
Before you officially get started, we can provide an onboarding that reviews the Chapter Planning Deck which will orient you to our approach and tools, help you with initial goal-setting, share tips & tricks and will then set you on your way! The Chapter Planning deck can be used as a working document to collaborate with your team and establish your r/r, goals, timeline, ways of working, etc. Think of this deck as something you'll revisit and refine with your team along the way. You may start as the lead defining your approach and then bringing others in to collaborate, or perhaps you'd rather wait to get a few more people on board to flesh it out together. Either way works!
1. INVITE: Start to build your group of like-minded individuals
Invite other stakeholders (parents, teachers, administrators) to the conversation. Let them know what you're doing and ask if they'd like to be a part of shaping it with you.
Get People on board: Informal Outreach & Suggested Language •Action Item
Let people know casually what you are working on and that you're looking for others to get involved.
Keep the conversation going - capture emails, create connections
For parents who are interested, connect them via chat and capture their email so you can reconnect with them when you're ready
Bring in school stakeholders: Approach & Suggested Language for initial outreach
It is critical to involve your school administrators at the very early stages of your effort. This will ensure you can control the narrative and that they do not hear about the effort from someone other than you. We suggest sending an email like the example here as soon as you have a few parents on board that want to do this with you and before any large announcements go out or events are had.
2. EXCITE: Gather those you have "invited" into the conversation and get them excited about what is possible when we work together.
In this phase, you'll officially "kick off" your community with an in-person gathering, discuss the space overall, share more about TBP and get people engaged in driving action.
Kickoff Materials - COMING SOON
Invite template, deck, speaking points, etc.
3. UNITE: Gain consensus on your group's collective POV and recommended approach
This is where the magic happens! Here is where you'll develop and gain alignment on your in-school POV & out-of-school Balance Pact. Woo hoo!
Develop in-school POV
Internal working template attached with instructions within. Process and learnings document as well.
Develop your Community Ethos & Balance Pact
TEMPLATES COMING SOON
4. ACTIVATE: Gain commitment & keep the conversation going
The fun part! Here is where people support your in-school POV and out-of-school Balance Pact & Community Ethos. We will celebrate those monumental milestones and will then continue the conversation in your community by leveraging our activation tools and continued educational events.