Get Started: Manage the Information

 

During Phase One, managing information was one of the greatest challenges for local coordinators/consultants. At the beginning of the project, try to imagine all the people that will want to access information over the life of the project and carefully consider how you will meet those needs. 

You will collect a variety of information including:

  • Internal meeting minutes
  • Research on local impacts
  • Research and reports related to community values
  • Research on local information such as biophysical, economic and social data
  • Research on different types of adaptation assessments, methodologies, case studies, and other climate change work
  • Communication products: fact sheets, stories, media releases
  • Contacts for local projects, regional contacts, learning network and other partners
  • Learning network information, presentations, and updates

  • And much more that you haven't thought about yet!

Reporting and Tracking

It is important to be organized and to track and record the time and money that your process takes from the beginning. Some things that are important to monitor and record are:

  • Community volunteer time
  • Steering Committee volunteer time
  • City staff's and elected official's in-kind hours
  • Coordinator's in-kind hours
  • Any tangible in-kind contributions such as photocopying, hall/office rental space 
  • Media publications and/or broadcasts

Click the links below to view examples:

CBT Community Reporting Template for Monitoring and Learning

CBT Monthly Expenditure Template / Worksheet

 

Free Online Tools

We recommend using the following tools to help you manage the information collected during this year-long process:

Wikis

Wikis were used in Kimberley and Elkford for basic information sharing and document storage. WIKIS are shared online websites that can be edited by a group of people. They can be made private or public. They will help reduce email overload when several people are editing a document or commenting on work. If people you work with are used to websites, you can use the WIKI like a website and post information such as key meeting dates, deadlines and references.

Visit: http://pbworks.com/ for a tour! It's FREE!

Visit: http://sites.google.com (it's a WIKI but looks like a website). Great tool!

Google Docs

Google docs is an online storage space for Word and Excel documents. You can upload, edit and share documents for free. It is an excellent tool for sharing documents that multiple people are working on.

Visit: http://docs.google.com

Other Tools

www.timeanddate.com – times around the world in case you are making meetings between Pacific, Mountain and Eastern time zones

www.cutepdf.com – compress PDFs

www.doodle.ch – choosing meeting times between multiple people