Engagement of Interested groups

For the event a variety of resources to support engagement of different groups involved in CommsLabs were prepared. These include onboarding guides, communication templates, nomination forms, invitations, and engagement plans for advisory board members, activists, and trainers. There are also templates for agreements, participant organization profiles, and resource guides to help with program design, coordination, and facilitation.

CommsLabs Teams (Convener + Space & Design host + Local Partner)

• Digital Infrastructure On-boarding Guide: in this guide, we explain the design of the online shared spaces for folks involved in preparing, shaping and taking part in an event; as well as how to create accounts.
• Information and Communications Flows: Example of setting up monthly Activist Advisory Board meeting
• Time and implication: considerations on how to address time management from an intersection approach

Activist Advisory Board  

• Advisory board nomination matrix: supports CommsLabs team members with a way of identifying potential advisory board members and tracking the process of invitation and acceptance of participation.
• Advisory board Invitation: template invitation to activists or technologists to serve the CommsLabs advisory board.
• Advisory board Memorandum of Understanding: serves as a template for developing the agreement between activist advisory board members and Astraea, insofar as identifying the nature of the collaboration, roles, timeline, activities and honorarium and other terms for those serving as CommsLabs advisory board members.
• Advisory board engagement plan: during the course of CommsLabs, the Activist Advisory board meets regularly together to provide feedback and guidance on the design and implementation of CommsLabs; the purpose of this document is to serve as a template to help Coordination Teams plan their time and engagement with advisory board members at different phases in the development of CommsLabs, and aligned to honor the time and activity agreements set forth in the Memorandum of Understanding.

Activist Participants 

• Participant nomination Form: establishes a criteria for & tracking participant nominations. The template is a spreadsheet within the CommsLabs workplan and implementation workbook.
• Activist participant invitation: template invitation that can be adapted to invite local activists to participate in CommsLabs.
• Participant org profile/snapshot: captures a snapshot of the goals, vision and focus of activist participant organizations participating in CommsLabs; these snapshots are intended to support participants, trainers, facilitators and Astraea codesign a CommsLabs that is tuned to the real world work of participants.
• Samples: Sample CommsLabs Participant Invitations

Trainers & Facilitators

• Nomination Matrix: supports CommsLabs team members with a way of identifying potential trainers and tracking their application and selection process.
• Call for Trainers (link unavailable): this is the call issued to solicit trainers.
• Trainer Interviews: includes interview questions for potential trainers.
• Trainer Memorandum of Understanding: template for developing the agreement between trainers and Astraea, insofar as identifying the nature of the collaboration, roles, timeline, activities and compensation and other terms.
• Trainer Engagement Plan: provides the coordination team with a baseline plan to engage the trainer cohort in program development; this was developed in direct response to trainer/facilitator/MC feedback requesting earlier and clearer opportunities to co-craft and integrate program elements, input and feedback from participants and the advisory board, to stay abreast of program planning outside the purview of individual trainers, to build stronger relationships with one another, and to learn from one another.
• Trainer Resource Guide: provides an example of how Coordination Teams might approach visually organizing and sharing documentation that training teams may rely on for planning and implementation of CommsLabs program design, project development, activist participant mentoring, etc.