Tools & Frameworks
Systems Practice
📣 Playbook - Systems Thinking for Impact Investing
As a companion to the Primer which introduced different possibilities and options, this Playbook offers practical tools to help investors and their advisors apply systems thinking across their impact investing strategy, investment processes, and impact measurement and management.
Iceberg Model
Work through the levels of the iceberg, from top to bottom, thinking carefully through the factors and key points that come at each level: Events, Patterns, Structures, Mental Models
Futures Thinking/Strategic Foresight
2*2 Scenario Matrix
The 2×2 Scenario Planning Matrix is a strategic tool designed to help organizations envision and prepare for multiple future possibilities by exploring critical uncertainties. To use this toolkit effectively, begin by identifying two key drivers that are both highly impactful and uncertain within your context. These drivers form the axes of the matrix, each with two opposing outcomes, resulting in four distinct quadrants. Each quadrant represents a unique scenario combining different outcomes of the two drivers. Develop narratives for each scenario, detailing the potential environment and outlining strategic responses. This approach enables organizations to stress-test strategies, anticipate challenges, and identify opportunities across various plausible futures. By engaging in this structured scenario-building process, teams can enhance their foresight capabilities and make more resilient, informed decisions.
Projections: Things are not normal by BBC
This report by BBC presents a collection of themes and insights derived from expert interviews, encouraging users to explore multiple plausible futures, rather than prescribing a singular vision.
Anticipate + Megatrends
This toolkit has 8 Megatrends that are based on years of research, expert input and dialogue with organizations around the world. They reflect what ANTICIPATE has envisioned as the most significant forces transforming our world and why they matter today. Megatrends should be viewed through an open lens as dynamic forces rather than fixed forecasts. They generally take place over 5-15 years (sometimes more) and shape possibilities more than determine outcomes. Use the Megatrends to challenge assumptions and refine strategic thinking, as a starting point for discussion. Focus on the connections between them, since Megatrends do not exist in isolation but interact
in complex and sometimes unexpected ways.
Facilitation Tools
Facilitation tools for Meetings and Workshops
This toolkit is a compilation of participatory tools and techniques designed to enhance engagement in meetings and workshops. While the tools are categorized for ease in using them, they are versatile and can be adapted to suit different contexts and facilitation styles; so users should not to feel restricted by the classifications.
A manual for group Facilitators
The manual is designed to be an interactive and adaptable resource for group facilitators. Users are encouraged to:
Engage Actively: Evaluate the content based on personal experience and context.
Take Notes: Use the wide margins for reflections or adaptations.
Navigate Flexibly: While reading in order is recommended, each section is built to stand alone, supported by a clear Table of Contents for quick reference.
Refer Frequently: Some repetition and cross-referencing are intentional to reinforce key facilitation values and techniques.
It is especially useful for people learning or practicing group facilitation, offering both foundational principles and practical guidance
Designing and Facilitating Creative Conversations & Learning Activities
This toolkit is designed to help facilitators plan and guide creative conversations or learning processes such as meetings, workshops, and dialogues. It offers:
Practical tips and tools.
Foundational principles (e.g., working with diversity, including the right people).
Guidance on how to begin, structure, and deepen learning engagements.
A framework for different modes of conversation (Downloading, Debating, Reflective Dialogue, and Generative Dialogue )to help facilitators match the right type of conversation to their goals.
Facilitators are encouraged to start small, adapt ideas to their context, and build trust and participation progressively.
34 Visuals, 5 years of Facilitation
This is a carousel that was compiled by Mehdi En-Naizi on the key lessons he has learnt from 5 years of designing and facilitating workshops
Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning
The Most Significant Change (MSC) technique
The Most Significant Change (MSC) technique is a participatory monitoring and evaluation method that involves collecting stories from program participants about significant changes they’ve experienced. These stories are then reviewed and discussed at different levels of the organisation to select those considered most significant. This process helps reveal what kinds of change are valued, encourages reflection, and generates learning. It involves:
Collecting stories of significant change.
Discussing and selecting the most significant stories.
Explaining why certain stories are valued.
Feeding results back into the program to support learning and adaptation.
Intersectional Feminism
Feminist monitoring for Feminist Futures
The Feminist Mentoring for Feminist Futures toolkit offers a transformative framework for building mentorship relationships rooted in feminist values such as equality, reciprocity, intersectionality, and collective empowerment.
It works by:
Supporting mentees’ personal transformation alongside professional development.
Creating safe, inclusive, and empowering spaces for dialogue and growth.
Using feminist values such as bodily autonomy, intersectionality, and non-violence as the foundation for guiding and mentoring individuals, especially those from marginalized communities.
Challenging oppressive power structures in both private and public domains.
Gender analysis, assesment and audit
This Toolkit is designed to guide users through the full process of conducting gender-focused studies. It is organized into three main phases:
Preparation: Setting objectives, designing the scope, and planning logistics for the gender study.
Fieldwork: Collecting sex-disaggregated data and observing gender roles, responsibilities, inequalities, and power dynamics in context.
Analysis and Reporting: Interpreting findings, validating them with stakeholders, and translating insights into actionable recommendations that enhance gender equality in programs and projects.