Why Use This Toolkit?

This toolkit will help you to learn more about the value of what you do. It will also show you how to collect information so that you can tell others what a great job you are doing.

Community Composting can be about much more than collecting waste and making compost. It has the potential for providing work and volunteering opportunities, as well as bringing people together and improving skills, knowledge and self-confidence. Considered collectively these can really contribute to local sustainability.

So it’s important to know about the ‘outcomes’ of Community Composting and to be able to communicate them to a wide range of stakeholders.

Understanding your outcomes from Community Composting is important for 3 main reasons:

• Evaluation - reflecting back on your activities to date - how well have you done what you set out to do?

• Business planning - it can help you decided what you want to do in the future and what you need to do to get there.

• Demonstrating value - it can help demonstrate the importance of your activities to stakeholders including clients, funders and investors.

What will you get out of the process?

After working through the toolkit, you will have a better understanding of the value of your Community Composting activity from the perspective of your different stakeholders. You will identify what outcomes are most important, who these are important to, and ways you can start collecting information to prove these outcomes are happening.

Next: What is Community Composting? or, if you are ready, skip straight to the Toolkit.

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Printed from: www.valuingcommunitycomposting.org.uk
This website was developed as one of the deliverables for the Defra funded Open University research project, WR0211: Unlocking the Potential of Community Composting. Information contained in it is correct at the time of publication. © The Open University, January 2009

 
 

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