The Problem

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organizations (SCVO) approached us wanting to engage their members on their first steps towards net zero and sustainability. As a public body, they represent the third sector across the whole of Scotland and thus wanted to have tools and solutions which could scale while also providing tailored guidance. 

Our solution: Technology

We collaborated with them to build a simple assessment tool any third sector organisation could use to assess where they had made good progress, and where they could take next steps. The tool was a success, with organisations reporting it had quickly helped to identify gaps in their sustainability journey. 

However, adoption of the tool began to slow as submissions from new organisations dwindled. The submissions tended to focus on those already quite far along the journey, not those who were yet to start. Feedback became overly focused on it not being a perfect tool rather than giving basic guidance that got people started on their journey, and therefore we needed a different approach.

Our solution: Going Offline

We decided to go offline and return to in person workshops, engaging and supporting organisations directly. We produced a workshop that combined practical actions from the Small99 Action Box: Carbon Reduction Fundamentals, with the digital assessment tool to capture a snapshot of their progress. 

This combination allowed us to give practical guidance in the room, while capturing their state of progress to follow up with further digital tips too. 

As we lead the organisations through the physical action cards, we saw increased engagement as people gained confidence and began to realise they were all going through the same thing. We saw deeper connections made through peer-to-peer learning. We felt a rise in spirit as people were made aware of the small actionable steps they could take to make a difference – and identified what actions they had already done. 

Being “in the room” we were able to understand the challenges people were facing while still gathering the quantitative data to identify trends in the sector. 

Every organistion left with a carbon reduction plan and new local connections to take them forward on their sustainability journey. 

The Impact

The Small99 Action Box approach meant that organisations felt like they had been truly listened to and could ask their burning questions. They received tailored support to build their foundational knowledge in this space and left feeling inspired to transform their organisation. 

By returning to the in person format, it has allowed us to develop a scalable solution, with a fixed three hour workshop that can be run anywhere. We now have the opportunity to reach marginalised rural communities and make sustainability accessible to all.  

Small99 Action Box has been fundamental to allowing us to re-engage organizations and build their confidence. The virtual tools we had at the time were great, but only engaging a small number of people. By taking the workshop into communities and allowing people to interact physically with their plan, it achieved a much greater impact.