Designing and Funding Sustainable Development Projects

Many NGOs and development practitioners will need to increase the impact of their projects if they are to work successfully with community members in adapting to climate change.

In an effort to make our impact training courses accessible to a larger international audience, we have launched an Online Learning program. Key courses on project impact, design and funding are now available inexpensively online.

Development staff from 31 countries are using our courses to develop new, community-centered, sustainable development projects.

Center for Sustainable Development Online Field Courses
A module of two courses is being offered online in March, 2010.
OL 2.1. From the Ground Up: Designing Community-Centered Projects with Sustainable Solutions
March 2 – May 3, 2010: 8 Weeks

From the Ground Up will give you an insight into contemporary methods of developing community-centered, impact-oriented projects. You will leave the course with practical field tools and develop a range of skills: needs assessments, project design, community workshops, and discovering evidence-based activities. The course is designed to be used as a vehicle for you to develop a real project, in real time, during the course.

OL 2.2. Project Architecture: Planning for Impact
May 18 – June 28, 2010: 6 Weeks

This course will take the project concept developed in OL 2.1 and transform it with a powerful set of management tools into a project for presenting to donors. Logframes, detailed budgets, schedules and compelling fact sheets: these tools will communicate to donors, staff, and stakeholders exactly what you are going to accomplish, and lead the effective management of the project once funded.

To learn more about the courses please visit:
http://www.csd-i.org/online-learning/ .

If you have questions about the Online Learning program, please contact
Online.Learning@csd-i.org .

Sincerely,

Tim Magee, Executive Director
Center for Sustainable Development
Tim.Magee@csd-i.org

CSDi is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization

Expanded Information:
List of 31 countries where course members live and work:
Australia, Argentina, Benin, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Columbia, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Spain, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, UK, Ukraine, United States, Venezuela, Yemen, Zambia.

Course participants staff from large INGOs, staff from small in-country NGOs, people considering career changes, African business owners with a social conscience, and include postgraduate students.

There are two very exciting aspects of the course.
One is that participants are using the course to design real projects with real communities on the ground. The second is the cross-hemisphere partnerships between participants. We have people living in big cities (without access to communities) in Australia, Spain, Canada, the US, Brazil, and Panama, partnering on projects with on-the-ground field staff (with access to communities) in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Kenya, Columbia, Peru, and Venezuela.

Project development:
It is with the community’s needs list that participants begin designing sustainable, impact-oriented projects. From needs assessments sent to us by course members, we have been able to see the many common problems worldwide including: