Project-Management-Community-Toolkit - Community Project Management Toolkit

Sep 11, 2026

Uploaded by Patrick

Community Project Management Toolkit provides practical concepts and adaptable templates for planning and delivering community projects, grounded in experience from Sutherland and wider Scotland. Developed by the Sutherland Adaptive and Collaborative Communities Team, it explains project roles, including the Project Working Group, Project Management Group, and supporting roles. The toolkit guides objective setting, suggested project stages, and includes a project plan and project progress report templates to support reporting, measuring success, and reducing volunteer workload and burnout.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time5 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Community Project Model

Expert Knowledge

Community Need

Supporting Roles

Project Roles

Project Management Group

Managing a project does not need to be complicated. This toolkit gives you some basic concepts and templates to help you plan and run your projects smoothly. The toolkit is based on our experience of managing community projects across Sutherland and the rest of Scotland. Developed by the Sutherland Adaptive and Collaborative Communities Team, managed by the Kyle of Sutherland Development Trust in partnership with Sutherland Community Planning Partnership, and funded by the Aspiring Communities Fund from the Scottish Government and European Social Fund. Contact us: sutherlandcommunitypartnership@gmail.com Introduction Welcome to the Community Project Management Toolkit! Like all good toolkits, this document should bethought of as a set of tools that can be used together to fulfil a range of purposes. You do not need to use all of them for every project, and sometimes you can adapt them to suit a specific area of work. We hope these tools will make your role working on community projects easier, and allow you to move more quickly and efficiently. Being part of a community1 places you in the perfect position to recognise when opportunities arise to help people in need, overcome challenges or to develop something new. The problem is, responding to opportunities or meeting a need often falls to voluntary efforts. Convincing the funders and public agencies, that you might need to collaborate with, that you or your group can get the work done often hinges on how well you can present a plan at the early stages. Even for the most organised among us, this can be a daunting task and so the Sutherland Adaptive and Collaborative Communities project team wanted to help break it down and share some tips on how to get started. We have managed projects of all shapes and sizes over the years and we have been trained in some of the well-known techniques. We know that these techniques can be like using a sledge-hammer to crack a nut when planning a modest community project. So, we have adapted what we know into some simple templates that are more appropriate to the type of projects usually managed by communities and volunteers. The toolkit contains: • Community Project Model • Explanation of Project Roles and what they are for • Section on who should be involved • Setting objectives • Suggested Project Stages • Project Plan template • Project Progress Report template These materials are intended to simplify things like reporting and measuring successes and give you an idea of the people you need to get involved. Take whatever you need and what is appropriate for you. You do not have to use all the ideas and templates for every project. Throughout the Project Management Community Toolkit we have used an example of developing a Community Garden project, we hope this project is relatable to communities across Sutherland and brings the toolkit to life for you. We hope this toolkit will help you to show funders and partners that you are well prepared, but also that it will help make projects easier, reducing workloads and volunteer burnout. 1 A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, town, or neighbourhood) or in virtual space through communication platforms. (Wikipedia) Community Project Model The hour-glass diagram below shows the Project Manager, the person who takes charge of organising everything, in the centre of two groups of people. The group of people who do the work are in the ‘Project Working Group’ and the people who have responsibility for, and oversight of the project are in the ‘Project Management Group’. Read more about the roles in each group in the next section. The circles shaded blue indicate roles that need a level of ‘expert knowledge’ and the circles shaded orange indicate roles that need to unders

FAQs

What does the Community Project Management Toolkit help you do?

It provides basic concepts and templates to plan and run community projects smoothly, including guidance for objectives, stages, and reporting so groups can work more efficiently.

What is the Community Project Model and how is it structured?

The model uses a diagram placing the Project Manager in the center, with two people groups: the Project Working Group (who do the work) and the Project Management Group (who have responsibility and oversight).

How do roles differ between Expert Knowledge and Community Need?

Expert Knowledge roles bring technical expertise to deliver the project, while Community Need roles represent the demand and requirements of the community based on experience or evidence gathering.

Sep 11, 2026

Uploaded by Patrick