CSDi Training for Individuals, Communities & Nonprofits
CSDi Training for Individuals, Communities & Nonprofits
This is course is the first part of a four-course program on planning, funding, launching, and managing a local climate action plan for your community. The course will lead you through the design and launch of a similar, real project in your local community.
In this first course, you will work hand-in-hand with community members in developing a local climate action plan.
By the end of the 8 weeks, you will have designed a plan complete with climate change solutions that will work for your community’s climate change challenges. Your plan is in preparation for the second course of the program where you will develop a full set of donor documents to present for funding.
Course Syllabus
8 Weeks: Develop a real-life, local climate action plan.
Week 1. Complete enrollment, meet your teacher, and explore the course resources. You will then have the next 3 weeks for Assignment One.
Week 2 & 3. Conduct a climate change conversation with community members to understand their needs, personal interests—and strengths!
Week 4. Clearly define your community and its overall climate challenges.
Week 5. Learn how to solve the challenge using locally-focused climate change solutions.
Week 6. Make sure your plan will work by checking that your climate solutions have success stories that show a proven track record.
Week 7. Assemble a detailed outline for a local climate action plan in preparation for a donor presentation.
Week 8. Share your project with your community and with a donor for feedback.
Where?
Types of communities that you can help prepare for their climate challenges during your participation in this course:
The importance of community members. Every community has different climate challenges: location and size make each community unique. Designing solutions to climate challenges will need to be on a very local, human scale. Top-down plans won’t work.
Consequently, the most important people in designing, launching and maintaining climate action plans are the community members themselves. They know their unique climate challenges, they know potential solutions, and they know what they want for their community. They will become the owners of the plan.
8 Weeks | Course 1 of 4 | Hands-On
This is the first course of four-courses on planning, funding, launching, and managing a climate action plan with your community.
You will work hand-in-hand with community members in developing their plan.
The program is designed to help both experienced—and novice—climate change planners implement bold climate action plans for ensuring that communities are prepared for a changing climate.
Course Objective
In designing a successful climate action plan you will:
Course Outcomes
Learn by doing. This climate change program is for actually launching a climate change action plan with a real community. In 8 weeks you will design a plan complete with solutions for your community’s climate change challenges.
This is in preparation for the second course of the program where you will develop a full set of donor documents to present for funding.
Course participants have helped communities in North America, Europe, Australia, and Great Britain be prepared for local challenges magnified by global warming:
The course will lead you through the design and launch of a similar, real project in your local community.
Write us and let us know.
You can participate in the training program solo, or do a group project with organizational teammates.
Questions? For more information, see the full course details or contact us.
This course is tailored for indigenous community members.
We also offer tailored versions of this course for nonprofits and local governments, farmers and ranchers, and for individual community members.
In this video, Tim gives a two minute summary on what this online workshop is for and how it works. In this program, working side-by-side with him, you will develop a climate action plan in 6 to 8 weeks. Mr. Magee is CSDi’s Executive Director, and the author of A Field Guide to Community Based Adaptation, Routledge, Oxford, England.
Good morning, and welcome to How to Write a Climate Action Plan. You might ask, “Why write a climate action plan?” Here are some reasons.
Have you, your family, friends, or neighbors begun facing new challenges like drought, wildfires, flooding, or heat waves? Has your well run dry, and you’re having to truck in water now? How are these challenges affecting your rural community?
Are you wondering what to do to protect your family? Well, the solutions are here for you now. So, join us in this climate workshop. We will work one-on-one with you to help with Step One of your plan: listing your climate challenges and then choosing which ones are the most important to jump on first.
Then, in Step Two, we will show you tricks to finding solutions that are road-tested by other folks in situations like yours: affordable, do-it-yourself, common-sense solutions that have come from country wisdom and know-how.
Then, you will choose from your list the project that we will work on together. It might be an emergency plan for your family, choosing drought-tolerant plants for your vegetable garden, or planting shade trees to keep your house cool during heat waves. Or, you might choose to install solar panels on your roof. Your plan can be for your family, your farm or ranch, or for the small town you live in.
Whichever project you decide on, we will help you find out which solutions are going to do the best job for you. And, I have some good news: In our experience, frequently the simplest and lowest-cost solutions are going to give you the biggest bang for your buck. They should be the first jobs that you tackle.
Join us to create your own certainty in an uncertain world, and pick up new skills for protecting your family.
You can take this workshop solo at your own pace. Or you can take it with me in a more focused approach: you’ll be done with your climate action plan in six to eight weeks! During the workshop, you will also join a community of like-minded people that you can share ideas and stories with during our weekly group chat.
I’ve been working for 15 years with people from small communities developing climate action plans—and I love it. I can’t wait to meet you so that we can get started working together. I hope to see you soon. Thank you.
The resources include these templates to allow you to progress quickly:
The instructor-led course includes a complimentary PDF eBook of Tim Magee’s A Field Guide to Community-Based Adaptation (a $40 value). Read an outline of the contents and the introduction.
The instructor-led course will provide one-on-one instruction in tandem with all of the downloadable course materials listed above. Your instructor will offer professional comments and encouragement for each of your assignments.
Each week we will have a group zoom meeting for questions and discussion.
Upon completing the course and all 6 assignments, you will receive a PDF Certificate of Completion.
Upon completing Write Your Climate Adaptation Plan, in next six week course you will use your climate plan’s design to develop the donor documents necessary to seek funding:
You will then have an introductory meeting with one of the traditional funding agencies that work with farmers and ranchers—such as the USDA.
Questions? For more information, see the full course details for Fund Your Climate Adaptation Plan, or contact us.
We also offer tailored versions of this course for indigenous groups, farmers and ranchers, and for individual community members.
8 Weeks | Course 1 of 4 | Hands-On
This is the first part of a four-course program on planning, funding, launching, and managing an indigenous climate action plan with your indigenous communities.
You will work hand-in-hand with tribal community members, indigenous groups, tribal leaders and your tribal council in developing an indigenous climate action plan for environmental justice on tribal lands.
For both tribal environmental professionals and indigenous peoples in their communities to overcome political marginalization. The program is designed to help both experienced—and novice—climate change planners for indigenous tribes create bold adaptation to climate change plans that prepare indigenous communities and future generations for the negative climate change impact.
In designing a successful indigenous climate action plan for climate justice you will:
Learn by doing. This indigenous people and climate change program is for actually launching a Native American climate change action plan with real indigenous communities to address a climate crisis on native lands. A well designed climate action plan for addressing climate justice can also lead to increased economic opportunities and improved food sources for indigenous populations for Native American tribes.
In 8 weeks you will design a plan incorporating traditional knowledge for the indigenous peoples of your tribal nation’s climate challenges.
This is in preparation for the second course of the program where you will develop a full set of donor documents to present for funding.
Course participants have helped indigenous communities in North America, Australia, and Latin America be prepared for local challenges magnified by climate change impact:
The climate adaptation to climate change course will lead you through the design and launch of a similar, real project in your tribal nation—and achieve climate justice.
Work in the Global South? This course is a better match.
Indigenous Climate Action Plan course resources include:
The instructor-led course includes a complimentary PDF eBook of A Field Guide to Community-Based Adaptation (a $40 value). Read an outline of the contents and the introduction.
The instructor-led course will provide one-on-one instruction in tandem with all of the downloadable course materials listed above. Your instructor will offer professional comments and encouragement for each of your assignments. You will be encouraged to research traditional ecological knowledge for your project design.
Certificate: Upon completing the course and all 6 assignments, you will receive a PDF Certificate of Completion.
This training program is led by a live teacher/consultant who will have weekly Zoom meetings with you and your classmates.
They will review each of your assignments and provide suggestions to make sure your outputs are actionable and fundable.
This course is offered as a live workshop—perfect for staff or indigenous communities. Please contact us for more information.
$100.00
Instructor-Taught Online
8 Week Program
This pricing includes up to 6 community members. 2 additional teammates may participate in the course and develop your climate action plan. Each participant has access to all course materials and resources. One group member will be chosen to submit the group assignments.
After enrolling, you will be sent a welcome email with login instructions.
Last Step: If you have chosen to work with a live teacher, your next step is to simply fill out the student information sheet to complete your registration.
INGOs: Are you with an international NGO working in the Global South? If so, this sister course is a better match for you: International Community Based Adaptation.
Tim Magee is an internationally recognized climate scientist, researcher, mentor, and trainer who has over 15 years of experience in designing climate change action plans. Mr. Magee is CSDi’s Executive Director, and the author of A Field Guide to Community Based Adaptation, Routledge, Oxford, England.
During the past 20 years, Mr. Magee has worked with 5,000 training participants from indigenous communities, nonprofits, and NGOs in 154 countries on a wide range of projects and programs about people, the environment, and climate change. He has a background in renewable energy and wrote a pioneering book on passive solar energy for heating homes.
Mr. Magee is available for 1) a live workshop with your tribal nation to develop your Climate Action Plan or 2) to consult with you one-on-one about your Climate Action Plan. Contact us here for more information.
“I just want to take this opportunity to complement you on the practical ideas, knowledge and vast experience that you continue to share with us on each assignment. Many times your examples are the solution of choice for our community. I have been provided with constant support, practical solutions suitable for my project, feedback specific to our project submissions and unwavering encouragement.”
Gillian Primus
“Thank you for all your effort in putting together a great program and all of the program resources. Thank you for everything – for making this possible, for your guidance, and for your continuous optimism and encouragement. I look forward to the opportunity to work with you again in the next session.”
Wye Yee Yong
See Which Native American Tribes Have Participated in This Training Program.
Learn more about who should take these climate action plan courses?
This program will work perfectly for creating a Tribal Climate Change Action Plan for your tribal community whether you are a:
TRIBAL MEMBER
Are you a tribal community member wanting to find climate solutions for building a stronger community?
TRIBAL ORGANIZATION
Do you work for a nonprofit or Tribal Organization interested in developing a climate action plan for a community?
TRIBAL GOVERNMENT
Are you part of a tribal government wanting to find climate change solutions for building a stronger community?
FIRST NATION TRIBE
Are you a member of a First Nation Tribe wanting to find climate solutions for building a stronger community?
Are you a member of a tribal community wanting to find climate solutions to negative climate change impacts for building a stronger community?
Become part of the climate solution: Learn how to work with your community’s families, businesses, and tribal council to design and launch a new indigenous climate action plan to prepare your community to be climate-ready. You will learn how to identify climate change solutions using indigenous knowledge with success stories that have a proven track record for solving your community’s climate challenges.
Tribal Members
Benefits for Tribal Members
If you want to find solutions for challenges magnified by a changing climate, this training program will walk you through designing a tribal climate change action plan in a simple step-by-step approach. Each hands-on assignment is one concrete building block for your new tribal climate change action plan. You will be provided with proven templates for you to edit into your own plan. Your course teacher will answer your questions and will give constructive, helpful feedback on each one of your assignments.
A new climate change adaptation plan cannot only protect your tribal community, it can benefit your community through improving the environment, boosting the local economy, creating jobs, and developing energy independence.
Do you work for a nonprofit or Native American organization interested in developing an indigenous climate action plan for a tribal community?
Learn to prepare communities for a changing climate: Work with local community members to understand their climate challenges, needs, and personal interests and develop, fund, and launch an indigenous climate action plan. This is a hands-on course where you will get field experience solving challenges magnified by global warming and design a real, solution-oriented indigenous climate action plan in a real tribal nation using indigenous knowledge. You will learn how to identify climate solutions for your community that have success stories showing a proven track record for solving your community’s climate challenges.
Tribal Organizations
Benefits for Tribal Organizations:
This program is perfect for tribal professionals who want to develop practitioner-level skills in developing local climate solutions. If you are a grant writer, tribal staff member, consultant, project manager—or executive director—you will develop real skills mastery. This course is just as relevant for a person considering a career transition into the climate world and wanting to develop employable skills. Each hands-on, weekly assignment is one concrete building block for your new tribal climate change action plan. You will be provided with proven templates to edit into your indigenous own climate action plan. Your teacher will answer your questions and will give you a constructive, helpful consultation on each one of your assignments.
A new tribal climate change action plan cannot only protect your community, it can benefit your community through improving the environment, boosting the local economy, creating jobs, and developing energy independence.
Are you part of a tribal government wanting to find climate change solutions to a changing climate for building a stronger community?
Become part of the climate solution:
Learn how to work with your community’s families, businesses, and tribal council to design and launch a new indigenous climate action plan to prepare your community to be climate-ready. Using indigenous knowledge, you will learn how to identify climate solutions with success stories that have a proven track record for solving your community’s climate challenges. This course is designed to build your climate leadership abilities for advancing climate solutions in your community.
Tribal Governments
Benefits for Tribal Governments:
If you want to find solutions for challenges magnified by global warming, this training program will walk you through designing a climate action plan in a simple step-by-step approach. Each hands-on assignment is one concrete building block for your new action plan. You will be provided with proven templates for you to edit into your own plan. Your course teacher will answer your questions and will give you a constructive, helpful consultation on each one of your assignments.
A new indigenous climate action plan cannot only protect your community, it can benefit your community through improving the environment, boosting the local economy, creating jobs, and developing energy independence.
Are you a member of a First Nation tribe wanting to find climate change solutions to global warming for building a stronger community?
Learn to prepare your First Nation community for a changing climate: Learn how to work with your community’s families, businesses, and tribal leaders to design and launch a new indigenous climate action plan to prepare your community to be climate-ready. Using indigenous knowledge, you will learn how to identify climate solutions with success stories and that have a proven track record for solving your community’s climate challenges. You will be using your community’s expressed needs, interests, and traditional knowledge as a basis for identifying solutions: Your community members are already leaders on climate solutions for your lands because they possess the knowledge of your land and culture.
First Nation Tribal Members
Benefits for First Nation Tribal Members:
If you want to find solutions for challenges magnified by a changing climate, this training program will walk you through designing an indigenous climate action plan in a simple step-by-step approach. Each hands-on assignment is one concrete building block for your new action plan. You will be provided with proven templates for you to edit into your own plan. Your course teacher will answer your questions and will give constructive, helpful feedback on each one of your assignments.
A new climate action plan cannot only protect your community, it can benefit your community through improving the environment, boosting the local economy, creating jobs, and developing energy independence.
8 Weeks: What is climate change? Develop a real-life, local climate action plan template. What is a climate action plan?
Week 1. Complete enrollment, meet your teacher, and explore the course resources. You will then have the next 3 weeks for Assignment One.
Week 2 & 3. Conduct a climate change conversation with community members to understand their needs, personal interests—and strengths! What is global warming? What is climate change mitigation? Climate resilience.
climate adaptation?
Week 4. Clearly define your community and its overall climate challenge.
Week 5. Learn how to solve the challenge using locally-focused climate change solutions.
Week 6. Make sure your plan will work by checking that your climate solutions have success stories that show a proven track record.
Week 7. Assemble a detailed outline for a local climate action plan in preparation for a donor presentation.
Week 8. Share your project with your community and with a donor for feedback.
Then, enroll in Fund Your Climate Action Plan to develop a full set of donor documents:
Each week we will have a group zoom meeting for questions and discussion.
Please contact us with questions.
Your next step is to simply fill out the student information sheet to complete your registration.
Indigenous Peoples That Have Participated in This Training Program:
Fond du lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
N’dee – San Carlos Apache Tribe
Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa
Ojibwe Red Lake Band of Chippewa
Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe
Cree First Nation of Waswanipi
Okanagan Nation SnPink’tn – Penticton Indian Band
Fort Folly First Nation
Pimicikamak Cree Nation Cross Lake Band
Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians
Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin
8 Weeks: Develop a real-life, indigenous climate change action plan.
Week 1. Complete enrollment, meet your teacher, and explore the course resources. You will then have the next 3 weeks for Assignment One.
Week 2 & 3. Conduct a tribal climate change conversation with community members to understand their needs, personal interests—and strengths!
Week 4. Clearly define your community and its overall climate challenge.
Week 5. Learn how to solve the challenge using locally-focused adaptation to tribal climate change solutions.
Week 6. Make sure your plan will work by checking that your climate solutions have success stories that show a proven track record.
Week 7. Assemble a detailed outline for your tribal climate change action plan in preparation for a donor presentation.
Week 8. Share your project with your community and with a donor for feedback.
Every community has different climate challenges: location, makeup, and size make each tribal nation unique. Designing solutions to climate challenges will need to be on a very local, human scale. Top-down plans won’t work.
Consequently, the most important people in designing, launching and maintaining climate action plans are the community members themselves. They know their unique climate challenges, they know potential solutions based upon indigenous knowledge, and they know what they want for their tribal nation. With your help, they will become the owners of the plan.
Types of communities that you can help prepare for their climate challenges during your participation in this course:
This is course one of a four-course program on planning, funding, launching, and managing a triball climate change action plan for your community. Each course is approximately 8 weeks long.
We recommend taking course one and course two one after the other. This will allow you to develop a project concept with your community members, and then develop the documentation that you need for an initial donor presentation.
The next two courses can certainly be taken right after, but you can also wait until your project launches and you’re ready to manage it.
A snapshot of the course progression:
Course 1:
Work with community members to develop a concept for a climate action plan (CAP). Research climate solutions with success stories: proven track records for solving your community’s climate challenges. These should be long-lasting solutions that will continue to show results year after year. Prepare a detailed project outline that clearly shows the step-by-step process of your new climate action plan. Share your new outline with community members and informally with a donor for feedback.
Course 2:
Further develop your project by expanding your outline with detailed descriptions (logframe). Complement this with a monitoring and evaluation plan, a detailed budget and a project schedule. Use these to write a two-page fact sheet that compellingly describes your climate action plan. Compile these tools into a presentation booklet. The booklet will be useful both for funding presentations, but also for project management. Share your climate action plan with a donor, or someone in the climate change world for feedback.
Course 3: In this course you will lead a participatory community workshop to share information, collect local knowledge and to learn about community vulnerability and adaptive capacity. The purpose is twofold: 1) to learn greater depth about your communities climate challenges so that you can best manage the project, and 2) continue engaging community members in the project to develop long-term ownership. You will work very closely with community members during this course with the final outcome being to develop a community based project oversight committee. Developing this committee is in preparation for course for.
Course 4: At a natural point, project funding will come to an end. Although the funded project is technically done at this point, many of the various activities which you launched will need to be maintained for the long-term. This course is how to hand the project over to community members to continue running the activities and maintaining the overall project. This leads to the long-term sustainability of the climate solutions that you developed with the community in the first course.
Detailed Descriptions:
Course 1: OL 241 How to Write a Tribal Climate Change Action Plan
It is an 8-week, hands-on course. You will work hand-in-hand with community members in developing a local climate action plan. By the end of the 8 weeks, you will have designed a CAP and developed a detailed project outline complete with climate change solutions that will work for your community’s climate change challenges.
8 Weeks: Discover climate solutions to help your community’s families and businesses combat global warming.
Week 1. Complete enrollment, meet your teacher, and explore the resources. You will then have the next 3 weeks for Assignment One.
Week 2 & 3. Conduct a climate change conversation with community members to understand their needs, personal interests—and strengths!
Week 4. Clearly define your community and its overall climate challenges.
Week 5. Learn how to solve the challenge using locally-focused climate change solutions.
Week 6. Make sure your plan will work by checking that your climate solutions have success stories that show a proven track record.
Week 7. Assemble a detailed outline for your climate action plan in preparation for a donor presentation.
Week 8. Share your project with your community and informally with a donor for feedback.
Your plan is in preparation for the second course of the program where you will develop a full set of donor documents to present for funding.
Course 2: OL 242 Funding Your Climate Ready Action Plan
A 6 week, self-paced training program where you will continue the development of your climate change project that was started in OL 241. Each one of the assignments will be a concrete step in preparing your project for a donor presentation. By the end of the 6 weeks, you will have developed a full set of donor documents and project management tools. You will then make an exploratory donor presentation.
Learn by doing.
You will embed impact into your adaptation project design with a set of powerful management tools: Logframes, budgets, schedules and compelling fact sheets. They will communicate to donors & stakeholders exactly what you are going to accomplish and can be used for effective management of the project once funded.
6 Weeks: Develop Donor & Project Management Tools.
Week 1. Assemble a logframe using your project outline’s challenges and solutions.
Week 2. Develop a monitoring and evaluation plan.
Week 3. Create a budget for your project.
Week 4. Develop a project schedule.
Week 5. Write a compelling 2-page fact sheet to present to donors.
Week 6. Share your project with a donor, or someone in the climate change world for feedback.
The third course in the program will lead you in launching your climate action plan.
Course 3: OL 243 Launching Your Climate Ready Action Plan
An 8 week, self-paced training program where you will continue the development of your climate change project. Each one of the assignments will be a concrete step in preparing your project for launch and eventual community takeover. By the end of the 8 weeks, you will have designed a participatory community workshop to share information, collect local knowledge and to learn about community vulnerability and adaptive capacity. You will also lead a workshop to develop a community-based oversight committee: Your new teammates.
Learn by doing.
You will create long-term sustainability in your project by fully developing the community’s ownership in the project.
8 Weeks: Make the project sustainable and have long-term impact.
Week 1. Review the scientific evidence of climate change in your area.
Week 2. What are the current CC hazards and future CC challenges?
Week 3. Design a participatory community workshop.
Week 4. Lead the workshop and introduce adaptation concepts.
Week 5. Incorporate adaptation activities to strengthen resilience.
Week 6. Return to the community for feedback on your expanded design.
Week 7. Organize a workshop to develop a community-based project team.
Week 8. Develop a community-based oversight committee: Your new teammates.
Course 4: OL 244 Managing Your Climate Ready Action Plan
An 8 week, self-paced training program where you will each continue the development of your climate change project. Each one of the assignments will be a concrete step in preparing your project for launch and eventual takeover. By the end of the 8 weeks, you will have developed a management plan and a simple monitoring and evaluation plan for the community to use—and you will have launched the project.
Learn by doing.
We also need to make sure that we successfully deliver a set of skills to the community through a family of workshops so that they will be able to implement the project activities alongside us. You will launch the project and orchestrate for the project handover to the community at the end of your grant cycle.
6 Weeks: Make the project sustainable and have long-term impact.
Week 1. Project Management: the community perspective.
Week 2. Engaging the community in project launch.
Week 3. Developing skill sets within the community.
Week 4. Project Launch.
Week 5. Learning tools: Monitoring and evaluation.
Week 6. Community Empowerment: Project hand-over.
Please contact us with questions.
“Thank you for all your effort in putting together a great program and all of the program resources.
Thank you for everything – for making this possible, for your guidance, and for your continuous optimism and encouragement.
I look forward to the opportunity to work with you again in the next session.”
Wye Yee Yong
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“I just want to take this opportunity to complement you on the practical ideas, knowledge and vast experience that you continue to share with us on each assignment. Many times your examples are the solution of choice for our community. I have been provided with constant support, practical solutions suitable for my project, feedback specific to our project submissions and unwavering encouragement.”
Gillian Primus
Use our resources to discover your own sustainable climate solutions. Together, we can make a difference in our communities and beyond.
CSDi is pleased to announce 12 full scholarships for our updated training program: How to Write a North American Indigenous Climate Action Plan. Apply for this scholarship opportunity.
CSDi is pleased to announce 12 full scholarships for
How to Write a North American Rural Climate Action Plan. Learn More.
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