Directory of Tools
On this page you will find a variety of resources organised by category. Use the search function (Control + F) to find keywords you are interested in. The categories are Alphabetically ordered.
Data Collection
Kobotoolbox
Description by Kobo
Making data collection accessible to everyone, everywhere Kobo hosts and maintains KoboToolbox, a data collection, management, and visualization platform used globally for research and social good. Our mission is to support open source data systems and technology for humanitarian action, development, environmental protection, peacebuilding, and human rights.
Quality data collection for challenging settings KoboToolbox is developed for practitioners, by practitioners. It is intuitive to use and accessible, making it easy to get started quickly. It can be used offline, on any device. Most importantly, all its core functionalities are free to use for nonprofit organizations.
Tips from the Permaculture Impact Team
Create your own data collection forms which can be completed via phone or tablet in the field, and then when device is online, the data uploaded for analysis.
Geo-Mapping
Description by Digital Democracy
Mapeo is a free digital toolset for documenting, monitoring, and mapping many types of data.
MAPEO is an offline-first open-source technology which makes it easy for many to use. No internet or special hardware required to collect, view, or share data.
With the push of a button, contributors can gather map data by linking GPS points, photos, and notes. All data is completely owned by the communities themselves. And a simple and adaptive interface makes it accessible for many different people to use.
Communities stay organized and manage documented evidence. Data can be shared between project collaborators with MAPEO’s mobile-to-mobile sync feature.
Soil testing
Soil, Yield and Biodiversity Tests
https://www.permaculture.org.uk/research/soil-yield-and-biodiversity-tests-project
by Permaculture Association Britain (PAB)
Description by PAB
A number of simple tests which can be used by researchers and practitioners throughout the world. These include tests for measuring biodiversity, soil quality and cropping.
The aim was to create a simple, comparable, scientifically valid, monitoring toolkit that can measure and document key indicators of success for permaculture projects across the world.
Tips from the Permaculture Impact Team
Soil test handbook, soil advice handbook and soil test record sheet.
See also the Soil Testing course here on Permaculture Impact.
Description by VidaCycle
Soilmentor helps you learn what healthy soils & flourishing biodiversity look like on your farm. Understand changes on your land above & below ground, make informed decisions and keep everyone in the loop.Tips from the Permaculture Impact Team
Soilmentor is a paid-for service which helps you to map your farm, start recording and learn and benchmark with your own online dashboard, but it also offers instructions for a wide range of soil tests that you can do simply and cheaply. Test procedures and equipment lists are described in text and with videos. Includes: Earthworm Count, Soil Insect Score, Rooting Depth 80%, Nodulation of Legumes, Rhizosheaths, % Bare Earth (basal cover), Brix Barometer, Carbon Stocks (0-30cm), Slake (Wet Aggregate Stability), Infiltration Rate, Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure, Topsoil Depth, Biodiversity Recording, Dung Quality, Dung Beetle Count, Time taken for dung to break down, Sward Stick, Sward Density, Plate Meter, Penetrometer, SPading Ease, Fence Post Insertion, Probe Depth, Numeber of Broadleaf, Grass, Undesriable Species, Sap pH, Soil pH. Plus testing advice and equipment advice.Storytelling, Mapping
Description by Digital Democracy
Terrastories is a geostorytelling application built to enable Indigenous and other local communities to locate and map their own oral storytelling traditions about places of significant meaning or value to them.
Community members can add places and stories through a user-friendly interface, and make decisions about designating certain stories as private or restricted.
Terrastories works both online and offline, so that remote communities can access the application entirely without needing internet connectivity.
Community Mapping
https://www.seedandknowledge.org/participatory-mapping-for-agroecology-transformation/
by Seed and Knowledge Initiative
Description by Seed and Knowledge Initiative
This Guide has been developed based on SKI’s underlying
principles:
1. Farming communities have the knowledge and means to transform their situation when supported to do so.
2. Learning processes, when sensitively designed and implemented, can be transformative for everyone involved. This includes data collection, analysis, reporting, and planning processes.
3. Partner staff and farmers have important and complementary knowledge to share. A mutually respectful approach to knowledge creation is most effective for achieving success.
Based on these principles, SKI partners developed the mapping approach in this Guide. It is designed for collective creation and analysis of maps and other diagrams which provide communities with powerful visuals (pictures).
Community resource mapping
https://www.fauna-flora.org/publications/community-resource-mapping/
by Fauna & Flora
Description by Fauna & Flora
Community (or village) resource mapping is a method of showing information regarding the
occurrence, distribution, access to and use of resources; topography; human settlements; and
activities.
Participatory Approaches
Participatory Impact Assessment: a guide for practitioners
https://fic.tufts.edu/publication-item/participatory-impact-assessment-a-design-guide/
by Tufts University
Description by Tufts University
A full guide on how to design Participatory Assessments. The purpose of this Guide is to share participatory mapping tools that enable farming communities, who are practising and starting to practise agroecology, to analyse their food, nutrition, and seed security situation and take actions to improve them.
Nutrition
Description by Global Nutrition Report
The Country Nutrition Profiles bring together the latest data on nutrition at global, regional and country level. You can use the Country Nutrition Profiles to compare different regions or to find out what progress your country has made towards global nutrition targets set by the World Health Assembly. This makes them a great resource for anyone who needs evidence to drive nutrition action throughout the world.
Sustainable Nutrition Manual
https://neverendingfood.org/sustainable-nutrition-manual/
by Permaculture for Healthy Planet & People (SNM PPP)
Description by Permaculture for Healthy Planet & People (SNM PPP)
Sustainable Nutrition Manual: Permaculture for Healthy Planet & People World Food Programme, Free manual, flyers, drawings, and poster highlighting 600 foods in Malawi for all the nutrition we need every day of the year. The Permaculture ethics & principles can be used anywhere with your own preferences.
Dietary diversity wheel assessment
Description by Seed and Knowledge Initiative
This Guide has been developed based on SKI’s underlying
principles:
1. Farming communities have the knowledge and means to transform their situation when supported to do so.
2. Learning processes, when sensitively designed and implemented, can be transformative for everyone involved. This includes data collection, analysis, reporting, and planning processes.
3. Partner staff and farmers have important and complementary knowledge to share. A mutually respectful approach to knowledge creation is most effective for achieving success.
Based on these principles, SKI partners developed the mapping approach in this Guide. It is designed for collective creation and analysis of maps and other diagrams which provide communities with powerful visuals (pictures).
Data Source
Description by Rukmini S
Insights, charts and data to create shared knowledge and expand our understanding of India
Description by USAID
The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program has collected, analyzed, and disseminated accurate and representative data on population, health, HIV, and nutrition through more than 400 surveys in over 90 countries.
Description by Grameen Foundation
The Poverty Probability Index (PPI®) is a poverty measurement tool for organizations and businesses with a mission to serve the poor. The PPI is statistically-sound, yet simple to use: the answers to 10 questions about a household’s characteristics and asset ownership are scored to compute the likelihood that the household is living below the poverty line. With the PPI, organizations can identify the clients, customers, or employees who are most likely to be poor, integrating objective poverty data into their assessments and strategic decision-making.
Why measure poverty?
Your organization may operate in a highly-impoverished area, but without objective poverty data on the households you reach, social performance management will rely on assumptions. Organizations that collect poverty data from all or a statistically significant sample of households they reach are able to:
Measure poverty outreach (i.e. the portion of customers, clients, or employees who live below the poverty line),
Improve the performance of the intervention among the poor and poorest, and
Track poverty levels over time.
With these data, management staff can make informed strategic decisions and can provide stakeholders with objective evidence that the organization is reaching the poor.
Agroecology
Agroecology Assessment Framework
https://agroecology-coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Tracking-tool-manual-EN-2024.pdf
by Agroecology Coalition
Description by the Agroecology Coalition
The agroecology assessment framework was developed to evaluate individual projects/initiatives, or entire portfolios of projects, for their degree of agroecological integration or, we might say, their “agroecologicalness“. The framework evaluates the alignment of a project or initiative with each of the 13 HLPE Agroecology Principles.
Evaluation Knowledge Platform
Description by Better Evaluation
BetterEvaluation is a knowledge platform and global community. Our vision is a world of better evaluation, better decisions, and better results for people and the planet.
Funding
Funding Opportunities Database
https://www.perma.earth/funding-opportunities/
by Funding Circle – International Permaculture Collaborative Laboratory
Description by the Funding Circle
The funding opportunities database as a collection of curated opportunities for permaculture aligned communities, organisations and projects.
Examples of trials and reporting outcomes
Innovative Farmers’ Field Labs
https://www.innovativefarmers.org/field-labs/
by Innovative Farmers Network
Description by the Innovative Farmers Network
A network of farmers and growers running on-farm trials, on their own terms.
Social Impact
Description by CAWR
The toolkit is a structured multi-media repository of useful information, tools and indicators to help understand social impact and outcomes associated with the work of Community Food Businesses.
It can also be considered a framework to assist in understanding how social impact can be achieved, and to visualise the various pathways that can be followed to both instigate and evidence impact at the community scale.
Community Action
Community Climate Action Toolkit
https://schumacherinstitute.org.uk/community-climate-action-toolkit/
by The Schumacher Institute
Description by The Schumacher Institute
The purpose of the community group climate action toolkit is to provide practical and easy to use guidance on how to set up and develop a new group, in any part of the world, to empower any community which wants
to take action together.
Tips from the Permaculture Impact Team
Includes a guide to running the Revaluation evaluation process.
Systems approaches to MEL
Description by UNDP
MEL Tools and Guidance for Food Systems and Other Complex Contexts. Are you a development practitioner working at the project, program, or portfolio level? Are you just beginning your journey with Systems-Informed Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (Systems MEL)? You’re in the right place.
Contributing to this resource page
This is a community resource page which is co-created with your help.
If you are enrolled already in one of the Permaculture Impact Courses you can contribute by sharing resources in the forum here.