FROG Design CAT - Collective Action Toolkit

Is it possible to inspire design thinking outside of the design world? The practice has helped countless organizations innovate new products and services, but has infrequently been made available to a broad audience. frog set out to prove the practice is universal by creating the Collective Action Toolkit, a set of resources and activities to help people accomplish tangible outcomes through a set of guided, non-linear collaboration activities. The goal: to help communities generate solutions, connect to resources, and pool knowledge to solve a wide range of challenges and create real change.

CAT got its start with the Nike Foundation, in which frog was asked to help empower girls to solve local community problems.

The frog team explored the value of connections for adolescent girls living in extreme poverty in the developing world, and collectively devised solutions to the problems they faced.

The project prompted frog to standardize and simplify the language around design thinking. Witnessing the value of the work led frog to develop CAT, which was introduced after six months of continuous prototyping and refinement.

Despite the project’s start in sub-Saharan Africa, it has demonstrated global relevance.

Over 10,000 people have downloaded the toolkit to date and distributed it to family, friends, nonprofits, NGOs, school systems, and governments. It is open source and under license with creative commons, allowing anyone to adapt the kit to their needs and share their kit with others.

It is currently available in English, Chinese and Spanish, with more languages to come. The kit is a demonstration of frog’s commitment to social action and goal to make design thinking universal.