The project bank is a participatory activity where participants present and evaluate ideas or initiatives to receive resources or support. It simulates a bank where “projects” compete for symbolic funding, and participants take on roles such as proponents, investors, or evaluators. This approach promotes collective decision-making and the development of viable, well-founded proposals.
Preparation
- Define the purpose: Identify the goal of the project bank, such as prioritizing ideas, distributing resources, or generating collaborative proposals.
- Assign roles: Divide participants into roles:
- Proponents: Present their projects.
- Evaluators: Analyze and select projects.
- Investors (optional): Allocate symbolic resources to projects.
- Prepare materials:
- Forms or templates to describe projects.
- Symbolic resources (coins, tokens, or points).
- Physical or digital space for presentations.
Step-by-step instructions
- Introduction to the purpose
- Explain the objective of the project bank and the roles each participant will play.
- Present the basic rules for project presentations and resource allocation.
- Project development
- Proponents work individually or in teams to develop their projects.
- They may use templates to structure their proposals, including:
- Problem or need: What issue does it aim to solve?
- Objective: What does it seek to achieve?
- Expected impact: What results are anticipated?
- Required resources: What financial or symbolic support is needed?
- Presentation to the bank
- Each proponent presents their project to the group (or a designated committee), explaining their proposal within a time limit (e.g., 3-5 minutes).
- Evaluators or investors may ask questions to clarify any doubts.
- Evaluation and resource allocation
- Evaluators rate projects based on predefined criteria (e.g., impact, feasibility, originality).
- Optional: Investors allocate symbolic resources to the projects they find most important or promising.
- Analysis and feedback
- Evaluators discuss the results and provide feedback to the proponents.
- Selected or prioritized projects are announced.
- Closing and future planning
- Facilitate a group reflection on the learnings from the activity.
- Establish concrete steps to implement or support the selected projects.
