Co-creating methods to adapt the Doughnut Portrait

On July 28 and 29, 2021, the DEAL Team hosted two webinars to share progress adapting the 4-lens Doughnut Portrait methodology over the past year, and to hear from inspiring changemakers already putting it into practice in their own contexts in Australia, Barbados, Canada, and India. We also invited members of the DEAL Community to share comments and suggestions on DEAL's latest methodological guidance on creating Doughnut Portraits for places.

We wanted to connect with as many members of the global DEAL Community as were willing and able to join, so the two webinars were held at different times to be more friendly for time zones in the Americas (July 28)  or Asia & Oceania (July 29). It was a pleasure to connect with more than 100 people from around the world.

Over the course of the two webinars, we were delighted to share the virtual stage with Zeenat Niazi and Mohak Gupta from Development Alternatives (India), Willow Berzin from the Coalition of Everyone (Australia), Peggy Antrobus and Sharon Almerigi from Regenerate Barbados, and Yannick Beaudoin from the David Suzuki Foundation (Canada).

Zeenat, Mohak, Peggy, and Sharon are all part of a larger co-creative team working with DEAL to explore ways to adapt the Portrait methodology so that it is relevant and useful to global South priorities and interests. Willow is a core member of the Regen Melbourne network, which is using the Doughnut to envision a regenerative Melbourne through the lenses of the Portrait. Yannick is currently co-leading a series of workshops with DEAL and Toronto city staff and officials using the Portrait as a tool to envision holistic actions.

Since some of the content that we at DEAL presented was repeated in both sessions, we have created a single 2-hour video that combines both webinars into a single repository to avoid duplication, and to store all the insightful contributions from our friends and allies in a single place. Watch the 2 hour and 15 minute video below, or jump to specific sections:

0:00        Welcome and Introduction
6:30        The Doughnut and unrolling it to create a 4-lens Portrait for places
12:42       Zooming in on the four lenses and ways to use the Portrait
26:16       DEAL update on adapting the Portrait methodology
39:48      Zeenat Niazi and Mohak Gupta from Development Alternatives, India
1:02:33    Willow Berzin from Coalition of Everyone/Regen Melbourne, Australia
1:20:20    Peggy Antrobus and Sharon Almerigi from Regenerate Barbados
1:46:50   Yannick Beaudoin from David Suzuki Foundation, Toronto, Canada
2:03:51    Launching a DEAL Community consultation and closing remarks

This content is hosted by a third party: YouTube (www.youtube.com). By clicking 'Show content' you confirm that you have read and agree to their Terms of service.

By clicking below you also consent to the creation of a cookie so we can remember your choice for one month. See our Privacy Notice for our full cookie policy.

Show content

Each session began by welcoming and acknowledging the different lands, languages, and contexts that participants were bringing, followed by an introduction and update from the DEAL Team's Andrew Fanning and Kate Raworth on how the design and methodological guidance of the Doughnut Portrait has been evolving over the past year.

Then, it was a privilege to hear Zeenat, Mohak, Willow, Peggy, Sharon, and Yannick share some reflections and challenges from the process of applying the Portrait methodology in their contexts. It was very energising to hear how they are all engaging with this tool in different ways, and deeply inspiring to see their interactions with one another and with the rest of the participants in each session.

Next, we invited participants to form smaller groups during a brief breakout session, using Google Slides as an online collaborative tool to record inputs. We asked everyone to share any specific questions about the Portrait methodology that we could address in the next version of DEAL's handbook for practitioners, and we also invited specific examples of indicators, data sources, and methods that we could highlight. We are grateful to have received more than 100 questions and examples in total.

Finally, we recognised that a brief breakout session is not nearly enough, and we launched a 6-week consultation period for any member of the DEAL Community to contribute to a working draft of the handbook, using Google Docs. This consultation period is now closed, and we are humbled to have received hundreds of contributions from more than 35 community reviewers.

We are aiming to incorporate the many contributions and learnings that we have received about the Portrait methodology over the past year into a Version 2.0 of the Handbook to be published in Autumn 2021.

---

Many thanks to everyone who was able to join these webinars, especially Zeenat Niazi, Mohak Gupta, Willow Berzin, Peggy Antrobus, Sharon Almerigi, and Yannick Beaudoin for generously sharing your time and inspiring experience. These webinars were designed and implemented collaboratively by Andrew Fanning, Kate Raworth, Rob Shorter, Leonora Grcheva, and Karn Bianco from the DEAL Team, with a special thanks to Karn for the video editing/support. We are also grateful for Zoom, Google Slides, Google Docs, and the internet – online tools that allow us to meet and collaborate in real-time with a global community.