🧲
The magnet of involvement
Mobilize, engage, and involve citizens in collective life.
Resources
Toolbox
Developed with community actors in the Outaouais, this toolbox makes knowledge and practices accessible to support active, inclusive, and democratic citizenship. It evolves over time through community contributions and learnings from research and field action.
Explore by metaphorsChoose a metaphor based on your needs, then click "Explore resources" to open the list of links.
The LabPop Toolbox brings together practical resources to support citizen participation, strengthen organizations' capacities, and encourage collective action. Guides, podcasts, research, and concrete tools to move from reflection to action in service of communities.
Would you like to add to our tools or suggest a new one? Write to: formation@lfpo.org
Metaphors
Metaphors
🔧
The inclusion wrench
Adapt practices to enable real, equitable, and accessible participation for everyone, while considering social, cultural, and organizational realities.
Resources
- Community organization in CSSS: Public service, participation and citizenship (Bourque & Lachapelle, 2010)
- Community organizations in Quebec: From coexistence to supplementarity (Savard & Proulx, 2012)
- The role of social trust in citizen participation and mobilization (Melim, 2020 - UQO thesis)
- Combining research and citizen participation: issues, challenges and conditions (Rene, Champagne & Mongeau, 2013)
- Online citizen participation in Quebec: organizational conditions (Boudreau & Caron, 2016)
🪜
The mobilization ladder
Move from individual awareness to sustainable collective engagement by structuring participation, appropriation, and community action steps.
Resources
- Participation: from citizens' committees to the community movement (Fortin, 1991)
- Strategic state and citizen participation (Cote, Levesque & Morneau, 2009)
- Social innovation and institutional work: community organizations and social policy evolution (Jette & Bergeron-Gaudin, 2020)
- Citizen participation: an inclusive research and innovation strategy (Institut du Nouveau Monde, 2021)
- Quebec Survey of Community Action Organizations (QSCAO) (Statistics Quebec, 2025)
📏
The participation ruler
Structure, plan, and frame clear participatory processes to support transparent, inclusive, and effective collective decisions.
Resources
- Democracy, governance and citizen participation (GRIR, 2015)
- Citizen participation: for a relevant and inclusive research and innovation strategy (Institut du Nouveau Monde, 2021)
- Review - New public participation policy (City of Quebec, 2021)
- Strategic state and citizen participation (Cote, Levesque & Morneau, 2009)
- Citizen participation and community intervention (Gagne & Despars, 2011)
🪛
The transformation screwdriver
Equip communities and organizations to move from intention to action and support durable, concrete, and measurable social change.
Resources
- Experiencing democracy: Third places for youth citizenship education in Quebec (Gaudet & Caron, 2025)
- An innovative approach to addressing childhood obesity: A knowledge-based infrastructure for multi-stakeholder decision-making (Addy et al., 2019)
- Beyond transactional democracy: Civic tech in Canada (McCord & Becker, 2023)
- Social innovation and institutional work: community organizations and social policy evolution (Jette & Bergeron-Gaudin, 2020)
- Toolbox - Citizen and social engagement (FJAQ, 2024)