THE HAPPINESS INITIATIVE TOOLKIT A Tool kit for creating your own Happiness Initiative How To Conduct A Happiness Initiative in your city or town

Terms of Agreement This toolkit and the tools in it are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Non- Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, 2011 This means you are free to use this for any non- commercial purpose You agree to give us credit You agree to share your findings You will not change or alter the survey or objective metrics without permission from us Contact us for more information-

The Happiness Initiative Our Mission is to work towards a just, healthy and resilient society where all people have equal opportunity to pursue happiness. The vision: Happiness for all now and in the future in all 10 domains.

The 10 Domains of Happiness

Happiness Town Meeting Report: Feedback, and Recommendations from the Community Happiness Town Meeting Report: Feedback, and Recommendations from the Community Objective Indicators Happiness Indicator Report: Survey and Objective Indicators Happiness Indicator Report: Survey and Objective Indicators Town Meetings Partners What does a Happiness Initiative look like? Your Happiness Initiative Team Survey

Before you begin- A Happiness Team The happiness team conducts the Happiness Initiative. The geographic scope and goals of your initiative will determine the size and composition of the team Do your best to have policy makers on your team. You can also gain their support with a proclamation (see this in the toolkit) An informal volunteer group or formal organization can be your happiness team, or your partners may be the team If you decide to do a representative survey, you will need funding. Partners may be able to make this happen

Step One: The Survey To conduct a survey for your area, you need a dedicated URL - Results will be delivered to you in aggregate for your referrer code and zip codes in an agreed upon time. Representative survey: If you decide to conduct a representative survey, we will give you another dedicated URL. You can add questions in a module but you can not change survey questions. NOTE! Please keep the opt-in survey online indefinitely! The access to take the survey at any time is a key part of this project.

Supporting Activities for the Survey Media: Create a media plan. You many want to recruit someone to your happiness team with good media connections. Representative Survey: Determine if you have access to funds for a representative survey and if you need to conduct this. (A determining factor is use by policy makers). If you decide to do this, we are interested in joining forces for fundraising. contact Partners: you may want to convene your partners to help get the word out before you launch the survey. Look to organizations that gather data and/or conduct polls, such as agencies, committees, foundations, etc. Logo: Ask us for the logo. We are happy to provide it. Creative Commons: You must follow the agreement under creative commons. Contact us for the requirements.

Step Two: Objective Indicators To gather data for the objective indicators for your area: Determine objective indicators for your area. The Happiness Initiative provides suggested indicators. Determine the geographic scope that you want to gather data for. Where you can, collect data to the smallest “grain” (e.g. neighborhoods, city, county) that you can. Then collect data for the scope you have determined. If no data is available for your region, note this (rather than leaving the field blank) as the unavailability of data is informative

Supporting Activities for Objective Indicators Who Collects Data: Some suggestion for collecting data: Convene an objective indicator data team or bring in an intern to collect data. Objective Indicators Advisory Committee: Convene an objective indicator advisory committee to help identify data sources and review your data. Colleting Data: Collecting data can take a great deal of time. It is important the data is reliable. If you can, work with an agency that is already collecting data or a university or college so you know the data you provide is good information.

Step Three: Happiness Report Card The Happiness report card is the survey results and objective indicators. We provide you an outline of what to put into a Happiness Report Card. Release your report card online, in written format or however you like. Provide your objective data to and we will publish your data online. You are welcome to use the numbers from other areas on our website in your report.

Supporting Activities for Happiness Report Card Media: the issuance of your report card can be good way to get media attention Town meetings: Use the report as an invitation to town meetings Partners: include mention of partners in your report.

Step Four: Partners Start convening your partners at the onset of the project. You may want to wait to conduct the survey until you have convened key partners. Partners can include city councils, mayors, agency committees, foundations, nonprofits, businesses, as well as individuals. Partners help get the word out and may pool funds and other resources to conduct a representative survey.

Supporting Activities for Partners Advisory Committee: Convene an advisory committee to advise you in who to bring in for partners. Partnership Agreement: Ask for the partnership agreement from The Happiness Initiative and adapt as you need. Involvement: Include partners in planning and performing. Hold monthly meetings. Approach: It will take different approaches to bring in different partners: meetings, talks, or other ways to connect.

Step Five: Town Meetings Convene a meeting or series of meetings to discuss survey results and objective metrics. Present data. Ask 3 questions: What are you doing, what do you want to do, What do you want to see done? Town meetings can be informal or formal – in someone’s home or at the City Hall. Make sure you gather notes and contact information from the meeting!

Supporting Activities for Town Meetings Presenting the data: Be careful not to influence the outcomes of the meeting with example actions. Presentation and agenda: Contact us if you need help putting together a presentation or the agenda. Where: Form a partnership with your library, city representatives or other agency so you can host meetings in their venue. That said- informal meetings in coffee shops, homes or other areas work! 3 Questions: Ask what are you doing, what do you want to do, and what do you want to see done – the first two questions are for the individual, the third aimed at organizations and policy makers.

Step Six: Happy Town Meeting Report The Happy Town Meeting Report compiles reactions in town meetings, actions people are taking, people want to take and actions people want to see taken by local government, businesses, nonprofits, schools, places of worship and other organizations. Release your report online, in written format or however you like. Provide the report to and we will publish your report online – and give you You are welcome to use our report and reports from other areas on our website in your report.

Supporting Activities for Town Meeting Report Media: The issuance of your town meeting report can be good way to get the attention of funders for a representative survey, to inspire and engage more to action, and gain resources to continue the Happiness Initiative. Partners: include mention of advisory committee, partners and others who helped in your report. Future Iterations: Engagement is an ongoing activity. Next step is to create a plan so happiness can be reached in your community!

What Next? Happiness Initiatives work as an ongoing way or measuring more of what matters – not just more: Now that you have a baseline for your area, its time to think about the next time frame for survey results and objective metrics so you can see trends Keep the survey online indefinitely so people can come back and organizations can use it If you have funds to conduct happiness projects, do this! If you can, survey people who will be impacted before and after you conduct the project and publish the data – and let us know!

Need Help? Call or us. We are looking for beta-testers of the Happiness Initiative. Check happycounts.org for other resources Services we offer: Talks and Lectures. Seminars Data Analysis Consulting ~ sliding scale fee – contact

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