Doughnut Discovery Workshop: How We Got Started

INTRODUCTION

This is the story about how a community came together and connected with one another, using a tool made by fellow humans 2000 miles away, who had no idea that they were even involved.

DEFI (Doughnut Economics Finland Initiative) is the name that we call ourselves. We like it because it signifies both DE (for Doughnut Economics) and FI (for Finland, the place many of us call home). We are not an registered organization, more like a group of people who wanted to try out this thing called the Doughnut.

We started to organise ourselves in November 2025, but it was not until February 2026 that we collectively found our voice. That's when the DEAL website, which you are reading, has been really helpful. We found out about many organizations' work, but one that was particularly inspiring was Civic Square.

At the same time, we wanted to get to know the people and the sustainability-focused organizations already working around us, and start mapping them into the doughnut. So we took Civic Square's Doughnut Discovery Canvas, adapted it to our local place, and got started.

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BEFORE THE WORKSHOP

THE ORIGINAL CANVAS

The original Doughnut Discovery Canvas is a tool made by people at Civic Square, who released it in 2023. As they quoted in the original post:

“We have all the ideas, we have the technology, we know what to do, we just need to get on with it.”  

── Anna Bullen, CENTRE FOR ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGY

And so we did. We first spent some time looking over the canvas using an instruction video from Civic Square provided by Rob Shorter. We mulled over the illustrations and tried to deeply understand the purpose of the canvas. We decided to reorganize some parts and omit others while making the canvas as a whole more intuitive and easier to follow.

THE DISCOVERY CANVAS, DEFI VERSION

As said in the explanation video, this was only their first iteration of the canvas, and Civic Square invited anyone to iterate on the canvas and make it their own. We had a test run workshop with the original canvas, and we noticed some things that need to be changed. Here's how and why we made those changes to the canvas:

1. Removed the right 7 circles: We didn't want the workshop to be a lecture since our main goal was to understand the organizations in our locality. Therefore, we opted not to have the 7 right circles, which would have been the reflections on the 7 ways to think like a 21st century economist.
2. Added clearer navigation: We felt that it was a tiny bit difficult to navigate the original canvas. Even though it worked for Civic Square, we felt it wasn't so clear to us, so we added titles to each section of the canvas ("Activities", "Networks", etc) and we numbered them to make it easier to navigate.
3. Removed the "dream" circle: We felt it was unclear what the "dream" circle represented, as the other circles, which are for tangible and intangible needs, are also "dreams". Therefore, we removed the "dream" circles and kept the "tangible" and "intangible" circle separate.
4. Reorganized the canvas components: Since we removed the 7 right circles, we needed to redesign the canvas to make it look visually appealing, and also to maximize the writing space for the participants.
5. Removed the Ladywood figure: We removed it because we wanted to localize the canvas. We tried adding the Manta, our Finnish statue, but it would have claimed some much-needed writing space, so we decided not to.

After much consideration, here's our redesigned Doughnut Discovery Canvas, the DEFI version. 

PREPARATION

As said above, we had a test run workshop to make sure everything went smoothly. One person was hosting the test workshop while the other was representing an organization that they were a part of. We found it important to do a test run of the workshop, as it revealed some weak points that needed to be improved. After iterating on them, we were ready for the official workshop!

We then reached out personally to the leader of each organization we wanted to invite to the workshop from our Aalto University campus, as this is our scope as of now. We found it important to include a personalized reason why that organization was needed in the workshop, rather than send a copy-and-paste invitation.

We then decided to meet a bit earlier before the workshop to set up the space and prepare the materials, which included:

• Doughnut Discovery Canvases
• A4 paper (for taking notes)
• Pens of at least 2 different colours
• Post-its
• Snacks (doughnuts, of course).

Three people from DEFI were present to facilitate the workshop. Joseph was the host, and Johanna and Duc were the assistant facilitators to answer any questions from the attendees. We wanted to make things simple by only having one host, and still provide the host with any help that he might need during the workshop by having assistant facilitators. 

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DURING THE WORKSHOP

We welcomed the people into the room. Out of 13 invited organizations, 10 responded, and 8 organizations sent their people to the workshop. 18 people showed up on the day, which was a huge success already for us, as this was our first official workshop.

We, to some extent, followed this schedule: 

• Welcome (10 min)
• Introduce about DEFI (10 min)
• Explain the canvas (5 min)
• Pair up groups (~30 sec)
• The "Activities" section (10 min)
• The "Purpose" section (5 min)
• The "Networks" section (15 min)
• Break (5 min)
• Intro to DE (5 min)
• The "Doughnut Dreams" section (20 min) 
• Break (5 mins)
• The "Infrastructure for the future": tangible, intangible (5 min)
• What are your 3 next steps? (10 min)
• “I like, I wish” feedback (15 min): Anonymous notes (post-its), then ask if someone wants to share.

We found it important during the workshop to:

1. Iterate as we go: we sensed the room and subtly changed our schedule to fit the participants while being mindful of time. 
2. Have assistant facilitators: they helped the host to explain and guided the attendees when the host was stuck.
3. Allow space for in-group and out-group discussions: the participants naturally gathered with the people inside their own organizations first to discuss, then were open to talking to other organizations. In our case, people were naturally curious about other organizations, so not much encouragement to "break the bubble" was needed.
4. Allow for breaks: we wrote down breaks in the schedule, but in reality, we sensed the energy in the room to allow for appropriate breaks (to eat some doughnuts, of course).

Some people got creative and started customizing the canvas. It was heartwarming to see people playfully interacting with the materials we prepared. People also organically started to write their organizations' names onto the canvas, which was unprompted by us.

As the atmosphere in the room became livelier and livelier, people started to ask more questions and provided input to the organizations next to them. We overheard conversations about potential collaboration, outsider perspectives, shared hopes and fears, etc. Many of the attendees have never met each other before, despite being on the same campus.

After 1 and a half hours of continuous discussions, the workshop came to a close with people writing down their next steps and sharing them with the whole room. They were invited to stand up (as part of a break) to go over to the other side of the room and read other organizations' canvases. The conversations were plenty, among both the people who already knew one another and those who were meeting for the first time.

We then finally encouraged people to leave their feedback using the "I like, I wish" method. People were invited to answer two questions: 

• What did you like about the workshop?
• What did you wish could be different?

And because we are a new initiative, we wanted to know:

• How could DEFI, or Doughnut Economics, help you to achieve your goals?

To our surprise, an attendee raised their hands and proposed a meeting where all organizations meet again to share insights on making a social media campaign, as communication was identified as the biggest barrier to effective work on our campus.

The attendees were encouraged to take the Doughnut Discovery Canvas home with them and show it to their organizations. 30 minutes after we had thanked the attendees and cleaned up, the attendees were still having stimulating conversations and getting to know one another on a deeper level than they had before. 

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AFTER THE WORKSHOP

The participants and the organizers left the workshop feeling inspired and connected. We saw people joining each other's group chats, helping each other clean up and talking as they head back out. Some quotes from the feedback post-its are:

"workshop [was] very helpful + fun, defo should do again"

"It was good to put into words our goals and hopes"

"I like getting onboarded to doughnut economics!"

"I wish there was enough time for both [your] own discovery + discussing others' discovery!"

We reflected on the workshop a few days after, and realized the power of just getting people in the same place at the same time. It turned out that all we needed to do was just talk and listen to one another. In other words, we just needed to set the conditions, and things will naturally grow.

A few days later, we were surprised to see one of the participating organizations had put the Doughnut Discovery Canvas up in their homebase 🥰. 

Even more surprisingly, the workshop helped to prompt a meeting among all sustainability-related organizations in Aalto University to meet and finally create a network to support one another.

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CLOSING WORDS

We are grateful that we were able to make this happen. We would like to thank Civic Square for their (unknowing) guidance, Rob Shorter for the lovely help in setting up for us a DEAL profile and general guidance, and DEAL for setting up this platform and the monthly Global Sessions, where many encouraging words flew our way before we even have done anything.

We are now continuing to build our Doughnut Portrait at Aalto University, with many more events coming up soon. We are still a young initiative, so we don't want to promise too much that we can't deliver. But, follow us because this is only the beginning! :)

We hope that you have left reading this story feeling positive and hopeful. Because if some students can get together and bring Doughnut Economics to practice without any funding or governmental support, then you can too.

Or, as the Finns say, "Torille!"