Sun Smart Saskatchewan is a coalition of partners committed to preventing skin cancer in Saskatchewan. Its mission is to prevent skin cancer by educating the public, inspiring action, supporting communities, promoting sun-safe behaviours, and creating environments that protect people from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation. As a coalition, Sun Smart Saskatchewan seeks to remove barriers where we live, work, learn and play, giving everyone the opportunity to live free from this cancer. To accomplish this, coalition members bring together their unique perspectives to identify and address prevention priorities.
Founded in 2010, Sun Smart Saskatchewan has evolved from a focused skin cancer prevention initiative into a dynamic coalition emphasizing collaboration, knowledge exchange and systems-level impact. Since its early efforts in 2010—including a provincial planning workshop inspired by Australian models—the coalition has demonstrated steady growth through evidence-based activities such as shade audits, community education and the integration of sun safety into workplaces.
Notable initiatives include the 2016 shade audit at River Landing in Saskatoon, which revealed strong public demand for more shaded spaces, and the Prince Albert lifeguard pilot project, which integrated sun-safety practices into workplace culture. The coalition’s partnerships with organizations such as the Agricultural Health and Safety Network at the Canadian Centre for Rural and Agricultural Health, University of Saskatchewan, the Workers’ Compensation Board and various schools have expanded its reach into rural, workplace and youth settings. These partnerships have encouraged both behavioural change and improvements in environmental design to reduce UV exposure.
Between 2022 and 2024, the coalition sought to clarify Sun Smart Saskatchewan’s role, for example, whether it should operate as an incubator, implementer, and/or funder. A significant part of these discussions focused on the importance of governance clarity: determining which decision-making structures would best meet the coalition’s evolving needs. Members considered various models, including coalitions, advisory committees and technical working groups, recognizing that effective internal governance would be essential to achieving their shared vision.
Engagement grounded in passion and individual expertise: Members contribute according to their particular interests and skills, which encourages authentic engagement.
An organic, member-driven approach: Projects often move forward when a member takes ownership of a particular issue, with support from the coordination function.
The group’s human qualities: Members are described as open, professional and receptive to new ideas. These qualities are considered the coalition’s greatest strength -even more than its structure.
Effective collaboration on clearly defined projects: Collective work is particularly successful when roles, resources and objectives are clear, such as in educational campaigns and marketing initiatives.
A shared commitment to the mission: There is genuine appreciation for the coalition’s mission and a shared desire to help it evolve.
Difficulty balancing members’ participation with the responsibilities of their primary jobs.
Poorly defined roles and contributions, with limited clarity regarding the unique contribution expected from each member.
Historically, the group has functioned more like an advisory committee than a collaborative coalition.
Collaboration has been limited to one-time projects rather than being continuous and structural.
A power imbalance related to the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency’s leadership role and control over funding, creating tensions around the coalition’s decision-making autonomy.
Limited organizational representation: members struggle to act as true representatives or spokespersons for their organizations.
Greater complexity in advocacy efforts because of the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency’s status as a government organization.
A lack of clear governance mechanisms to encourage shared ownership and mutual accountability.
A lack of clear strategic direction, with identified needs related to combating misinformation, strengthening advocacy and developing impact-evaluation skills.
Reference: Sociocracy in the Francophone Community
Sociocracy is a governance system first developed by Gerard Endenburg in the Netherlands during the 1980s. It is a governance method particularly well suited to organizations that wish to govern themselves according to values of equality. Sociocracy is inspired by natural systems, in which complex organizations, such as a coalition, function as decentralized, nested and semi-autonomous systems. This means that they are both autonomous and interdependent, much like the systems of the human body. For example, the digestive and respiratory systems function relatively independently of one another while remaining closely connected.
Similarly, under sociocracy, complex organizations are divided into circles that operate semi-autonomously within the larger organization. These circles are organized around themes that reflect the organization’s needs. When necessary, they can create sub-circles, which may then create further sub-circles, and so on. This creates a nested system in which each circle focuses on a specific set of themes or tasks defined by organizational needs, while operating coherently and collaboratively within the broader system. The goal is alignment in action rather than uniformity.
In a sociocratic system, every person’s voice can be heard because the circles serve as small representations of the whole. This characteristic aligned well with what was socially important during the 1980s—equality—but is equally applicable today to the concept of equity.
Small groups form the foundation of everything. These small groups are called circles. Each circle has:
A clearly defined purpose or description of what it is responsible for;
Full authority to act within that area; and
Linking roles that connect it to other circles, allowing information to flow between teams and ensuring that their decisions remain aligned.
Regarding decision-making:
Circles make policy decisions by consent. This means a proposal is adopted when no member of the circle objects to it.
Circles use consent to elect people to roles such as circle lead, secretary, facilitator or any other operational role defined by the circle. The intention is that these positions are held only by people who have the confidence of all their colleagues.
A circle decides by consent which subjects to place on its agenda and how much time to devote to each one.
Circles use rounds—a practice that invites each member to speak one at a time during meetings until everyone has had an opportunity to contribute. The intention is to promote greater mutual listening and understanding, creating the conditions needed for consent.
The Tamarack Institute collaborated with Sun Smart Saskatchewan to facilitate a one day session about alternative governance structures. This collaboration sought to build the trust and confidence needed to experiment and innovate in governance. It also introduced a renewed perspective on collective-impact governance that retains several key elements of the approach, including trust and relationality, democratic processes, collaboration and measurement. This renewed model has been proven to advance discussions about more effective approaches to decision-making and action within mature coalitions.
Relationships were placed at the center of the discussions because governance is fundamentally about relationships. Together, we explored the relationships that currently define Sun Smart Saskatchewan and the relationships toward which the coalition wishes to evolve. In short, the Tamarack Institute acted as facilitator of trial exercise discussions among coalition members while equipping them to explore alternative approaches to governance.
The purpose of the trial exercises was to experiment with sociocracy, identify what worked and what did not, and become somewhat familiar with this new governance style. At first, the highly artificial nature of the scenario generated some resistance and criticism. This reaction was expected and proved effective in initiating dialogue about the roles that leaders currently fall back on. A second version of the exercise brought greater clarity to why the sociocratic process is subtly but fundamentally different.
By practising the steps involved in specific discussion rounds—such as clarification questions, proposal amendments and the consent round—coalition members began to explore and understand the change that consent-based decision-making, and dynamic and shared governance more broadly, can offer coalitions caught in the “backbone organization trap.”
Some key lessons included:
Trusting the process: Coalition members observed that old habits and customary roles re-emerged almost automatically. As the sociocratic methods were practised repeatedly, these simple iterations, even in an artificial setting, clearly revealed where those old habits resurfaced.
Becoming comfortable with perceived ambiguity: Coalition members discussed the challenges of understanding the subtle but essential differences between practising consent and pursuing consensus.
Building and maintaining coherent circle structures: Understanding how to transform existing leadership-table structures into circles focused on areas of action proved complex. Coalition members had to consider how best to align the existing roles of partners and members with a decentralized and horizontal structure guided by action-oriented areas. An initial exercise involved randomly dividing the group based simply on where people were seated around the table. This approach quickly revealed the need to consider the composition of each circle more carefully, define the specific needs of each area and establish a more intentional way of grouping members.
Cultural fit: The deeper narrative framework that sociocracy introduces into decision-making can feel like a departure from existing cultural norms. More “seasoned” members often hold greater decision-making power, exercised in part through closing or summarizing comments that may disproportionately influence the final decision.
Facilitation capacity and skills: Coalition members emphasized the importance of developing circle-facilitation skills to support and strengthen consent-based decision-making. Without at least a minimum amount of facilitation training, particularly for newer or more junior members and partners, meetings can easily revert to informal consensus or majority voting. Like any new collective-governance structure, sociocracy requires capacity-building and a thoughtful examination of the dominant practices used at leadership tables.
Following the dialogues and workshops, the Tamarack Institute developed a series of recommendations for Sun Smart Saskatchewan to consider as it maps its path forward. The central learning is to use sociocracy as a framework for developing a practical and responsive understanding of the gaps in the existing model, and to:
Start small but expand thoughtfully: When introducing consent-based decision-making, begin by piloting one or two sociocratic circles. Expand or adjust the approach as needed while observing and discussing the advantages and disadvantages for Sun Smart Saskatchewan and considering how consent could replace consensus as the foundation for decision-making.
Train facilitators and document processes: Rotate roles while ensuring that at least two well-trained members are available to help guide and document the emerging practices within the new circles. Keep in mind that the addition of new members to the leadership table creates an important opportunity to introduce new governance mechanisms. Provide training and documentation to support leadership capacity-building and succession planning.
Pair sociocracy with an equity framework: Begin considering how best to integrate equity frameworks, such as Tamarack’s Seeds of Transformation, to keep inclusivity at the heart of new governance practices at every level.
Integrate reflective practice: Schedule quarterly “process retrospectives.” It is important to remember that what cannot be measured or observed is often more difficult to improve than it needs to be. Regular, well-timed quarterly reflection sessions support a research-and-development approach to evolving a new governance structure.
Use simple visual tools to support learning and development: Sociograms, infographics, decision-flow maps and shared canvases can play a crucial role in demystifying proposed governance structures. As an approach to learning and reflective practice, collaboratively create shared visual representations of the new power structures and governance mechanisms, for example, double-linked circles.
Secure leadership buy-in: Ensure that the people currently performing the backbone-organization role at the leadership table have early and frequent opportunities to model consent- and equity-based governance practices. Use shorter, focused sessions during meetings to practise and reinforce these approaches across the entire leadership table.
In May 2026, seven months after our work together, Sun Smart Saskatchewan formally adopted a comprehensive Sociocracy Implementation Package. This document reflects a genuine transformation: what began as a theoretical exploration of sociocracy, conducted through trial exercises and discussions about the limitations of the existing governance model, developed into a clear operational structure with defined circles, a detailed decision-making framework and a 12-month phased implementation plan.
One notable change is the translation of sociocratic language to meet Sun Smart Saskatchewan’s specific cultural and organizational needs. This includes replacing the term “consent” with “no-objection,” an adaptation that clearly reflects the spirit of the work. Rather than imposing a rigid framework, the support process allowed the coalition to take ownership of sociocratic principles while adapting them to its own circumstances.
The proposed circle structures: the Core Circle, Annual Work Planning Circle, Monitoring and Evaluation Circle, Mission Circle and ad hoc circles also demonstrate a nuanced understanding of the distinct organizational needs identified during the initial interviews. These included the need to clarify roles and better define the contributions expected from each member.
Perhaps the most significant impact of this work is that the coalition did not simply adopt a new model on paper. It established an iterative learning process with explicit mechanisms for review, feedback and adjustment. This directly reflects the importance of integrating reflective practice and securing leadership buy-in from the outset, two elements that appear to have been fully incorporated into Sun Smart Saskatchewan’s emerging decision-making culture.
Tamarack’s support enabled the coalition to translate the lessons from practical exercises, trusting the process, managing ambiguity, developing facilitation skills and ensuring cultural fit, into actionable recommendations.
The final document closely reflects Tamarack’s recommendations. The principle of “starting small and expanding thoughtfully” is directly reflected in the phased approach of introduction, initial implementation, expansion and refinement. The recommendation to train facilitators and document processes led to the creation of concrete tools such as the agenda template, circle-charter template and non-objection decision-making guide. The emphasis on reflective practice is also reflected in the continuous-evaluation mechanism assigned to the Monitoring and Evaluation Circle.
Sociocracy offers an innovative approach to collaboration among organizations and partners. Although this impact story took place in Saskatchewan within a public-health context, its relevance extends well beyond these geographic and sectoral boundaries.
The issues it addresses are shared by many groups seeking to solve complex challenges across Canada. This initiative therefore offers a transferable model that other collectives could adapt to their own circumstances to strengthen their collective-impact efforts.