ARTICLE | What Is Community?

PAPER | What Is Community?

This resource is the first of eight foundational papers we've written as part of a series titled Building the Case for Deepening Community. The goal of the series is to help you be persuasive in your discussions about using a Deepening Community approach to community development.

At Deepening Community, we believe all place-based work should centre community. This work cannot be done alone, however, and it can be a challenge to help people understand why this work is important.

In our experience, sharing knowledge and stories of what is possible are two effective approaches to building a case for anything.

Share this resource with your director, organization or partners when trying to make the case for this work. 

 

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Recent Publications

Person, Role, System: What's Your most Powerful Role?
What We’re Hearing: Community Members Have the Heart for Changemaking
Partnership and Resilience
Who Defends & Why? Rethinking Defence Through Community Partnership and resilience
Beyond services
Beyond Services: How Communities Are Changing the Systems That Perpetuate Poverty
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Making Collaboration the Default: What’s New with the Canadian Collaborative Funding Initiative
From Idea to Impact: Bold Governance to Prevent Skin Cancer in Saskatchewan
Growing Food, Confidence, and Community: Lessons from Kahnawà:ke Collective Impact
Colectiva Polea: Creating connections through art, ecology, and belonging
Allions-Nous: Transforming an old school into an engine of socio-ecological transition
Grounded in Community: Pathways, Perspectives & Prospects for Community Finance
Building Climate Justice Through Relationships: Reflections from Climate Justice Montreal
Revolutionary Love
Revolutionary Love as a Foundation of Movement Building
Tamarack is a WINGS Ecosystem Builder Award Finalist | Here's What That Means for Communities
Belonging
Blueprinting Belonging: How Local Efforts Spark a Canada-wide Movement
Evaluation
Understanding Differences between Process and Outcome Evaluations: What Are We Actually Measuring?
Cultivating Community Leadership for Systems-Level Change
Cultivating Community Leadership for Systems-Level Change
Belonging as Essential Social Infrastructure
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Reflecting on Loving Lessons from our Equity Journey
Introducing the 2026 Adaptive and Resilient Communities Cohort (ARCC) Members
Importance Of Program Evaluation In Increasing Community Accessibility In Recreation