Cities Reducing Poverty is a collective impact movement aimed at reducing poverty for 1-million Canadians. In 2002, Tamarack, the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, and Caledon Institute of Social Policy created an action-learning experiment called Vibrant Communities Canada and worked with 13 cities to test if a place-based approach could move the needle on poverty. Their collective impact over ten years was significant with a number of cities reporting a 10% reduction in poverty and an overall impact for 202,931 low-income Canadians.
In 2012, Tamarack created a national movement called Cities Reducing Poverty to allow more cities to learn from one another and scale their impact. Simply stated, membership in Cities Reducing Poverty is organized to make the work of municipalities and local poverty reduction roundtables easier and more effective. As a movement, Cities Reducing Poverty also aims to align poverty reduction strategies at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.
This is a free bi-monthly online magazine from Cities Reducing Poverty that offers the latest news, resources and tools in poverty reduction as well as information for all of our upcoming learning opportunities.
Check out our latest editions:
Alberta has experienced one of the most dramatic reductions in poverty on record. Over two years, poverty was reduced for more than 55,000 Albertans. The province’s child poverty rate dropped by 50%, from 10% to 5%, making it the lowest in Canada.
Learn how the LEAG successfully balances the voices of lived/living experience with staff accountability, while providing an avenue for individuals with lived/living experience to participate in city processes.
Learn how Saint John, New Brunswick’s journeyed through each phase of progress, with the goal of providing other collaboratives with a sense of how the work can unfold, including which challenges may be encountered along the way.
A commonly expressed challenge within the Cities Reducing Poverty learning community is how to get to a common agenda for collective impact. This guide will support communities with milestones and resources that can help lay foundations for developing a community-wide common agenda.
This tool provides a compilation of Cities Reducing Poverty members’ anticipated vs. actual timeframes for developing their community-wide poverty reduction strategies. Review the areas of work that tend to bubble up, gain advice from the lead organizers, and readjust your own work plan.
This collection of poverty reduction strategies provides a glimpse into the work of eight Cities Reducing Poverty members. It shines a spotlight on some of the poverty reduction efforts across Canada in diverse geographies and cities of different sizes.
Informed by the 10 Lived/Living Experience Advisory Committee, this guide was written to support poverty-reduction groups to meaningfully engage people with lived/living experience. It celebrates the potential that can be unlocked when these individuals are included and empowered to drive antipoverty work.
This Community of Practice focuses on case studies, tools and techniques that members of collaborations use to research, analyze and affect living wages and employer human resource practices.
This Community of Practice is for municipal or regional government staff who are responsible for, or directly involved in, poverty reduction efforts in their official governmental capacity.
This Community of Practice is for government representatives of all provinces and territories who are responsible for, or directly involved in, poverty reduction efforts in their official capacity.
This Community of Practice is a committed group of individuals with a common desire to learn from each other, to enable professional self- development, and to build capacities of their local poverty reduction initiatives.
This Community of Practice is for individuals who belong to the Vibrant Communities Canada - Cities Reducing Poverty network to share ideas and information about their local poverty reduction efforts.
January 15 & 16, 2020 | Toronto & Hamilton, ON
This interactive workshop focuses on the core leadership competency of trust-building. Learners will walk away with ideas, tools and approaches to effectively engage diverse community partners and intentionally build trusting relationships and collaborative impact. Come prepared to share your experiences and insights on how to build trust.
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