The Latest

Securing fair employment and income: Where Living Wage and the Fight for $15 and Fairness intersect

If adequately addressed, income security through employment can produce benefits and outcomes that cascade into other areas of a person’s experience of poverty and ultimately, an escape from poverty. For example, we know that having secure employment that includes a full range of benefits and a possible career path, also known as a “Standard Employment Relationship” is a key to escaping poverty (The Precarity Penalty (May 2015). When an individual can secure sustainable employment that upholds their rights as a worker and pays a living wage, it is more likely that the individual will experience positive effects associated with economic independence such as increased opportunities for civic and community participation, stabilization of health problems, and even increased life expectancy.

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Parkdale and the People’s Economy Project: Highlights of a CCI Study Tour

On Wednesday, September 29th, Approximately 30 individuals attending the Tamarack Community Change Conference filed onto a bus to travel to Toronto’s vibrant Parkdale neighbourhood for an innovations in poverty reduction workshop and walking tour. 

Our first stop on the tour was the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre (PARC), where we were greeted by Executive Director, Victor Ellis. PARC was the ultimate host and starting place for the tour, considering the pivotal support it has given over the last 30+ to the neighbourhood’s high proportion of low-income and marginalized residents.

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Canadian Collective Impact Community of Practice

Follow up post to Feb 18th CoP meeting.

The Canadian Collective Impact Community of Practice (CI CoP) is for practitioners who are using the collective impact approach to achieve large-scale system change in Canada. The members meet bi-monthly to discuss questions, challenges and successes in their collective impact work, and to connect with one another.

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Rethink Who You Call an Expert

Community Animator's Note: This blog was originally published on FSG's Strategic Evaluation Blog by Katelyn Mack on October 15, 2014. It has been re-posted with permission.

Have you ever been called an expert? If you are reading this post, chances are you have. It may have been by a colleague, a boss, a client, a professor…or maybe, by a parent. I’m not sure about you, but I sometimes get an uneasy feeling when I am referred to as an “expert.” People usually mean it as a compliment. In essence, there is some innate knowledge I have from my training or experience that they don’t have.

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Sixteen Lessons Learned About Working in Collaboration

From Mary Pickering and Robert Plitt - 2013

• Collaborations SHOULDN’T be launched unless there is something that can be done together that can’t be achieved alone. There needs to be a clear assessment up front that working jointly – which requires time and effort from all participants – is going to improve outcomes.

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Evaluating Community Impact Halifax: Post-Event Resources

The Tamarack Institute is once again hosting the dynamic, three-day Evaluating Community Impact workshop in Halifax, Nova Scotia from June 2-4 and again in Winnipeg, MB this November 18-20.

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