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Liz Weaver

Liz is passionate about the power and potential of communities getting to impact on complex issues. Liz is Tamarack’s Co-CEO and the Strategic Lead for Collective Impact. In this role she provides strategic direction to the organization and leads many of its key learning activities including collective impact capacity building services for the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Liz is one of Tamarack's highly regarded trainers and has developed and delivered curriculum on a variety of workshop topics including collaborative governance, leadership, collective impact, community innovation, influencing policy change and social media for impact and engagement.

A Mutual Pathway for Community Change: Sharing Global Perspectives

Posted by Liz Weaver on October 9, 2018

It was in 2004 at the first Tamarack Community Change Institute (CCI) that I first met colleagues from New Zealand. They had travelled the globe to spend a week with Canadian changemakers and to share their perspectives, wisdom and questions. For many of us attending the CCI, this seemed quite exotic, but little did we know that a bond had already been formed and the individuals from New Zealand were keen to learn about Tamarack, our way of working and community change.

Using Collective Impact to Bring Community Change

Posted by Liz Weaver on September 24, 2018

Bridging the Community Engagement and Collective Impact divide created an unlikely partnership between Norman Walzer, Senior Research Scholar in the Center for Governmental Studies at Northern Illinois University and myself. We met at a 2011 Community Development Society conference which began a collaborative effort that has moved in many directions.

My Favourite Community Change Resources

Posted by Liz Weaver on September 20, 2018

Many of us working in community change efforts are continually searching for new resources and tools to help facilitate effective community engagement and community change processes. Over the last several weeks, some of my favourite twitter leads have shared their lists of sites that they regularly visit for tools and resources.

The Rise of Localism

Posted by Liz Weaver on August 3, 2018

Place matters. The place where you live is becoming increasingly more important. A recent article in Yes! Magazine explored the importance of localism, a growing trend in the US and Canada.

Swimming in the Deep End

Posted by Liz Weaver on July 10, 2018

Systems change work is about understanding all of the actors in the system and the dynamic flow of power, relationships, and mindsets that exists between them. John Kania, Mark Kramer and Peter Senge, in their recently released paper, The Water of System Change use the metaphor of water to describe systems. The water is the environment through which fish and other life exists but it is also a flowing, moving and changing entity.

Lean into Adaptive Leadership

Posted by Liz Weaver on June 14, 2018

Many of us shy away from using the power that we have, often to our own and our community’s detriment. This was one of the nuggets of wisdom shared with the participants attending Tamarack's Adaptive Leadership Masterclass series that took us to five cities across Canada and wrapped up just last week. Liz Skelton, Co-Founder of Collaboration for Impact shared a story about working with Indigenous leaders in Australia. It was there that she discovered that leaning into her formal and informal power could be used to help the collaborative group drive change forward.

Liz Weaver

Recent Posts

A Mutual Pathway for Community Change: Sharing Global Perspectives