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Community Heart & Soul Field Guide 2nd Edition

The Orton Family Foundation’s Community Heart and Soul Initiative is rooted in the belief that, “the strength of a community lies in the hands of its residents."

Its Community Heart & Soul Field Guide 2nd Edition summarizes the essence of wisdom gleaned from more than a decade of listening, learning, refining and partnering with more than a dozen small towns (under 50,000 residents).  The field guide is both practical and comprehensive.  It outlines an array of resources and tools that they have used and refined to promote proven, resident-driven approaches to community engagement and change that reflect genuine involvement that engage all sectors in planning so that small towns can build their own successful futures. 

Lonely? Seeking Community? There’s an App for that!

Interestingly, in an age where social networking and abundant “virtual” connectivity is at our fingertips, it seems that people, especially the elderly, are lonelier than ever before. Truly, the negative effects of loneliness have many consequences- including poor health:

Why Community Resilience Matters

“In every community there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is the power to do it.” - Marianne Williamson

Tamarack’s Deepening Community Practice Area is a learning community for people interested in neighbourhood-based change and those eager to deepen their understanding of the unique role citizens can play in leading positive community change. It is an online space to meet, share resources and learn together.

Social Innovation: Lessons for Communities

“Disturbers are never popular – nobody ever really loved the alarm clock in action – no matter how grateful they may have been afterwards for its kind service.” - Nellie McClung

Those of us working in communities recognize the need for greater innovation and experimentation if we want to accelerate our ability to advance positive change in neighbourhoods, municipalities and regions.  Whether the focus of our work is: citizen engagement, belonging, community safety, poverty-reduction, housing, or community economic development, there is a growing recognition that wiser and bolder approaches are needed to effectively meet the complex challenges before us.  So, where do we begin?  The robust field of social innovation offers important insights, lessons, patterns and practices to consider.

Hammers, Saws and the Work of Deepening Community

Remember the old adage that cautions, "Just because you have a shiny new hammer, doesn't mean that everything you see is a nail?"

Renowned community builder John McKnight uses the analogy of hammers and saws to highlight an important distinction between the "tool" of community and the "tool" of service delivery organizations in the building of strong communities. He emphasizes that, "both tools are important but they each have specific uses. You don't use a hammer to cut wood or a saw to hammer nails. The trick is discernment."

Small Actions, Big Change: Pathways for System Impact

Scaling Out, Scaling Up, Scaling Deep is a new paper by Darcy Riddell and Michele-Lee Moore that dives deeply into an a key question that is top-of-mind for many community change agents and funders: How do we scale up the impact of a promising social innovation?   The impetus for this report, jointly commissioned by the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation and the Tamarack Institute, grew from the realization that highly successful local projects too often fail to demonstrate meaningful impact on the broader social and/or environmental systems they are operating within.