Vibrant Communities - Cities Reducing Poverty (VC – CRP) is a national collective impact movement aimed at reducing poverty through the place-based efforts of multi-sector roundtables and the alignment of strategies at the municipal, provincial, territorial, and federal levels.
VC – CRP’s primary purpose is to ensure that local poverty reduction initiatives in cities, towns, regions, provinces, and territories are successful. Through our premiere national learning network, we aim to make the work of Cities Reducing Poverty easier and more effective. The national CRP movement reinforces the urgency of our work, supports members to influence policies and systems, and strengthens communication across municipal, provincial/territorial and federal governments to better align our collective actions to tackle poverty.
Sixty local initiatives representing more than 175 municipalities currently belong to the network. Every year more communities join this Pan-Canadian initiative, thereby strengthening our ability to collectively learn from one another, and effectively reduce and eradicate poverty in our communities.
The 2018 Cities Reducing Poverty membership package includes:
Vibrant Communities supports the Cities Reducing Poverty members in five ways:
Coaching
Coaching within the CRP network takes a number of forms, from one-on-one (Manager of Cities), to peer-coaching (within the CRP network), to expert-coaching (Tamarack Directors). Coaching can support members to strengthen relationships, overcome challenges, improve the effectiveness of their work, accelerate action and progress, build capacity, and generate momentum on key levers related to poverty reduction across Canada. It is applicable to members across a variety of challenges and at all stages of their initiative’s development.
Coaching can be process-based, for example, by supporting members to establish essential infrastructure such as setting up a Collective Impact roundtable, developing a poverty reduction strategy, raising funds, or instituting a framework to measure impact. It can also be issue-based, where it delves into specific topics such as housing, health or employment.
For more information, see our CRP Member Coaching Services Brochure 2018.
Communities of Practice (CoPs)
VC-CRP members are able to access a range of CoPs. While many are open to the broader VC learning community, City Convenor CoPs are reserved as an opportunity for CRP members to engage directly with others from within the network.
The following CoPs are currently active, with many more scheduled to launch in fall 2018:
Online learning
Tamarack and Vibrant Communities regularly provide online learning opportunities to CRP members and to their broader learning communities through our website, e-magazine, webinars featuring experts from the field, blogs, case studies, and guides.
Here are some examples of online learning available to members:
Events
In 2018, Vibrant Communities is hosting two regional poverty reduction summits, Cities Innovating to Reduce Poverty, which brings together community leaders from government, business, and community sectors, and people with lived experience of poverty, to share stories of progress and innovation, foster new ideas, and deepen collaboration. In addition to the main event, CRP members attend an additional full-day gathering geared towards networking, training (e.g. in evaluation and policy), troubleshooting issues, and celebrating successes.
Our Western Regional Summit was held in Vancouver from June 12-13. Registration is now open for our Eastern Regional Summit, to be held in Peel Region, Ontario, from September 18-19, which will be immediately followed by a CRP member gathering September 18-19.
CRP Members can reach out to Manager of Cities at any time: Alison Homer (CRP West); Leena Sharma Seth (CRP East); Natasha Pei (CRP Maritimes).
Not already a CRP Member? Learn more about membership, download our Vibrant Communities - Cities Reducing Poverty Membership Brochure 2018, or email Alison.