The Latest

Why Citizens Should Prepare for Emergencies and How to Do It

Most Canadian Municipalities have emergency preparedness plans in place that detail how various departments and staff will work together to respond in the event of a natural disaster or extreme weather event.  

Citizens and neighbours can always be relied on to help one another during these times as well, however, this capacity could be significantly enhanced if neighbours -- like municipalities -- created opportunities to know one another and proactively develop plans.

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A Simple Community Engagement Dashboard

It is helpful to have a visual representation of your activity and progress with respect to your community engagement strategy. This is a simple dashboard tool that has been set up to allow you to track your goals and your activity over a 12-month period (by month) and then see bar charts auto populate so you can see progress.

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A Tribute to the Caledon Institute of Social Policy

The Caledon Institute is a social policy think tank. Co-founded by Alan Broadbent (Maytree) and Ken Battle (joined by Sherri Torjman and Michael Mendelson) in 1992, it has grown to become one of the most important organizations in Canada for its role in informing and influencing public opinion and fostering public discussion about poverty and social policy in Canada. After 25 years of remarkable work, Caledon will be closing its doors in December but its impact will live for many years to come.

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Exploring Belonging - Highlights from the 2017 CFC Conference

Belonging - there have been many articles and conversations around the concept of belonging - how it resonates within our communities, how our work places embrace it (or don’t!) and how in our own personal and family structures we explore what it means to be part of something.  Last month I attended Community Foundations of Canada’s Conference in Ottawa where more than 750 community leaders came together to explore what belonging means to our collective work.  Speakers and conference participants talked passionately for three days about what belonging means to them.  None more so then a group of three community leaders: Desmond Cole (journalist and civil rights activist), Natan Obed (the brilliant young leader of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami) and the thoughtful Senator Ratna Omidvar (Senate of Canada).  From their varied and unique perspectives, they explored the state of belonging and what it means to each of them and why it’s so important to be having these discussions.  View their conversation here: Vital Conversation on Belonging with Desmond Cole, Senator Ratna Omidvar and Natan Obed.

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Towards a Canadian Poverty Reduction Strategy

Tamarack’s Vibrant Communities Canada (VCC) is contributing to the Government of Canada’s large-scale public engagement process towards a federal Canadian poverty reduction strategy.  Through a partnership with Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), VCC supported 27 Cities Reducing Poverty (CRP) members to host 31 consultations across 9 provinces and territories, representing over 600 participants. ESDC will be collating feedback from these consultations into a What We Heard report that will be presented to the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development.

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Online Community Engagement: Is the Data Valid?

Community engagement processes have evolved significantly in the past 15 years with the creation of online engagement methods to complement traditional in-person community engagement. Now, it is common for online community engagement – through online surveys, polling, forums, social media, discussion groups, etc. – to make up a significant portion of engagement activities. The benefits of online engagement are real: the increased breadth of participation, being able to reach people on their own schedule, and reduced costs of printing and distribution, to name just a few.

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