The Latest

Reducing Poverty: When Business is Engaged

This year marks the 20^th anniversary of the Business Community Anti-Poverty Initiative (BCAPI), a progressive movement of the Saint John business community to help the city end generational poverty.

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This Is How I picture Community Development!

I recently attended the Evaluating Community Impact workshop that Tamarack hosted. During one of the presentations I thought to myself this is exactly how I picture community development playing out. A slide came across that read, “community change strategies and interventions tend to evolve through an adaptive cycle with different phases.” Hmmm. An example of an Infinity Loop was shown. Around the loop there were 5 different areas. Exploration, Development, Growth, Maturity and Release.

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Knowing, Naming & Trusting

“Here’s my promise: I will know your first and last name by the end of the week.” This didn’t sound like much of a promise really; until you consider that it was a promise I made to more than 100 youth, most of whom I was meeting for the first time.

Early in my career I was put in charge of a four-week summer youth camping program. I was barely aged out of the “youth” category myself. (Looking back at that period, I ask, “What in the world were they thinking?!?!” yet, it was a position I held for 11 summers.) Each week we would receive a new batch of campers and each week I tried very hard to get to know each of them by name. Sometimes I was successful; other times I was not. Occasionally, I’d stand before the whole group at the orientation and make that promise. Always, though, even unannounced, I would do my best to learn and remember each camper’s name so I could greet them by it…at least once by the end of the week. Read More

Systems Thinking is a Mindset

Last week two books I had recently ordered arrived:  Systems Thinking for Social Change by David Peter Stroh and The Systems Thinking Playbook by Linda Booth Sweeney and Dennis Meadows. For at least the last 20 years of my career, I have been working in the complex space of trying to move, influence and change systems.    

With the adoption of the collective impact framework by so many community change practitioners, it seems that many of you are working in this space as well. 

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Right-Sizing Your Ask

Have you ever considered that maybe your ask is too small?

When I work with communities, the thing I hear myself saying over and over is to make sure you are always offering people ways to get involved. Often, the organizers will go through all the effort to get people out to an event, or to participate in a consultation, and then they don’t capitalize on the momentum. It could be as simple as inviting the community to stay informed with a newsletter or it could be a bigger commitment of time, money or effort.

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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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