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Charity and Social Capacity

Though seldom sensational, Canada's charitable activities are essential to our civil society. Our charities provide meaning, purpose, and belonging amid the dark labyrinths of alienation that characterize our time. Researching, thinking, talking, building, and envisioning in this space is no esoteric investment, a quaint concession or a salve for the guilt of our overextension and collective greed. In this paper, we explore the deep renewal we need in our conceptions of the charitable sector—how we fund, empower, and even define our charities.

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Citizen Power in Rotterdam

Today's workshop took me to Rotterdam, another city with many inspiring examples of burgerkracht (citizen power). Here, Joop Hofman and I facilitated a workshop for 80 community workers.

This city is home to the Opzoomeren movement through which the residents of 1700 streets have self organized to improve their physical environment, to support one another, and to sponsor all sorts of community activities. The residents of each street met to develop an agreement regarding their shared etiquette.

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Ask a Great Question, Get a Great Answer

This Q+A that came from our IMPACT-Ability webinar series is so great we just had to share! This question came from Hemant Kulkarni, the Project Leader for posAbilities: 

Q: "One of the big challenges with human centered design innovations is once you've got a well working prototype, how do you sell it to policy makers/funders? It's the last bubble on the HCD approach diagram where things sometimes get stuck. Does he have any tips on how to convey things to policy makers/funders and other stakeholders who are unfamiliar with the process?

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If It Ain’t Broke Don’t Fix It

“My name is Liz and I have Down syndrome.”

She strode onto the stage without notes, without preparation, and seemingly without a care.

A hundred pairs of eyes were anticipating her spoken word poetry performance.

A recipe for disaster.

A disaster that I had tried to prevent from the moment she was born.

It was the scene of my undoing.

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Epic Education and the Real World

Young children love to pretend that they are grown ups and live in the real world. Adolescents could more often than not use a dose of reality. So teachers, why not apply that learning method in the classroom, or parents, when you’re helping your child at home?

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10 Things to Know About Canadian Attempts to Count Homelessness

This blog was originally posted on the Calgary Homelessness Foundation website on November 30, 2016 by Nick Falvo and is re-published here with permission.

Alberta’s seven largest municipalities recently released early results of a provincially-coordinated effort to enumerate and survey persons experiencing homelessness. Most of these communities reported reductions in homelessness, and reported a 19% reduction in province-wide homelessness compared to the first provincially-coordinated count conducted in 2014.

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