The Latest

Thinking about the Charity Model and Systems Change Debate

There has been a movement afoot for the past 15 to 20 years that evolved out of a growing dissatisfaction with the charitable sector or more to the point, the Charity Model. Critics of the sector are nothing new, of course. And these criticisms are often based on unproven perceptions (e.g. there are too many charities), biases people have toward “the needy” (e.g. I made it through hell, so can you), and some that still boggle my mind like, non-profits need to be more business-like.

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1,000 Families Initiative

Recently, we were thrilled to host the second session of our three-part webinar series on Neighbourhood-Based Strategies that Reduce Poverty. In this session we featured The 1,000 Families Initiative with Anne Smith and Anna Bubel. In this webinar, Anne and Anna shared a terrific overview of how United Way of the Alberta Capital Region is working towards a goal that will create pathways out of poverty for 1,000 families.

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Setting the Table with Ben Weinlick

On November 14, Al Etmanski and Vickie Cammack had the pleasure of talking with Ben Weinlick about Setting the Table for Allies, Adversaries, and Strangers for the third part of our IMPACT-Ability Webinar Series.

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New Forest in The City

To “plant a forest” is a task so large as to sound like ridicule. 

Certainly, we often plant gardens, glens, and parks, but “planting forests” is more akin to “moving mountains”- that is, a synonym for the impossible.

Yet, while walking through the site of the “New Forest in the City,” a recently planted stretch of land on the east side of Brantford, the truth in the name becomes apparent. 

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Community Input Shapes Neighbourhood Strategy: Kitchener Announces the Results So Far

After a massive community engagement process that saw over 5,000 people contribute nearly 4,000 hours of input, the Kitchener Neighbourhood Strategy Project Team is very excited to share what they have heard and what they are proposing to do in response. Here is a summary of the draft results just announced as they move closer to their goal.

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Change for the Audacious Webinar: A Follow Up

After our webinar Change for the Audacious: A Conversation with Steve Wadell on Large Systems Change (LSC), one of the participants, Ian, asked me about connections between it and integral theory and Theory U.

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