The Latest

Calgary’s Community-Driven Poverty Reduction Strategy

Enough for All, Calgary’s community-driven poverty reduction strategy has undergone a refresh and has evolved to be Enough for All 2.0. Since its inception in 2013, hundreds of Calgarians and many organizations have been a part of reducing poverty in the city. Yet, poverty is the day-to-day reality of more than 120,000 Calgarians. To reduce poverty in Calgary in a meaningful and measurable way, it will be necessary for citizens, community organizations, businesses and governments to come together and act.

The original strategy was developed through an extensive community consultation in 2012-2013. It was adopted unanimously by City Council and the United Way of Calgary and Area’s Board of Directors in 2013. Since then, there have been many organizations and hundreds of people actively engaged in the implementation of Enough for All. Vibrant Communities Calgary was appointed the steward of the strategy to act as a backbone organization to guide the implementation of the strategy – with the community remaining its collective ‘owner’.

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Tamarack: Open Letter from Integral City Beyond Resilient Beyond Smart

Dear Tamarack,

I was last with you in your Vancouver 2017 Conference, sharing my second book, Inquiry & Action, Designing Impact for the Human Hive. Earlier that year, I was with you in Kitchener/Waterloo exploring Placecaring and Placemaking in your Collective Impact Conference.

This letter is to renew and continue an inspiring partnership – and to invite you to join me in Findhorn, Scotland, this April and May 2019 for 2 Integral City courses:

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Ending Chronic Homelessness in Kawartha and Haliburton

Significant progress has been made in the City of Kawartha and County of Haliburton in ending chronic homelessness. A new report shows that to date, they have reduced chronic homelessness by 51%.

Housing and Homelessness is a key priority of Kawartha-Haliburton’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. The poverty reduction effort is a joint initiative between the City of Kawartha and County of Haliburton, and is comprised of:

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Waiting at the Intersection of ABCD and Collective Impact

I recently received an email question from a colleague curious about the different approaches identified in the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) and collective impact frameworks.  They commented that ABCD seemed to be more grassroots driven while collective impact seemed to be more top down driven.  This question led me to consider our approach at Tamarack to understanding and incorporating different organizing frameworks into our thinking and training. I thought I would share my response with everyone. 

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From Presence to Citizenship to Community

"In order to promote meaningful inclusion, we need to build communities that welcome the gifts and contributions of all their members."

Recently, I took part in the From Presence to Citizenship Learning Exchange in Toronto. To be honest, I didn’t want to go because I often find these “developmental services sector” conferences a bit frustrating – they’re full of big ideas and aspirational language, but does it lead to improvement in the lives of the people we support? However, since L’Arche needs to be part of this dialogue, I needed to be there.

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Remembering Joe Schaeffer

Joe…that’s what we all call him, even though he is a wildly successful academic with a PhD, Joe is my friend, as he is to the many people he impacted in the field of community development and change. Joe is kind with a gentle spirit. He gave tirelessly to his students and treated us as real people. I know Joe had difficulties in relationships (we talked about this), but I and his students seldom saw that side of Joe. He was always one of us, and he made us feel special.

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