The Latest

Involving Government in Deepening Community

Community and individual well-being are important contributors to deepening a sense of community in order to promote community change led by those who live in the community. Community members’ feelings of safety and support is intrinsically connected to the community’s strength and success. Until recently, community plans on safety and well-being operated on a community-by-community basis in Ontario.

On January 1, 2019, the Government of Ontario mandated new legislative requirements under the police services act for municipalities to work in partnership with the community to develop and adopt community safety and well-being plans.

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Natural Caring: A New Way to Think About What We Do Best Everyday

Today I listened in to a podcast called "Caring Counts: A Celebration of Natural Caring" featuring Canadian social innovators, Paul Born, Al Etmanski and Vickie Cammack. 

Vickie and Al are champions of natural caring, which they define this way: Natural caring is love in action. It is freely given. It involves a relationship with someone or something we care deeply about. It is flexible and responsive to the situation. It is reciprocal, with meaning for both the giver and the receiver.

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Rethinking How We Evaluate and Use Data

Everyone, regardless of whether you consider yourself an evaluator or not, uses metrics. We track our finances, look at gas mileage and so much more. In a community change context, we often find ways to track the performance of things like marketing and communications, program delivery, and budgeting. Read More

The Role of Continuous Communication in Collective Impact

As a masters student in strategic communications management at McMaster University (affiliated with Syracuse University), I am doing my final thesis paper on the role of strategic communications in collective impact. My inspiration is the recent study “When Collective Impact Has An Impact” which identified the use of communication as a largely tactical, rather than a strategic function. 

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Lessons from PEI's Poverty Reduction Plan

The Government of Prince Edward Island launched a poverty reduction action plan for all Islanders last November. The action plan makes important commitments such as:

• Developing a Poverty Reduction Act and identifying responsible parties
• Monitoring key indicators such as the number of Islanders experiencing poverty and attachment to employment to measure progress
• Convening a poverty reduction council comprised of community and government leaders
• Large increases to social assistance rates
• A new 211 help line for individuals and practitioners to find available services
• And more

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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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