The COVID-19 crisis has undoubtedly intensified vulnerabilities across communities. Saskatoon's Inter-Agency Response was created out of recognizing the unique challenges the pandemic would bring to agencies supporting vulnerable people. Born out of initial discussions through the Safe Community Action Alliance, it emerged into a comprehensive operation with over 65 organizations.
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I have long been curious about the different roles that stories and narratives can play in the work of community change. I have seen how one individual story, powerfully told, has the power to instantly engage people and offer clarity and understanding of a complex issue in ways that well-researched data and analysis alone cannot accomplish.
I know that communities, like individuals, have stories about themselves that can both limit and inspire their hopes for the future. These community narratives – about who we are; how things go; what’s possible for us here – shape collective thinking and can play a role in determining the future. Uncovering current shared community narratives and inviting community members to co-create new, compelling narratives that are rooted in their shared hopes for the future can be a powerful lever for community change.
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Tamarack recently hosted a conversation with Cameron Norman, Principal and President at Cense, about the power of individuals to shift systems. Norman, in a recent blog post, described a way of navigating complex systems by focusing on the smallest visible system.
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Does this situation sound familiar? You have a group of people who have committed to reduce poverty using a Collective Impact or collaborative approach. You know what needs to be done to support people to escape poverty in your community. Yet, scaling the initiative to create large-scale impact feels out-of-reach, because everyone is already at maximum capacity and doing their best to participate “off the side of the desk.” So, the work becomes a series of small manageable projects and programs that raise awareness and help alleviate poverty for some individuals and families.
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Cities Reducing Poverty (CRP) members across Canada apply Collective Impact approaches as they work to move the needle on poverty in their communities. They frame their work under five core conditions, first identified in 2011 by John Kania and Mark Kramer of FSG Consulting, that have been identified as being shared by successful Collective Impact initiatives.
I love new approaches and ways to improve how I do my community work. Here are three approaches that work well to better your community work.
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