The Latest

Fitting Our Framework to our Place

This year both the Tamarack Institute and New Zealand-based Inspiring Communities celebrate milestones (15 and 10 years respectively) in our efforts to empower, grow, support, connect and learn from diverse community-led change efforts. Following on from our co-authored Reflections on Community Change paper released last month, the Inspiring Communities team shares more on the process involved in crafting community-led development principles for a New Zealand context.  

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Community Wisdom and Social Labs lead to Change in Winnipeg

How does a community lead change on its own terms? The Winnipeg Boldness Project, a research and development initiative in Winnipeg’s North End, is working to do just that. Guided by community wisdom and inspired by Social Lab approaches, their story is an example of what is possible for communities that are inspired to lead change.

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The Thick and Thin of Community Engagement

I recently had the opportunity to attend a workshop co-hosted by Public Agenda, non-profit organization based in New York City in partnership with the City of Toronto.  Public Agenda, “helps cities, states and countries integrate the principles, practices and tools of sound public engagement.”

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How the Lens of Movement Building Can Strengthen Community Engagement

A common thread throughout my career has been a focus on building support and commitment for change on a variety of social issues.  I have learned that effective engagement rarely happens by accident.  More often, it results from deliberate strategies that include: making a clear and compelling case for change; continually communicating core messages through different channels to reach several audiences; and, offering simple ways for people to take action to show their support.  Occasionally, something magical would happen and our engagement campaigns sparked a groundswell of support that ignited passion and gave our campaign a life of its own.  Somehow we had done more than implement an effective engagement strategy, we had sparked a movement. 

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Abundant Community: An Interview with Paul Born

I sent an email to Paul Born, the other day. It was a quick exchange – and from this a blog post was created. 

For this interview, I did not personally know anyone that was an abundant community pioneer, so I reached out to some of the resources listed in the back of a book. I got a response from Paul Born, who is the Co-CEO of Tamarack Institute in Canada. This institute focuses on being a connecting force for community change by offering tools, training, consulting, and learning communities to get from theory to practice to impact. Paul is also the author of four books, including two Canadian best sellers. The interview questions I asked were the following;

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The Rise of Localism

Place matters. The place where you live is becoming increasingly more important.  A recent article in Yes! Magazine explored the importance of localism, a growing trend in the US and Canada. 

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