The Latest

Making Change Easy: Lessons from the Prepaid Envelope

Community Innovation is all about change - change at the individual, group, and organizational levels. Whether we’re trying to get a new policy adopted, encourage businesses to contribute more to local community, or create more spaces for community members to meet and play, we are in the business of trying to create positive change in our community. An important part of that process is that people also need to change as well. Politicians need to change policies, business leaders need to decide how best to work with community, and community members need to come out and use the spaces we create. 

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Can Failure Lead us to Impact?

Last week I engaged in an online conversation with colleagues about failure. There was an online post that asked the question about whether the current culture has a preference for failure over achieving outcomes. Shortly after, I was following a complexity workshop where the panel discussed the importance of failure as a mechanism for learning. There were several tweets about failing forward.

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Where Can Your Work Have the Most Impact?

Last year I began a series of papers focused on exploring current methods and approaches for Community Innovation - methods that can help changemakers discover and steward opportunities for positive change in communities.

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Future of Good Highlights the Ideas, Innovations, and Trends Shaping Canadian Communities

Future of Good launched a new digital media platform dedicated to illuminating stories, innovations, and trends shaping social impact in Canada. At this exciting time of massive growth and rapid change, the world of impact in Canada deserves smarter coverage and impact-focused people deserve smarter insights.

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Lean Community Change: Strategies for Learning and Changing by Doing

In this quick 5-minute video, Jason Roberts of the Better Block Project describes how he and his community revitalized their streetscapes, turning them from unfriendly industrial spaces into vibrant and welcoming neighbourhoods. 

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Principles Over Prescriptions

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a recipe for community change? A simple, step-by-step process to follow? The problem is that our challenges are too complex and our communities are too unique to ever be encapsulated by a single prescriptive approach. Even robust frameworks like Collective Impact and the body of work surrounding it are not a substitute for grit, creativity, and flexible adaptation to the needs of our community.

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