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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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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A Community Change Spot Check: What Are You Doing and Why are You Doing It?

In working with community organizations, one of the most common challenges I’ve encountered is the tendency to focus on what we need to do instead of why we are doing it. This happens for many good reasons; not only are all of us are struggling just to stay afloat in our work, but we also have many competing demands on our time and attention. It’s easier to simply meet each of those demands in turn and move on to the next.

 

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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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Thinking Beyond the Advisory Group

At last week’s Cities Innovating to Reduce Poverty summit in Mississauga, I had the opportunity to learn from the City of Toronto's Lived Experience Advisory Group (LEAG). These group members shared some of their fantastic work in advancing the Toronto Poverty Reduction Strategy through advocacy, education, awareness, monitoring and evaluation of the Strategy, and it was a great reminder of the importance of making sure that those with lived experience can drive the change that they want to see.

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Community Change Is Not A Recipe

It starts simply enough; You go to a conference and learn about an exciting new framework for bringing about change. Maybe it’s Collective Impact, or Design Thinking, or Behavioural Economics. So you return to your community full of good ideas on what’s next. You’ve got a toolbox, a step-by-step process for change, and some great examples of how this approach worked in the past. As long as you follow the process, you’ll be successful, right?

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