Vital Signs Canada

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2010-11-24T13:38:00.001-05:00

Thanks for visiting the Canada’s Vital Signs blog. We focus on issues and ideas related to building more vital communities – find out more about us at our blog's new home.

Vital Signs is an annual check-up conducted by community foundations across Canada that measures the vitality of our communities, identifies trends, and shares opportunities for action in areas that are critical to our quality of life.

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Socially responsible investing - big dollars, big change

2010-11-22T07:00:00.025-05:00

Will socially responsible investing ever really catch on? I asked that question when I conducted a study for Vancity Credit Union on the future of socially responsible investing (SRI) five years ago.

Today, the answer is “thumbs up.” Pretty well every prediction from that study played out, particularly the mainstreaming of SRI. Check out these numbers:
* $200 trillion – the estimated size of global capital markets
* 800 – the number of asset managers around the world who have signed on to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment, which commits them to take environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into their investment decisions
* $22 trillion – the assets under their management
* 530 – the number of institutional investors who have signed on to the Carbon Disclosure Project, to increase disclosure on how their investments manage carbon and energy use
* $64 trillion – the assets under their management

From my vantage point, that’s great progress. More than 10 per cent of the global capital market is now aligned with ESG factors. So what can we do to continue to catalyze this progress?

Malcolm Gladwell says, “The theory of the tipping point requires that we reframe how we think about the world.” So we’re on the right track. A big driver of this capital markets shift is a reframed definition of socially responsible investing.

More than 20 years ago as a Vancity Credit Union board member, I was a founding trustee of Ethical Funds Inc., the first family of socially responsible mutual funds in Canada. Back then, SRI was all about values-based investing: no nuclear, no tobacco, no weapons, etc.

Today, SRI is more broadly defined as the integration of environmental, social and governance factors into investment decisions. It may or may not include sector exclusions on the basis of social or environmental factors. It often includes shareholder engagement where asset managers dialogue with their investee companies to seek improved ESG performance. It can also include targeted investments in community-based initiatives or clean technology.

SRI’s financial performance also gets a “thumbs up.” Investments which take social and environmental factors into account can do as well as, or even outperform, traditional investments. For example:

* The Jantzi Social Index (JSI), which measures a basket of SRI investments, outperformed the S&P/TSX over a decade. Since its inception on Jan. 1, 2000 through Jan. 31, 2010, the JSI achieved an annualized return of 5.01%, while the S&P/TSX Composite and the S&P/TSX 60 had annualized returns of 4.98% and 4.83% respectively.
* A review of 160 socially responsible mutual funds in the US in 2009 found that the majority of the funds (65%) outperformed their benchmarks in 2009, most by significant margins. These SRI funds topped benchmarks across nearly all asset classes, including balanced, large cap, small cap, and global funds, as well as bonds.

With this progress, I wonder what it will take to reach the tipping point.

A good strategy is to introduce SRI principles to new sectors such as foundations; to encourage them to reframe how they think about the power of their investments. Recently I worked with Community Foundations of Canada (CFC) and Philanthropic Foundations Canada, to help inform, train and build the capacity of foundations to consider SRI in their investment policies.

One outcome of this effort is the launch of the first SRI online resource for foundations in Canada, sponsored by CFC. I also put together a how-to tool for asset owners who want to hire an SRI oriented fund manager, Responsible Investment Questions for Fund Managers, also funded by CFC.

Growing foundation interest in Canada has the potential to swing $34 billion to SRI principles. If foundations around the world reframe their investment principles, we might just reach that magical tipping point.

Coro Strandberg, principal of Strandberg Consulting, is an influential sustainability strategist and thought-leader. This commentary first appeared on her own blog. Find out more about Coro and her work at www.corostrandberg.com

RAPP lends meaning to words for newcomers, and their children, in London

2010-11-18T07:00:00.016-05:00

The Reading and Parents Program (RAPP) is helping words make sense to newcomers, and their children, in London, Ont.

LUSO Community Services founded RAPP in April 2008 to meet an obvious need. Indeed, 14 per cent of the City of London's population were classified as visible minorities in 2006, with 10 per cent of Thames Valley students identifying their first language as something other than English or French, according to London's Vital Signs.

RAPP is a practical family literacy program that provides parents, caregivers and their children with reading resources to use in their homes. It has received funding from the London Community Foundation, the City of London and Lambeth London Rotary Club.

Each RAPP pack consists of five elements: a quality children’s book, reading and language hints, poems and finger plays, a craft, and age-appropriate activity sheets, all of which reflect the theme of the story book.

Literacy staff meet with parents individually to demonstrate the pack and its use as a tool to encourage emergent literacy in children. Packs can be tailored to individual families to include books for younger and/or older siblings and/or books on topics pertinent and relevant to each family’s unique situation. Participants borrow and exchange the packs bi-weekly. Several of the kits are dual-language books, containing translated materials in a variety of languages, including Spanish, Vietnamese and Arabic.

“We loved the kits – we can find a story in our language (Arabic),” one excited mother told RAPP representatives. “My children loved the book and craft – me, too! I loved it. It helped me learn English.”

The program received a $6,050 Community Fund Grant from London Community Foundation, which is committed to welcoming immigrants and supporting them in the community.

“The Reading and Parent Program encourages literacy skill development through key parent-child interaction and bonding – skills that will be carried throughout childhood, adulthood and life,” says Elisabete Rodrigues, LUSO Community Services Executive Director.

“It’s a benefit to individuals, families, and the community as a whole."

LUSO Community Services is a non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to promoting inclusiveness, well being and the prosperity of the London community. Founded in 1979, it provides a range of programs and services to help newcomers and immigrants of various cultural and ethnic backgrounds, as well as other disadvantaged populations.

National Philanthropy Day pays tribute to great contributors, lasting contributions

2010-11-15T07:00:00.033-05:00

By Skana Gee

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

The quote is from an American – 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt – but it crosses all borders, real and imagined. And it’s worth consideration today, especially, as we mark National Philanthropy Day.

The idea is that on this day we recognize and pay tribute to the great contributions that philanthropy – and those active in the philanthropic community – have made to our lives, our communities, and our world.

Today is the 25th anniversary of National Philanthropy Day, spearheaded by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. It was officially declared in Canada just last year, by the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

I’ll be using some of my time today to think about the amazing work being done coast to coast my members of Community Foundations of Canada, and its thousands of affiliated programs, initiatives and projects.

While I’m quite new to the community foundation movement, my respect and admiration for all of its players is great – I feel I have been welcomed into a family of dedicated, enthusiastic and, most of all, compassionate Canadians who are “doing what they can, with what they have, where they are.”

That drive will be palpable as we gather May 12-14 in Vancouver for CFC Conference 2011, a much-needed opportunity to reflect, reconnect and recharge with colleagues from around the globe.

We’re eagerly anticipating the featured speaker – another U.S. President. Bill Clinton is sure to inspire with his philanthropic message, as are the other plenary speakers, including Naomi Tutu and Bill White, who leads the renowned Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

But mainly it’s a chance for all of us to learn how to be better philanthropists, through professional development, networking and Community Learning Forums, which will see conference-goers visiting venues and organizations funded by Vancouver Foundation.

I’ve become acquainted with such grantees across Canada – and the work they do: what they can, with what they have, where they are – via my communications work on Canada’s Vital Signs.

Some of these impressive efforts include hands-on environmental action by Hamilton Community Foundation’s Youth Advisory Council, a quick response by the Foundation of Greater Montreal to help newly arrived Haitian immigrants, and Vancouver Foundation’s role in establishing the new Immigrant Employment Council of British Columbia. Others are also documented in our Vital Signs Impact Stories.

With those in mind, I raise a toast to all of you. Happy National Philanthropy Day!

Skana Gee is Communications Coordinator with Community Foundations of Canada

Death of long-form census robs funders of ability to gauge success of programs, efforts

2010-11-10T07:00:00.022-05:00

By Ernie Ginsler

What's all the fuss about cancelling the long-form census?

Just because it is “arguable” that a voluntary questionnaire sent to 30 per cent of the population will still give good results – as the federal government claims – does not mean it is true. (The mandatory long-form census went to 20 per cent of the population).

About 370 professional groups and government bodies agree that all we will get from a larger survey, which will under-represent low-income Canadians, immigrants, and other marginalized groups who tend to not respond to voluntary surveys, is a very expensive, unreliable survey.

So what will we lose if the long-form census is cancelled? Governments in Canada at all levels spend a lot of money – probably in excess of a hundred billion dollars each year – on services to improve the lives of Canadians. They help pay for adult literacy programs, immigrant settlement programs, subsidized child care, affordable housing, skills training, education from kindergarten to post-doctoral studies, health services for Aboriginal communities, and much, much more.

This funding will continue to be provided to some extent, but we will lose a significant amount of our capacity to evaluate whether it is producing positive outcomes. We won't be able to tell whether immigrants are able to use the skills and education they brought to Canada, and we won't know whether their earnings match their education and training. We won't know whether the general population in our community has the education needed for the jobs that are being created. We won't know where to build subsidized child-care centres because we won't know where people with young children and low incomes are settling. We won't know where to set up adult English-as-a-Second-Language programs because as new immigrants settle in new neighbourhoods, we won't know which ones they are moving to.

The loss of the long-form census is of specific interest to community foundations across Canada because of the impact it could have on their annual Vital Signs reports.

I know, because for the past four years I have been the data consultant for Waterloo Region’s Vital Signs. I have also provided consulting to many community-based planning initiatives, including a recently completed 40-year plan to reduce violence in Waterloo Region. I have done research for federal, provincial and municipal levels of government.

All of these plans and reports were heavily dependent on data directly from or dependent on the long-form census. Producing such plans and reports at their current level of comprehensiveness – or anything approximating it – will be utterly impossible.

Governments, community and other foundations, United Ways, and individual donors base their funding on identified needs in their communities. They judge the success of their efforts by measuring positive changes in the lives of those in their communities.

"My gut tells me" or "I think" are not sufficient criteria for making decisions on where to direct money to improve the lives of Canadians. We need solid information and that can only come from having solid, reliable, valid socio-demographic statistics from which to work.

Ernie Ginsler has been actively involved in community-based research and nonprofit governance as a professional and as a university faculty member for almost 40 years. He has taught at York University, the University of Waterloo, and, currently, at Wilfrid Laurier University

Congregation connected to community through Victoria's Vital Signs

2010-11-08T07:00:00.021-05:00

By Leah Baade

Reverend Allen Saunders is a get-things-done kind of man. He finds a need and he fills it. As lead minister at First Metropolitan United Church, he is full of energy for our community – members of the congregation and the city he lives in.

The church houses the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria (ICA) in the low-income housing complex on the church property. It’s also a stepping-off point for many of the church’s outreach endeavours. From supporting initiatives such as Our Place, Inner-City Dinners and Out of the Rain Shelter for street youth, to recreational outlets for youth in the form of a basketball team, or for drop-in recreation. Still other initiatives focus on the environment and sustainability, health and wellness, music, and youth.

Rev. Saunders leads an active congregation of 627 households at the downtown Victoria church; the 1915 heritage building is a hub of belonging and leadership in our community.

So what’s the connection to the Victoria Foundation? Rev. Saunders regularly bases his Sunday sermons on the findings of Victoria’s Vital Signs.

To coincide with Rights of the Child Day, he highlighted some of Victoria’s challenges and achievements that were identified by our youth respondents. And just last month, his sermon took a serious look at what Victoria graders identified as the top five issues in our community, noting that homelessness, cost of living, addictions, housing and mental illness are all interrelated.

The Vital Signs indicators play a valuable role in how the congregation at First Metropolitan decides where there are challenges that need to be met. They help to prioritize opportunities for outreach. A shortage of funding for the arts in Victoria-area schools means an extra-special opportunity for a music program at the church. Cost-of-living constraints find Rev. Saunders pondering a community kitchen program that would facilitate community building and a sense of accomplishment as participants cook for themselves and each other.

Victoria’s Vital Signs is a key tool for the church in its strategic planning process. While putting together its vision for 2020, First Metropolitan is able to examine future staffing needs and identify the church’s greatest potential for redevelopment.

It’s evident that Rev. Saunders has an inspiring effect on his congregation. Parishioners travel to this church each week from as far away as Sidney and Sooke. First Metropolitan’s message reaches much further than the back pew as he encourages each and every member of the congregation to put their faith into action as soon as they step out the doors.

Leah Baade is Youth in Philanthropy and Social Media Coordinator with Victoria Foundation

Vancouver Foundation hosts Vitality Sessions to engage business, government, nonprofits, and citizens

2010-11-04T07:00:00.004-04:00

By Meriko Kubota

Vancouver Foundation released its Vital Signs report for Metro Vancouver on Tuesday, Oct. 5, along with 15 other community foundations across Canada. To find out how Metro Vancouver is doing, come On the Road to Vitality with us by watching this video.

Vancouver Foundation’s Vital Signs for Metro Vancouver helps to inform the Foundation’s decisions with respect to grants, community partnerships, organizational collaborations and other program activities. It also serves as a key resource of community knowledge to engage donors, funders and partners, as well as community stakeholders.

The Vital Signs report is created by the community for the community. Many volunteers contributed to the selection of relevant and reliable data. Sharing the Vital Signs information and encouraging its use is integral to our vision of healthy, vibrant and livable communities across British Columbia.

With the support of Vancity, Canada’s largest credit union, Vancouver Foundation will be hosting community dialogues, “Vitality Sessions” from November 2010 through March 2011. These Vitality Sessions will be hosted in the six sub-regions of Metro Vancouver:

Our conversations will be co-hosted by community foundations in these sub-regions, engaging business, government, nonprofit, and residents of the regions. The purpose of these Vitality Sessions is to provide a space for conversation and support for positive change in our Metro Vancouver communities.

Please visit our website for more information on Vancouver Foundation’s Vital Signs for Metro Vancouver and updates on our Vitality Sessions: www.vancouverfoundation.ca/vitalsigns

Meriko Kubota is Manager of the Vancouver Foundation’s Vital Signs Team

Doing good for goodness’ sake – building bridges between business, government and philanthropy

2010-11-01T07:00:00.024-04:00

By Rahul K. Bhardwaj

How should you give away your money to charity?

Some people who have the wealth and generosity to give back to their community apply their own experience and values to those they want to support and to what form that support should take. This is only natural and can work well for everyone concerned. But, often, it doesn’t work as well as it should.

Let me explain why. Broadly speaking, cities in the developed world are being built on three pillars: the public sector, the private sector, and the philanthropic sector. Historically, each of these has had a very different bottom line. For business, it’s been profits and money. For governments, it’s security and social cohesion. And for non-profits and charities, it’s the quality of life.

But, in the past 20 years, each of these three sectors has begun to merge and align with the others. Governments are much more focused on the bottom line. Many corporations, meanwhile, have a mission to satisfy more than their shareholders and customers; they need to prove they’re good community citizens.

The world of philanthropy has changed, too. It used to only deal with charities and the people and organizations that supported them. Today, however, philanthropy is not only playing a larger role in society, it’s become the meeting place for government and business and donors.

Just ask Bill Gates and Warren Buffett if the worlds of business, government and philanthropy are aligning. They’re not just giving back extraordinary amounts from their own vast fortunes; they’re changing what it means to give. In doing so, they’re reshaping the very definition of philanthropy. For many people of means, living the good life has changed to living a good life and ensuring that others do, as well.

With the Gates-Buffett “billionaire challenge,” the world’s wealthiest people are moving philanthropy directly from the boardroom to the barrios, doing what governments used to do, or never could do, stretching what it means to be a large corporation, a senior executive, a foundation, and a philanthropist.

But this transformation is not just limited to billionaires: we see it in Toronto, for instance, with families who give as little as $25,000 to set up a family foundation within the Toronto Community Foundation. Every member of that family is involved in determining where their philanthropy should go.

That bottom line is morphing and merging, so more non-profits are run more like businesses than ever before.

But they shouldn’t be run as businesses. What’s more, the overlapping shouldn’t be a one-way trip. If you feel charities should run more like businesses, then surely businesses can work better if they’re run in some ways like charities.

To those people who say the business approach is the only way to run government or philanthropy, let me say, no, business can help explain and inform government and the social sector, but not replace them. When business tries to turn society into a business, things get out of whack. Or put more elegantly, these three sectors become misaligned.

We see the cost of this misalignment particularly in the United States, where the political gridlock has an iron grip on any progress the country hopes to make, especially economically. The reason is that the competitive urge – the basis of much of business – can at times completely overwhelm the co-operative impulse. The result is that healthy debate about the future of cities, for example, is replaced by clenched fists instead of outstretched hands.

The situation is not as dire in Canada or Brazil.

Competition – the ability to compete and win – has built much of Toronto and Sao Paulo. But the way forward is not through competition. Or at least not just competition. It’s through collaboration. Lots of people know how to “do competition.” But knowing how to do “co-operation” is much harder because it’s new and we don’t have the tools and skills to do it well. This just means we need to find a way to reward co-operation.

We need to stop thinking of our sectors as walls, but rather as bridges. If we can find ways to align our interests, to start by finding what we share rather than what we don’t, business will prosper all the more, the social sector will better serve more people, and government will improve the lives of its citizens.

When people give money to charity and use the financial bottom line as their sole determinant of who gets that money, that’s doing good for personal sake. Or for corporate sake. Or even for political sake. But it’s not for goodness’ sake.

We can only do that when we join with others in the journey, and only when knowledge is added to philanthropy to improve society.

Rahul K. Bhardwaj is President and CEO of Toronto Community Foundation. He gave this address during the recent Sao Paulo Foundations’ Association 5th annual conference. This commentary also appeared in the Globe and Mail.

Focusing on what's important, through Vital Signs

2010-10-29T07:00:00.005-04:00

By Marina Boulos-Winton

Experiencing my first launch of Greater Montreal's Vital Signs was exhilarating. So many people attended, the presentations made by the panellists were remarkable, and the questions and comments from media representatives and the audience were serious and insightful!

We decided to host our October 5 Vital Signs event at the Auditorium of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, a perfect location.

In keeping with the sheer magnitude of this public library, it serves and is accessed by people from all walks of life, including those who use it for their employment search, those who need to learn English or French, those with young children who need a leisure activity, students of all levels, and those either down on their luck or very fortunate, who simply go to the library to pass the time.

At any rate, libraries are an essential part of having an educated and literate population. Hence it was an ideal place to gather our distinguished panellists (Lise Bertrand, Simon Brault, Aïda Kamar, Sidney Ribaux) and an audience of close to 200, which included funders and the non-profit community, to discuss what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to be fixed.

Greater Montreal’s poverty rate is 18 per cent, versus the national average of 13.5 per cent. The city has the second largest population in Canada, yet it’s ranked 20th for level of income. Francophones in Montreal have some of the lowest high school graduation rates, and we rank 29th out of 31 among major North American cities for people attaining a bachelor degree.

While we still rank high in quality of life, will we become a society where the gap between rich and poor becomes even wider, and where no new wealth is being created? Will we have the resources to innovate, compete and create pportunities for ourselves, for future generations and for those newly arrived in our city? Will we become mere transients as we seek jobs elsewhere?

For now, Vital Signs gives the Foundation of Greater Montreal, and those who create funds with us – much like mini-foundations within a foundation – the ability to focus on what’s important, and how together we can invest where it will make a difference.

We hope shortly to announce a partnership to alleviate the rate of high school drop-outs, and in the new year, our philanthropic focus for 2011.

Stay tuned between now and our next Vital Signs report in October 2011 …

Marina Boulos-Winton is President & CEO of the Foundation of Greater Montreal

Want to help your community? Abandon your comfort bubble!

2010-10-27T07:00:00.003-04:00

By Melissa Ricci

Belonging to the Hamilton Community Foundation’s YAC (Youth Advisory Council) has really given me a unique insight into the meaning of the word “community.”

It’s not a secret that Hamilton has its fair share of problems involving poverty. When I was younger, I would try to avoid going downtown because I thought it was scary – it was not the sheltered suburb I was used to playing dolls in. People used food banks, asked for spare change, and stayed overnight at shelters. I was terrified because it was all unknown to me and I thought I would get hurt.

When I was 15, a teacher invited me to go to the first YAC meeting of the year. I got my mom to drive me down to Jackson Square, in the heart of downtown Hamilton, so I could attend. Representatives explained the grant-making process and gave us a brief outline of what we would be doing over the course of the year. I met some new friends and left. I admit, I was confused as to how meeting in a boardroom would make any difference in the community.

But the longer I stayed with the YAC, the more grant proposals I read, and the more community visits I participated in, the more I learned about Hamilton. It had always been rather unknown to me: I stayed in my happy bubble and ignored everything new. Now I was learning about its thriving arts community, about church groups and youth groups organizaing breakfast programs, street hockey leagues, services for newly immigrated students.

I got involved, I met people, and I saw the true face of the "scary" city I had avoided for so long. I loved every minute of it.

I've lived in Hamilton my entire life. But it wasn't until I started working with the Community Foundation that I really began to call Hamilton my home.

One of the most important things I've learned, and that I believe everyone should learn, is the importance of getting outside your comfort bubble. To truly make an impact on the problems in a community, to truly improve the lives of children, to eradicate poverty, to help others become involved, and to help those who may need it, you need to know your city. You need to get involved. You need to make your city your home and care for it as you would care for your own family.

Getting out of the house and simply learning is the first step to helping. Go!

Melissa Ricci served on the YAC for three years, and as co-chair in 2009-10. She now studies Arts and Science at McMaster University. She likes reading, cake decorating, volunteering, and the Hamilton Community Foundation, and hopes to one day found her own charitable organization

Imagineaction, Vital Signs guide students and teachers to social action

2010-10-25T07:00:00.000-04:00

By Mary-Lou Donnelly

The findings in the recently released Canada’s Vital Signs 2010 report are no surprise to teachers who deal daily with the fall-out of many of the issues addressed in the report.

The results show the importance of the partnership between Community Foundations of Canada and the Canadian Teachers’ Federation in our Imagineaction program. Students and teachers will be able to use the data to put in place action plans addressing community needs.

There are many examples in the report where students and teachers may choose to act. In the area of Belonging and Leadership, even as we celebrate gains in terms of peoples’ sense of belonging, there remain one-third of individuals in society who do not have a strong sense of community belonging. As focal points of community, schools are uniquely placed to begin to address this situation. Students and teachers may choose this statistic as the impetus for a project related to the “connect” or “engage” Imagineaction themes.

Similarly, in the area of Environment, the fact that greenhouse gas emissions from personal vehicles have risen by one-third is a call to action. Last year, for example, a group of students from École La Morelle in Quebec ran an information program for parents dropping off and picking up their children, aimed at getting them to turn off their vehicles while they waited.

The results showing a widening of the Gap Between Rich and Poor and stating that at least one in 10 Canadians are now considered poor is more than a call to action – it is a national embarrassment.

Each day, teachers are faced with the realities of poverty as students come to class hungry. Teachers and students across the country are already helping to run lunch programs and are assisting to help alleviate the suffering caused by poverty. The Vital Signs results demonstrate once again the importance of renewing our efforts in this area.

Imagineaction calls for teachers to lead their students to social action through critical thinking. Vitals Signs provides a valuable resource for students who are looking for information to assist them in making a decision as to where to act and what to do.

Together they could be the difference that enables action.

Mary-Lou Donnelly is President of the Canadian Teachers' Federation

Community belonging a vital sign

2010-10-22T07:00:00.000-04:00

By Karen Takacs

In all the media coverage of the Community Foundations of Canada’s Vital Signs 2010 report, one indicator caught my attention. More Canadians feel a strong sense of community belonging.

While probably the least talked about, for me community belonging is the most telling of all the Vital Signs indicators, revealing our well being as citizens and as a society.

And I think our notion of what constitutes our community is changing, too. Witness the outpouring of support for victims of the Haitian earthquake and Pakistan floods. Canadians see themselves, their families and their neighbours in the faces of people struggling, and they give.

On the face of it, things aren’t looking good at home. Many Canadians, and new immigrants in particular, are struggling to find work. One in 10 Canadians lives in poverty and the gap between rich and poor continues to widen. That is why it is all the more remarkable that the region with the highest unemployment in Canada, Lunenburg County, also reports the second highest sense of community belonging. In spite of the challenges, Canadians continue to reach out to their neighbours, to give time and money.

Increasingly this sense of belonging extends beyond our borders. In many developing countries the situation is dire. The experience of poverty is almost beyond the comprehension of those of us who have never lost a child to starvation; had a wife or daughter brutally raped or beaten without protection or redress under the law; or lost land and livelihood because, as a women, you do not have the right to own property.

Yet each year, thousands of Canadians drop what they are doing to serve overseas in a modest attempt to redress these inequities and work for change. It is the kind of experience that stays with you, that changes you. One 2007 study revealed that former overseas volunteers were one and half times more likely to volunteer in their own communities than the average Canadian. And when they did, they gave more volunteer hours. As most Canadian Crossroads International volunteers will tell you, we are in the community-building business. Across cultural differences, great distances and vast disparity in access to and control of resources, we are working with our neighbours to build one world.

Patsy George, a Crossroads volunteer who came to Canada 50 years ago from India, describes community building this way: Each of us has a duty to care. Not only for ourselves, but for everyone we are in contact with or might hope to be, our environment and the institutions around which we build community. We are inextricably bound up with one another, she says.

At 70 years of age, she told me, she has limited time. After a lifetime of volunteer work that has garnered her the Order of Canada, among other honours, she has to focus her efforts and her focus is building the global community. It is an effort that reaps its own reward.

As the Vital Signs report indicates, community engagement correlates strongly with an individual’s health and mental health even when socioeconomic and other factors are taken into account. Working together toward a common cause, whether with folks in Lunenburg County, Canada or in Harare, Zimbabwe, enriches the lives of those who choose to work for collective good and all society. The relationship and skills developed increase our resilience to cope in tough times and fuel the social change vital for all to enjoy a real quality of life.

Karen Takacs is Executive Director with Canadian Crossroads International (CCI), an international development organization that is advancing the rights of women and girls and the right to sustainable livelihoods for all. She is also Chair of the Board of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation (CCIC)

Progressive partnership: Vibrant Communities and Community Foundations

2010-10-21T08:20:00.000-04:00

By Paul Born

Vibrant Communities Canada has partnered with organizations across Canada, including many Community Foundations, on a nine-year experiment that demonstrates the positive impacts of an innovative and collaborative approach to fighting poverty that is driving individual benefits, neighbourhood changes and large-scale community poverty reductions.

For nearly a decade now, a wide range of partners, including Community Foundations, have formed leadership tables in more than a dozen communities across Canada, giving new momentum to the work of poverty reduction. More than a hope or a dream, they have made it a living, breathing reality.

Joined by the Vibrant Communities initiative, citizens of all income levels, community workers, business people and representatives from all levels of government are clarifying needs, identifying community assets and developing tangible strategies for tackling poverty.

Our experience is proving an important role for place-based strategies when it comes to reducing poverty. Community collaboration is showing promising and powerful results. Community Foundations have played a critical role in many cities, including Hamilton Community Foundation, which has played a leadership role in convening and leading the award-winning coalition in Hamilton.

The Edmonton Community Foundation sits on the leadership body and contributes broadly to the work in that city. The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation was involved with the leadership roundtable for Opportunities Waterloo Region. The Niagara Community Foundation was also involved with Opportunities Niagara.

Launched in 2002, Vibrant Communities Canada builds on learning generated by Opportunities 2000, a millennium campaign to reduce poverty in Waterloo Region to the lowest in Canada, which earned a place in the United Nations Top 40 Projects Worldwide.

The Vibrant Communities approach emphasizes collaboration and consensus building across sectors; comprehensive thinking and action; building community assets; and a commitment to long-term learning and change. It is a self-fuelling change model where progress creates greater capacity, leading to new programs and more systematic interventions. The end result is improved lives and less people living in poverty.

Together, Vibrant Communities partners have:

· Launched 164 poverty reduction initiatives
· Reduced poverty for more than 170,000 households in Canada
- Raised $19.5 million, most of it in local communities
- Engaged 1,690 organizations as partners, including more than 500 businesses
- Mobilized 1,080 individuals as partners, including 573 people living in poverty
- Driven 35 substantive government policy changes

We invite you to read the report, read the executive summary of the report, visit the VC Evaluation webpage and learn about the Vibrant Communities experience.

Paul Born directs Tamarack – An Institute for Community Engagement, a ten year journey and partnership with Alan Broadbent of the Avana Capital Corporation and Maytree Foundation to advance place based solutions to entrenched problems like poverty

Tough economic times still ahead

2010-10-20T07:00:00.001-04:00

By Lynne Slotek

As Canada’s Vital Signs 2010 reported, “the fallout from the global recession is far from over.”

Regrettably, history has taught us that – without extensive government stimulus – it will be many years before Canada returns to unemployment and poverty levels that existed before the recession. After the 1980s recession, for example, it took seven years for Canada’s unemployment rate to return to pre-recession levels, and even then poverty rates kept going up for another three years.

Recessions do not hit all Canadians equally. A report prepared last year for the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), The Economic Crisis through the Lens of Wellbeing by Jean-François Arsenault and Andrew Sharpe, showed that in each of the previous two recessions, lower and middle income families experienced much larger losses of income than higher income households.

In the 1982-83 recession, the market income of the bottom 20 per cent of households dropped by 38 per cent, while the top 20 per cent of households lost just 3 per cent. In the 1990-93 recession, the bottom 20 per cent lost 74 per cent of income compared to 5.1 per cent for the top 20 per cent.

The situation for the unemployed and Canadians living in poverty has been further complicated by the growing holes in our country’s social safety net. Cuts to EI combined with a weakening of welfare benefits have rendered the climb out of poverty more difficult than in the past.

The climb has been especially steep for historically disadvantaged groups such as recent immigrants, racialized groups, Aboriginal peoples and youth. A second report prepared for the CIW, How are Canadians Really doing? A Closer Look at Select Groups by Caryl Arundel and Associates noted that racialized groups are three times as likely to be poor than other Canadians.

History can be an important predictor of future patterns. But sometimes we need to remind ourselves that it’s there to teach us, not to bind us. History will only repeat itself if we allow it to. We Canadians are an adaptable people and we have the capacity to explore new solutions.

What does this mean in public policy terms? It means there must be two priorities for government action. First, since recessions and their aftermath primarily hit those who lose their jobs, it is vital that governments support such individuals by designing and implementing income supplement and retraining programs that meet their needs by opening up real access to real jobs.

Secondly, governments must offset as much as possible the shortfall in private-sector spending that prevents our economy from operating at full capacity. This is no time to become complacent and assume that just because GDP may be picking up a little, the market economy will take care of everything. It was that kind of thinking that got us into trouble in the first place.

In short, we still need ongoing government stimulus and support for both Canadians hit hardest by the recession and for the economy if we are to avoid the extended periods of high unemployment and even higher poverty rates that have followed previous recessions.

Lynne Slotek is the National Project Director of the Canadian Index of Wellbeing. CIW Reports on the quality of life of Canadians are available at www.ciw.ca

Housing driving a wedge between rich and poor

2010-10-19T07:00:00.019-04:00

By Judith Maxwell

Rising home prices are often treated as a sign of prosperity, but they also drive a wedge between the rich and the poor.

In its Vital Signs 2010 report, Community Foundations of Canada has asked the question: "How much "house" can Canadians afford? Well, it all depends on your income, your down payment and mortgage interest rates, as well as the cost of the house.

And today, the average price for a house is 4.1 times the annual median family income, up from 3.1 times in 1995.

Broad averages like these hide many diverse stories. Some people can afford to spend $1 million on a house, others can't make next month's rent.

Benjamin Tal of CIBC Economics^[i] says that the most vulnerable groups are those who live on less than $50,000 a year. If they own a house, and not many of them do, he estimates that they are paying 51% of their gross income on mortgage payments plus hydro and property taxes. In contrast, people with incomes over $50,000 pay an average of 24% of gross income.

The Community Foundation of Ottawa has demonstrated the wedge between rich and poor in its Vital Signs 2010^[ii] report. Ottawa, like many other cities large and small, has a serious shortage of affordable housing, specifically apartments with rent geared to income.

For a family of four on social assistance (Ontario Works), for example, monthly assistance amounts to $1,844. This is not enough to cover the average monthly rent for a 3 bedroom apartment ($1,257) plus a nutritious food basket ($735). The family therefore has to choose between lower quality housing and being able to cover costs of food, transit and other necessities.

A lot of working Canadians face the same dilemma. Almost half of the people on low income in Ottawa do not receive Ontario Works benefits - they are the working poor. Their wages, even when they work 49 weeks a year, don't cover basic shelter, food and necessities. Many depend on the food bank to get through the month.

These are untenable choices for families. The underlying problem is that Ottawa has a waiting list of 10,000 families looking for affordable housing but has only built an average of 164 new units per year over the past decade.

Real estate developers don't build affordable housing because it is not a profitable business. Governments have reduced their contributions to this kind of housing, and not-for-profits, which are ready and able to build, don't have access to capital.

This puts Canadians to a test. Do we let this gap between rich and poor continue to grow? Or can we get creative? Surely financial innovation plus a social conscience can free up resources to build more stable, decent and affordable housing.

Tom Carter^[iii] Canada Research Chair at the University of Winnipeg, says that good housing plays a stabilizing and facilitating role in the community. It improves:

Physical and mental health
Educational attainment
Family life and social interaction
Income security
Labour force attachment
Integration of immigrants, and
Community development

Sounds like a good investment to me.

Judith Maxwell is the former Chair of the Economic Council of Canada, and Founding President of Canadian Policy Research Networks

^[i] Benjamin Tal, Consumer Watch Canada, "Assessing Vulnerabilities in the Canadian Housing Market," CIBC Economics, May 25, 2010.
^[ii] Community Foundation of Ottawa, Ottawa's Vital Signs, 2010.
^[iii] Tom Carter and Chesya Polevychok, Housing is Good Social Policy, Canadian Policy Research Networks, 2004.

CFC survey on local environment an important red flag

2010-10-18T13:30:00.029-04:00

By Vicki Burns

Community Foundations of Canada in conjunction with Environics Research Group have just released the results of a national survey that points out a disturbing disconnect between the way Canadians view their own local environment and the concern they have for global environmental issues.

Most of those surveyed felt content with their own local environment at the same time as expressing that environmental concerns are the number one problem facing the world.

In some ways, this is understandable since we still tend to think of Canada as a country of wide open unlimited spaces with lots of wilderness and clean water. The reality, however , is that there are very significant issues in Canada that we all can be part of turning around. Some of those issues are:

Greenhouse gas emissions from personal vehicles, which have risen by almost one-third in Canada since the early 1990s
The Alberta Tar Sands, called the fastest growing source of global warming pollution in Canada, will affect all Canadians no matter where they live because of its sheer scale.
Record algae blooms in the Lake Winnipeg watershed – and across North America – this summer, causing illness in people and pets
The more than 213 billion litres of water wasted by Canadians every year (roughly equivalent to the City of Toronto’s annual water use) due to low efficiency toilets
And the most personal example of all: the toxins that can now be found in our bodies, such as bisphenol A, which a recent survey found in 91 per cent of Canadians aged six to 79

Check out the full story on this survey and its implications on the Vital Signs website. I think its an important red flag for those of us working on environmental issues. We need to really be thinking about how to bring that concern for the global environment into everyone’s backyard.

Each one of us has the potential to contribute to a healthier environment through so many everyday actions. How do we take this message “mainstream?"

Vicki Burns is Coordinator of the Lake Winnipeg Watershed Initiative. Her regular blog posts can be found at http://canadawater.wordpress.com

Canadians' views on local, global environmental issues disconnected, survey shows

2010-10-18T12:29:00.000-04:00

(October 18, 2010) - Environmental organizations say a new public opinion survey reveals a troubling disconnect between Canadians' concerns for the global environment and their awareness of local environmental issues.

The Vital Signs National Public Opinion Survey, which was commissioned by Community Foundations of Canada (CFC) and conducted by the Environics Research Group, shows Canadians are generally positive about the quality of the environment in their own community, even though they rate the environment as the top problem facing the world today.ⁱ

"Canadians seem to be viewing environmental problems as issues that occur somewhere else, but not in their own backyard," says Dr. Rick Smith, Executive Director of Environmental Defence.

Canadians give strong ratings (excellent or good) to all areas of the local environment: water quality (80%), air quality (74%), protection of local wildlife and green spaces (68%), waste management (68%), and quality of water in lakes and rivers (56%). In addition, close to half (48%) believe the quality of the local environment is not changing over time, but the remainder - by a two-to-one margin - say it is getting better (34%) rather than worse (16%).

Contrast to global stats
These findings are in stark contrast to a recent Canadian Environmental Barometer survey, where more than seven in ten Canadians said they were definitely, if not extremely, concerned about such issues as air quality, water quality and toxic chemicals in the environment.

"Canadians have voiced these concerns for years, but they tend to be focused at a national or global level," says Keith Neuman, Group Vice President - Public Affairs, Environics Research Group. "When attention is turned to where people live, opinions are decidedly more positive."

"We need to work hard to make sure Canadians know local actions have global impact. And vice versa," says Gerald Butts, President and CEO of World Wildlife Fund - Canada.

Those issues include:

Greenhouse gas emissions from personal vehicles, which have risen by almost one-third in Canada since the early 1990s.ⁱⁱ
The Alberta Tar Sands, called the fastest growing source of global warming pollution in Canada, will affect all Canadians no matter where they live because of its sheer scale.ⁱⁱⁱ
Record algae blooms in the Lake Winnipeg watershed - and across North America - this summer, causing illness in people and pets.^iv
The more than 213 billion litres of water wasted by Canadians every year (roughly equivalent to the City of Toronto's annual water use) due to low efficiency toilets.^v
And the most personal example of all: the toxins that can now be found in our bodies, such as bisphenol A, which a recent survey found in 91 per cent of Canadians aged six to 79.^vi

Canadians can make a difference, but are unmotivated to act
When asked who has the most responsibility for the quality of the local environment, Canadians identified various levels of government (66%) but also saw a significant role for citizens (54%). Close to half of Canadians also feel citizens can make a major difference (48%) in improving local environmental quality, with most of the remainder (38%) indicating they can make "some" difference. However, our lack of motivation and/or an unwillingness to change our lifestyle is cited as the biggest obstacle to reducing our environmental impact.

"Community foundations across Canada have seen the impact citizens can have when they join forces around environmental issues," says Monica Patten, President and CEO of Community Foundations of Canada. "These findings will assist and encourage our members to explore even more opportunities to support local environmental action."

About Vital Signs and the 2010 National Public Opinion Survey
Full findings, charts and methodology, are available at www.vitalsignscanada.ca along with examples of how community foundations are tackling environmental issues. Vital Signs is part of a growing, nation-wide initiative by Canadian community foundations to measure quality of life and take action to improve it. Sixteen community foundations released local Vital Signs report cards on October 5, along with a national snapshot published by CFC.

About Community Foundations
Canada's 170 community foundations are local charitable foundations that help Canadians invest in building strong and resilient places to live, work, and play. They are one of the largest supporters of Canadian charities, providing $144 million to local organizations in 2009. Visit www.cfc-fcc.ca.

-30-
Note to Editors: Stories of local environmental action can be found at www.vitalsignscanada.ca.

Contacts

Skana Gee Vital Signs Communications Coordinator 902.466.7191 (w) 902.223.5234 (c) gee.skana@gmail.com	Keith Neuman, Ph.D. Environics Research Group 613-230-5089 keith.neuman@environics.ca
Rick Smith Executive Director Environmental Defence 416.323.9521 ext. 225	Gerald Butts President and CEO World Wildlife Fund - Canada 416.489.8800

ⁱ Environics Research (2008). Canada's World Polls.
ⁱⁱ Statistics Canada (2010). Study: Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Private Vehicles. The Daily, Thursday, May 13, 2010.
ⁱⁱⁱ Environmental Defence (2008). Canada's Toxic Tar Sands.
^iv H20: Ideas and Action for Canada's Water (2010). Toxic Algae Warnings All Over North America.
^v Environmental Defence (2010). Down the Drain: Water Conservation in the Great Lakes Basin.
^vi Statistics Canada (2010). The Canadian Health Measures Survey. The Daily, Monday, August 16, 2010.

Getting more out of your charitable giving

2010-10-15T07:00:00.013-04:00

By Marvi Ricker

Charitable giving has always been an important part of social history, and the spirit that inspires it is universal. The benefits of making a charitable donation are countless, from helping those in need to the personal satisfaction we feel when supporting a cause.

Often this benevolence happens on the spur of the moment, in response to an immediate need. A survey conducted for the BMO Retirement Institute reveals 44 per cent of baby boomers said they donate on impulse, without either a plan or a budget, and only one per cent donate to charity as part of a plan or budget with the help of a financial advisor.

But now boomers, a generation that’s been socially aware and involved, are taking a closer look at their charitable involvement. They’re examining why they give, what they give, to whom they give, when they give and how they give – both through financial donation, and through volunteering.

Like their parents before them, boomers are givers. But because they are better educated and wealthier, they are much more engaged and involved in their giving. That’s why tools like the national Vital Signs program are so critical in today’s philanthropic landscape. Reports about how our communities are faring provide boomers, and other potential donors, with the information they need to make smart and savvy decisions. While their parents simply entrusted charitable organizations with their financial donations, boomers want to be active in the causes they believe in and the philanthropic choices they make.

Although the Retirement Institute survey shows that many boomers are giving on impulse, strategic giving requires as much planning as you would expect to put into saving or investing.

Vital Signs provides a catalyst to get the planning process started by considering some of the issues and opportunities in our communities. Donors also need to conduct a thorough, disciplined and strategic examination of goals, objectives, interests and options.

A financial advisor can both identify and help clients understand all the options, to assist them in making informed charitable decisions and to ensure that those dreams are realized – during their lifetime and in perpetuity.

Marvi Ricker is Vice-President and Managing Director of Philanthropic Services for BMO Harris Private Banking

Generous mortgage terms, low interest rates spark home-ownership boom

2010-10-14T07:00:00.002-04:00

By Jane Londerville

The increase in percentage of home ownership in Canada between 2001 and 2006, as documented in Canada’s Vital Signs 2010, is partly the result of generous mortgage terms and low interest rates.

Home buyers were permitted to borrow as much as 100% of the price of their home at the end of this five-year period; those having difficulty saving for a down payment – but with reasonable income and credit ratings – used this opportunity to get into the real estate market .

Households could also extend the amortization period (total time to pay off the loan) to 40 years during this period – and a significant proportion of first-time buyers did this in order to buy a more expensive house.

In 2008, in light of significant default problems among homeowners in the U.S., the Canadian government legislated a maximum loan-to-value ratio of 95% and a maximum amortization period of 35 years. In 2010, further restrictions on borrowing were put in place. For example, households refinancing their home now cannot borrow more than 90%, forcing at least some saving through mortgage repayment and house appreciation.

The main recent change is the requirement that borrowers have sufficient income to qualify for their loan based on the higher five-year-term interest rate, even if they ultimately choose a shorter term or variable rate mortgage. This adds some comfort that they will be able to hang onto their home if interest rates rise in the future when they have to renew their mortgage loan.

Mortgage interest rates have a large impact on affordability of owned housing for Canadians. This is why the ‘price to income ratio’ is not a very effective method of measuring stress in the market. An expensive house at a low interest rate could be more affordable than a lower priced house at high interest rates.

A borrower with a loan of $200,000 at 5% amortized over 25 years will pay $1,163 per month to carry the loan. If, when the term is up on the mortgage loan in 5 years, rates have risen to 8%, the payment increases to $1,526. This is an extra $4,000+ a year in payments. For those who stretched to the maximum when they bought, who have had a child and are now incurring daycare costs, or who have had to replace a high paying job with one at lower salary during the downturn, this change could mean financial strife.

Jane Londerville is Associate Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Marketing and Consumer Studies at the University of Guelph. She teaches in Guelph's B. Comm. Real Estate and Housing major and chairs the Wellington Guelph Housing Committee which advocates for affordable housing.

Measuring learning in Canada's many communities

2010-10-13T07:00:00.000-04:00

By Dr. Paul Cappon and Erin Mills

Interest in the role of community as a site of learning has increased in recent years as policy makers and learning practitioners seek ways to address the complex social, economic, political and environmental challenges of the new economy.

The term community is often difficult to define and its usage varies widely in public discourse. For some, community refers to a group of people with a common purpose, shared values and interests, such as participation in chat rooms or special online interest groups.

For others, community is organized around a specific geographic area (such as a village, town or urban centre), cultural or demographic identities.

As research has shown, communities harness resources of knowledge, social networks, environmental assets and financial capital that enable local people and organizations to develop skills and knowledge, and strengthen values.

Indeed learning matters to individuals, providing benefits such as better health, more job opportunities and a higher quality of life. Learning matters to communities, where success is directly linked to the skills and engagement of the people who live there. And learning matters to our country’s ability to maintain a high standard of living and to participate fully in the knowledge economy.

However, measuring learning in the community is a complex task.

Measurement is the basis for tracking improvement, yet learning has traditionally been a difficult concept to quantify and report on—especially learning that takes place outside the classroom. The Canadian Council on Learning’s Composite Learning Index (CLI) is the first of its kind in the world. The index is designed to help assess the state of learning in 4,700 cities and communities across

Canada

, over time and throughout all stages of life.

The CLI has two main objectives: to foster an informed discussion of lifelong learning in

Canada

; and to identify areas of strength and weakness in learning conditions nationally, and in individual communities, enabling communities to learn from one another.

In May 2010, CCL released its fifth year of CLI results, garnering increased international attention and interest.

CLI scores show modest progress in lifelong learning. Over the past five years,

Canada

has witnessed no substantial progress in lifelong learning, from a CLI benchmark score of 73 in 2006 to 75 in 2010. In addition, the 2010 CLI score of 75 shows no change since 2009.

While

Canada

has seen only limited progress on the CLI over the past five years, the story is somewhat different when it comes to specific regions of the country.

For example, the majority (60%) of communities in Atlantic Canada have seen progress over the five-years, compared to only 26% of all communities in Western Canada. Overall, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island are improving at greater rates than other provinces in

Canada

. The result is a narrowing of the “CLI gap” that has existed with the rest of

Canada

since the index began in 2006.

By monitoring progress over time; communities can better undertake strategies to maximize their strengths and effectively address their weaknesses.

Dr. Paul Cappon is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Council on Learning, Ottawa, Ontario.

Erin Mills is a Senior Research Analyst with the Canadian Council on Learning, Ottawa, Ontario.

Day of action for a federal strategy to address housing as a critical vital sign

2010-10-12T07:00:00.002-04:00

By Christiane Mitchell

October 19th marks the launch of the Red Tent Campaign, a multi-partner campaign to end the coast-to-coast crisis of homelessness and draw attention to the need for a federal housing strategy, such as the federal Bill C-304, should it pass into law.

Rallies in cities across Canada will be held to draw attention to the 300,000 homeless people and the inadequate housing of more than a million others. As a vibrant symbol, carried by hundreds of activists and volunteers, the red-coloured, functional tents will bear the message of “housing is a right” – an international human rights law to which Canada is signatory and bound, but unfortunately does not live up to. The splash of red tents on Parliament Hill, along with other locations across the country, will underscore the key message to parliamentarians: housing is a human right and significantly enhanced investment in housing and housing supports is needed if homelessness is to be eliminated and the right to housing is to be honoured.

Empirical evidence shows that decent, affordable housing is an absolute necessity for good health. On the flip side, inadequate and/or unaffordable housing is linked to:

· Higher risk for illness and death among people who are homeless versus the general population. For example, in Toronto, adult women who are homeless are 10 times more likely to die than other women in the general population;
· High risk of respiratory disease, infectious disease and asthma due to lead, mould, vermin, poor heating, dampness, overcrowding and/or poor ventilation;
· High risk of mental health problems associated with overcrowding;
· Stress, leading to unhealthy coping behaviours, such as tobacco use and substance abuse; and
· Less money available to support other social determinants of health, e.g., nutritious food.

In addition to the adverse affects of poor housing on individual health, let’s comprehend the broader spectrum of health problems associated with low income neighbourhoods.

An Ontario-based study showed children living in poor neighbourhoods had a 67% higher rate of injuries than children living in the wealthiest neighbourhood. Living in a deprived area has also been shown to increase smoking, decrease physical activity, increase depression, increase noise pollution, increase speeding-related accidents, thus impairing a community’s vital signs and its quality of life.

Ensuring access to affordable, adequate, safe housing for all will make an immense contribution to the improvement of emotional and physical health and safety, not only to the immediate health conditions of millions of vulnerable people, but also to the overall health of all Canadians. This information alone should be enough for parliamentarians to ramp up investments in housing across Canada. But in case a reinforcing message is needed, watch for the presence of the Red Tent Campaign in your community!

Christiane Mitchell is the Manager of the Poverty and Health Program of Canada Without Poverty, a national charity based in Ottawa

Supporting immigrants to get Canadian credentials - is it worth it?

2010-10-08T07:00:00.001-04:00

By Dianne Fehr

An accountant with a Master's degree, Abdulhameed had a very successful career before he came to

Canada

. He held many senior positions, including one with a significant North American oil and gas company with operations in

Libya

. Fleeing the volatility and war in their home country of

Iraq

, Abdulhameed and his family immigrated to

Canada

in 2005.

Abdulhameed worked hard to settle his young family in Calgary, and spent
most of the family's savings to do so. Unable to find work as an accountant
because he didn't have Canadian training or experience, he worked as a clerk
at a convenience store for minimum wage.

Abdulhameed knew his best chance to escape his survival job was to get
Canadian training in his field of accounting. On his minimum wage income,
though, the $550 fee for each course was impossible.

Thankfully, Abdulhameed learned about the Immigrant Access Fund, a micro
loan program that helps immigrants living in Alberta with the costs of
obtaining the Canadian accreditation or training they need in order to work
in their pre-immigration occupation. An Immigrant Access Fund micro loan
made it possible for him to register for the accounting classes he needed.

Abdulhameed completed only two accounting classes before being hired by a
Calgary energy company. His starting wage was $40 an hour.

When he earned minimum wage, Abdulhameed paid neither federal nor provincial income tax because he didn't earn more than the basic personal exemption amount.

Earning $40 an hour, he would pay about $12,000 in income tax in his first
year alone. Abdulhameed eventually obtained a Canadian accounting
designation. As a young professional with an income that is sure to grow,
Abdulhameed's contribution to

Canada

's prosperity during his working life
will be significant.

This week, Community Foundations of Canada released its Canada’s Vital Signs 2010 report, which highlights the fact that immigrants with university degrees
are much more likely to be unemployed than their Canadian-born counterparts.
Clearly,

Canada

is not optimizing the economic potential of these highly
educated workers.

As a taxpayer, I would like every immigrant like Abdulhameed to have
employment commensurate with his or her skills and experience. I want them
to pay tax, be active consumers, and contribute to their communities. The
Immigrant Access Fund and hundreds of other organizations across
Canada – including the immigrant employment councils that are springing up in
many communities – are coming up with innovative ways to help skilled
immigrants become job-ready, supporting employers as they adopt inclusive
hiring practices and diverse workplaces, and encouraging regulatory bodies
to be open and accepting of their internationally educated/trained
colleagues.

Given the tremendous rate of return

Canada

realizes when people move from
minimum wage to full employment, it only makes sense to ensure that this
happens. Under very conservative estimates, the rate of return on the public
funds that help support the Immigrant Access Fund's work is 33% (more for
high-earning occupations). I expect that any program that results in
immigrants working at their potential would see a similar return.

Fully integrating

Canada

's immigrants into our workforce is not an
impossible dream; Immigrant Access Fund is doing it one micro loan at a
time. I know from dealing with recipients of Immigrant Access Fund loans
that skilled immigrants are highly motivated to succeed and willing to do
what it takes. They sometimes need a bit of help, and it is in everyone's
best interest that we support them when they do.

Dianne Fehr is Executive Director of the Immigrant Access Fund Society of Alberta

Mentoring: An Important Strategy to Open the Canadian Labour Market to New Immigrants

2010-10-07T07:00:00.003-04:00

By Peter Paul

While recent immigrants to Canada are more highly educated than previous cohorts and the Canadian-born, they earn lower wages and have more difficulties entering the labour market. At a time when we are competing in a global economy, Canada has clearly not leveraged this talent into innovation and productivity.

As we saw with the release of Canada’s Vital Signs 2010 earlier this week, recent immigrants with a university education had an unemployment rate that was 4.1 times higher (13.9%) that that of Canadian-born workers with a university degree (3.4%), according to 2009 data.

There is no doubt immigrants to Canada are unemployed and underemployed. About 65% who arrived in the 1990s experienced a low-income period, and about one-fifth had chronic low incomes. In the most recent recession, immigrants were disproportionally affected. Many of the newly unemployed were immigrants who had taken jobs in the manufacturing sector because their skills and experience were not recognized in Canada. They now find themselves even further from their original career goals.

One of the main factors that explains the gap between employment rates for recent skilled immigrants and their Canadian-born counterparts is the lack of social and professional networks that new immigrants have in their new home.

Now that the economy is hopefully improving, this means that they have no access to the hidden job market, including job openings that are not advertised. Depending on where they worked and how long they’ve been in the country, recent immigrants may also lack an understanding of the Canadian workplace culture and find it hard to have their international qualifications recognized.

However, more and more community organizations and employers offer programs to overcome these deficits. In particular, mentoring has shown itself to be a proven strategy as it connects a skilled immigrant with an established Canadian professional in the same or related occupation.

It’s not just the mentee who benefits – it’s a two-way street. Mentees benefit by the expert advice and connections that mentors provide – it is their bridge to becoming Canadian professionals. Mentor benefit by developing their leadership and coaching skills in addition to enhancing their ability to lead diverse teams.

The success of mentoring is demonstrable. In a study of The Mentoring Partnership in Toronto, you can see the difference that mentoring made to the individuals who participated:

o Almost 80% of mentees found work;
o There was a 67% increase in income for the mentee; and
o 95% of all mentors said they would hire a skilled immigrant.

A mentoring program is also advantageous to the participating employers. Among other benefits, it:

o Helps identify hidden talent by bringing employers in touch with qualified candidates;
o Provides a learning opportunity for staff ; and
o Recognizes volunteerism and helps gain greater visibility in the community.

To learn more about mentoring, visit http://www.alliescanada.ca/how-we-can-help/mentoring/.

Peter Paul is the project leader of ALLIES, a project jointly funded by Maytree and The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation. ALLIES (Assisting Local Leaders with Immigrant Employment Strategies) supports local efforts in Canadian cities to successfully adapt and implement programs that further the suitable employment of skilled immigrants. For more information, visit the website at www.alliescanada.ca.

A cross-country snapshot of Vital Signs media coverage

2010-10-06T09:05:00.001-04:00

Community foundations in 16 communities released their 2010 Vital Signs reports yesterday, focusing local and national media attention on key issues facing our communities and our country. Print, broadcast and social media networks across the country were buzzing yesterday with news of local success stories and the challenges that lie ahead.

Here's a round-up of some of the media from various Vital Signs communities across Canada and their take on local issues and opportunities. I'll start on the West Coast and make my way home, to Halifax. Don't forget you can find all the local Vital Signs reports, local media releases, and the national Canada's Vital Signs report on our Vital Signs website.

Victoria
The Times Colonist article covered the range of issues covered in Victoria's Vital Signs from the high rate of life satisfaction, giving and volunteering to the surprising numbers on motor vehicle emissions. "It's an honest report," says Victoria Foundation CEO Sandra Richardson. "There's our beautiful side and the other side of the coin.

Vancouver
The Vancouver Sun started its week-long series looking at Vital Signs issue areas by declaring North Shore residents the happiest in metro Vancouver. The reason? The region's "physical beauty," followed by the weather, climate and year-round recreation. But Vital Signs director Lidia Kemeny also credits the city's sense of belonging.

Strong social connections are not as tangible as beautiful mountains or a temperate climate or having a good job or nice house," Kemeny said. "But ultimately they are essential to our experience of our community and our personal lives ... and to making us feel enthusiastic about our region. In other words, connections are essential to community vitality."

Red Deer
The Red Deer Advocate discussed how the community's Vital Signs reflected 'the new economic reality' after the global economic downturn, including an emphasis on combating poverty and meeting the health care needs of residents. “All of this year’s indicators provided a clear picture of how the economic downturn is affecting our quality of life,” said Janice Wing, CEO of Red Deer and District Community Foundation.

Medicine Hat
Early coverage of Medicine Hat's Vital Signs trumpeted that 'The Hat's a happy place' with the vast majority of residents feeling connected to their neighbours and their community. We'll feature more coverage as it comes in.

Calgary
The Calgary Herald's headlines spoke volumes about the plight of newcomers arriving in the booming city. 'About two-thirds of the 10,000-plus immigrants who arrive in Calgary every year end up underemployed.' The community received a B- grade in the report for its services to newcomers and the poor.

"It's really, really tough," says Nadeem Tufail, who drives a taxi and works other odd jobs despite having a law degree and a master's in literature from his native Pakistan. "It's been 11 years since I came to Calgary and I'm still waiting for my big break. You need to feed your family, so you drive a cab."

London
Although Londoners are more educated and generous than average Ontarians, neighbours are not connecting with one another, says the London Free Press and the city is still home to thousands of children living in poverty. The article points to a number of challenges facing the community, which is better known for its wealth and beauty than its social ills.

Despite being among Canada’s largest immigrant destinations, many newcomers don’t feel welcome to work, play or learn in London. While almost two-thirds of Londoners own their homes, the city’s homeless shelters are consistently full. And while seven of ten Londoners say they believe this community is theirs to shape, they still stay away in droves at election time.

Waterloo
The Waterloo Record noted that of their Vital Signs launch a social venture partnership for Waterloo Region was announced. Another article in the same paper took note of the indicator grading: “Of the more than 1,000 graders, 81 per cent identified hate crimes at the top of their list as an area in dire need of corrective action, followed by a need for more residents to have a family doctor. On a positive note, 75 per cent of the graders said they thought the region’s residents have a high satisfaction in their lives, with nearly the same number of graders believing the population is doing well in terms of median family income.”

Hamilton
The Hamilton Spectator continued its Code Red series on poverty in the city, with a Vital Signs insert in the paper and coverage highlighting differences among neighbourhoods and the nearby communities of Hamilton and Burlington. Local radio also covered the report saying that Hamilton was home to 'virtually two cities, worlds apart.'

"The Hamilton Community Foundation Vital Signs Report shows the percentage of 20 to 24-year-olds who have not completed high school ranges from zero in some neighbourhoods to over 65 percent in others. Poverty rates range by neighbourhood, from less than 3 percent in some neighbourhoods to more than 40 percent in others. Child poverty rates range from zero to 55 percent depending on where you live," says the CKNW report.

Toronto

Toronto's Vital Signs is all over the Toronto Star, especially as the city is in the midst of a municipal election, like many other Vital Signs communities. As Christopher Hume says, the city is one of the world's most liveable, but 'its success cannot be taken for granted.'

Ottawa
An article in the Ottawa Citizen noted that overall there are many things to be concerned about. "Issues around poverty, homelessness and health care are top-of-mind among our citizens," McInnes said. But there's "growing frustration with the lack of improvement in these areas." The story did note that Arts and culture spending has improved, as has its grade. On a per-capita basis, the city spent $6.47 last year on arts and festivals, up from just $3.64 in 2005.

Kingston
CFLY radio in the Kingston area focused on the difficulties for young people and immigrants who are just getting started in the community. Youth unemployment in Kingston is more than double that of overall employment and has increased by 27% since 2007. Recent immigrants receive about 70% of the family income of those who are Canadian born and the annual number of immigrants arriving in Kingston has not increased in the last decade.

The Whig-Standard also covered the challenges that immigrants face, regardless of their education level.

Montreal
The Gazette highlighted two of the concerns raised in Montreal’s Vital Signs: a lack of family doctors and high drop out rates. The article has a lot of detail about what community foundations are and how to get involved. It notes that they are relatively new in Quebec. In an interview, Boulos said the FGM is becoming better known in the Montreal region. "And philanthropy overall is on the rise in Quebec," she said.

Saint John
The Telegraph Journal highlighted a drop in both the overall and child poverty rates. It noted the role that many groups have played in combating poverty in Saint John. Jane Barry, the foundation's executive director, said that the drop in the overall and child poverty rates has to be "very encouraging for the hundreds of volunteers who have made addressing poverty a challenge."

Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia
The Chronicle Herald in Halifax published an article highlighting some of the positive and negative findings of the local report. Importantly, it highlighted to role of the Lunenberg County Community Fund and noted that the report is meant to act as a stepping stone to collaborative action.
Anne-Marie McElrone is the Director of Communications and Marketing for Community Foundations of Canada

Unemployment four times higher among university-educated newcomers, says national report card

2010-10-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

OTTAWA (Oct. 5, 2010) - Despite the fact that Canada will soon rely on immigration to replenish its shrinking labour force, newcomers with professional credentials are suffering unacceptably high unemployment rates, in comparison to non-immigrants with the same level of education, says Canada's Vital Signs 2010, the annual report card on quality of life from Community Foundations of Canada.

In 2009, recent immigrants (lived in Canada for five years and less) with a university education had an unemployment rate that was 4.1 times higher (13.9%) than that of Canadian-born workers with a university degree (3.4%).

"It's disheartening to see such a significant gap among well-educated newcomers; their experience in our labour market is dramatically different than that of non-immigrants with a comparable education level," said Monica Patten, President and CEO of Community Foundations of Canada.

"Integrating newcomers into our workplaces is a necessity, not an option - our country is going to rely on immigrants for all of our net labour force growth as early as next year. We need to act now," said Dianne Fehr, Executive Director of the Immigrant Access Fund Society of Alberta.

The Immigrant Access Fund offers micro-loans to immigrants to assist them in their quest to obtain the Canadian accreditation or training they need to become gainfully employed in the career field established in their countries of origin. The fund was supported by The Calgary Foundation, one of the more than 170 community foundations in Canada.

"The majority of loan applicants are working in jobs well below their capabilities, simply in order to survive," said Fehr.

Other issues raised in Canada's Vital Signs 2010, a snapshot of how Canadian communities are faring in 10 key areas:

Canadians who moved from renting to home ownership due to low interest rates are now carrying a great deal of debt and may find themselves struggling with only a small increase in mortgage rates. In 2008, the average price of a house in Canada was $303,607 and the median family income was $73,500, giving a housing price-to-income ratio of 4.13. That's compared to a national ratio of 3.20 just a decade ago.
The supply of doctors is rising, and more are women. The physician supply rate (number of physicians per 1,000 persons) has increased 6.5% since 1997.
Since the early 1990s, greenhouse gas emissions from personal vehicles have risen by almost onethird. Transportation currently produces a quarter of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions.

Fifteen Local Reports Released Today
Vital Signs is part of a growing nation-wide initiative by Canadian community foundations to measure quality of life and take action to improve it. Today, 15 local Vital Signs report cards are being released by community foundations across Canada. A full list of this year's participants and their local reports can be found at www.vitalsignscanada.ca.

Watch for the release of the Vital Signs 2010 National Public Opinion Survey, commissioned by Community Foundations of Canada and conducted by the Environics Research Group, on Mon, Oct. 18.

About Community Foundations
Canada's 170 community foundations are local charitable foundations that help Canadians invest in building strong and resilient places to live, work, and play. They are one of the largest supporters of Canadian charities, providing $140 million to local organizations in 2009. Find out more at www.cfc-fcc.ca.

The Census Long Form and Vital Signs

2010-10-04T09:00:00.003-04:00

On Wednesday September 29th, the House of Commons passed a motion calling on the federal government to reinstate the mandatory long-form census. This is just the most recent of many efforts by businesses, academics, community organizations, individual citizens and politicians from all parties and levels of government to convince the federal government to change its course. Community Foundations of Canada has been part of this effort and in July wrote a letter to Minister Tony Clement.

The loss of the mandatory census long form represents a disaster for Canada's statistical infrastructure. The resignation of Canada's Chief Statistician shows the seriousness of this issue. But this bad political decision is reversible. It appears not to be possible to reinstate the long form for the 2011 census (although some argue this still can be done by postponing the census to the second half of 2011), but the long form can certainly be reinstated for the 2016 census.

It is important that Canadians make their views known on this issue in as many ways as possible. One way is by signing the national petition to reinstate the long form. Another way is to contact your local MP and let them know that you support the reinstatement of the long form census.

The demise of the mandatory long form for the 2011 census is a blow to the Vital Signs project organized by Community Foundations of Canada, as it is for other projects that rely on this data such as the Canadian Index of Wellbeing and Federation of Canadian Municipalities' Quality of Life Reporting SystemThe census provides high-quality, reliable data for Canadian communities of all sizes. It is the most important data source used by local community foundations to compile their Vital Signs reports.

As part of the research support for the Vital Signs project, the Centre for the Study of Living Standards developed and maintains a comprehensive data base for Vital Signs communities containing about 70 indicators in ten issues areas. The census is a source 18 of these indicators, and is more important than other data sources such as the Labour Force Survey (LFS), the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID), and the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCSH). The census is particularly important for small Vital Signs communities, such as Wolfville, where the limited sample size of national surveys such as the LFS means that estimates for these communities are just not possible.

Even for the CMAs where estimates from other household surveys such as the LFS, SLID, and CCHS are often available, these estimates are much less reliable than census data because the census long form has a much greater sample size (20 per cent of the population). More important, information from the census long form is used to benchmark and weight the different groups in other household surveys. The demise of the long form means that the quality of the estimates in these surveys will deteriorate in the future because these benchmarks and weights cannot be updated.

Looking beyond the needs of the Vital Signs project, the loss of the census long form means that the community profiles posted on the Statistics Canada website, which are freely accessible to all Canadians, cannot be reliably updated.

These profiles, which unfortunately are much less known and used than they should be, provide estimates for such variables as population, gender, age group, characteristics of dwellings, educational attainment and field of study, marital status, family and household characteristics, earnings and income, mother language, knowledge of official languages, labour market status, employment by industry and occupation, mobility status, Aboriginal and visible minority status, immigration and citizenship status, place of work, and mode of transport to work, for all cities, towns, municipalities, and reserves in all provinces and territories in Canada. Data for literally tens of thousands of communities are available.

For example, if one want to know the median income in 2006 of female lone-parent families in the small town of Vulcan, Alberta (population 1,940), one can find it on the community profiles website with several keystrokes ($34,614). By replacing the mandatory census long form, which was answered by a random sample of 20 per cent of Canadians, by the non-mandatory National Household Survey, the results for the 2011 census will be much less reliable for the construction of community profiles than was the case in previous censuses, if they can be used at all.

Again,it is important that Canadians tell the government that we want reliable data to be available to policy makers, the not for profit sector, researchers, advocates and the public. Please sign the national petition to reinstate the long form http://www.savestatcan.ca/ and contact your local MP and let them know that you support the reinstatement of the census.

Andrew Sharpe
Executive Director
Centre for the Study of Living Standards
Ottawa, Ontario
andrew.sharpe@csls.ca

Vital Signs making impact on Sunshine Coast

2010-09-19T20:15:00.000-04:00

The Sunshine Coast Community Foundation published its first Vital Signs report in 2009.

It was a major accomplishment for our foundation, which became a registered charity and a member of Community Foundations of

Canada

in 2003. We are a completely volunteer organization, with a 12-person board of directors and 25 additional volunteers. We are one of the smallest community foundations to undertake a Vital Signs report.

The report confirmed that the number of area youth who were unemployed or receiving income assistance was higher than the provincial averages.

At the Foundation’s strategic planning session in January, we decided to convene a gathering of community stakeholders to address this critical issue on the Sunshine Coast, a linear community stretching approximately 85 kilometres along the coast of British Columbia, just northwest of Vancouver. The area’s population is about 28,000, concentrated in Gibsons, Sechelt and Pender Harbour.

While historically a primary resource industry area, recent years have brought a sharp decline in forestry and fishing. The Sunshine Coast has become a popular retirement community, as well as a tourist destination, due to the lure of the nearby mountains and ocean.

This has brought challenges to young adults living in the area, including high housing costs, lack of good paying jobs related to the decline of primary industries, and lack of social amenities due to the small population.

In response, the community foundation created a one-day workshop called Attracting, Retaining and Employing Young Adults, in consultation with the community and with funding from several sources including our three local governments.

More than 50 people attended, including a representation of young working adults, employers, elected officials and senior staff from local government, trades program representatives from the local school district, university, training agencies and our employment agency.

At the end of the day, a task force was identified to take the project further. It includes two working groups: one to take the ideas identified at the workshop and create a draft strategic plan with long- and short-term solutions to this issue and the second working group to propose a partnership/organizational structure to move the strategic plan forward.

The task force was asked to report back to the workshop attendees with their proposed strategies and structure in a one-day event planned for later this fall.

Enthusiasm for this initiative is high in the community and there has been positive media attention.

The Foundation is delighted that Vital Signs has enjoyed success in our community by bringing this and other issues forward. We feel that the 2009 Report has a shelf life of two years or more, which is why we will once again embark on Vital Signs in 2011.

That said, a Vital Signs management team is now working in consultation with the community on a two-page update report that we will publish as a centrefold in our local newspaper on Oct. 8 and on the Vital Signs page of our website.

Don Basham is Board Secretary and Vital Signs Manager for Sunshine Coast Community Foundation

National program to match students with pressing community needs

2010-09-15T09:42:00.000-04:00

(Sept. 7, 2010) As kids head back to school, the Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF) and Community Foundations of Canada are announcing a new partnership to help students across the country take action to make a positive difference in their communities.

Imagineaction is a student-driven social action program developed by the Canadian Teachers' Federation for public school students in Grades K-12. The program creates opportunities for school-community social action projects and will use Vital Signs, a quality of life report produced by community foundations, as a guide to the key issues facing Canadian communities.

"Imagineaction is a terrific way for teachers to help their students connect, in a very productive way, with the world outside their school doors," said Monica Patten, President and CEO of Community Foundations of Canada. "We can't wait to bring the issues raised in Vital Signs into classrooms across the country."

Vital Signs is an annual check-up conducted by community foundations across Canada that measures the vitality of our communities, identifies trends, and shares opportunities for action in areas critical to quality of life. The 2010 Vital Signs reports will be released on Tuesday, October 5.

"Teachers will use the valuable data contained in Vital Signs to link students to emerging community needs and to community foundations who work with a myriad of local partners on addressing those needs.
Participating students will benefit from the expertise of community organizations and will see how their own outreach can benefit the neighbourhoods in which they live," said CTF President Mary-Lou Donnelly.

Imagineaction will connect teachers and students with local experts online, with the Canadian Teachers' Federation serving as information broker. Experts in various community issues - from housing to environment to employment - will register online. Once approved, they can be contacted by teachers to assist with projects related to their respective fields.

Imagineaction will also offer subsidies to teachers to support resulting projects, related professional development, and an electronic showcase designed to promote and share the great work being done in schools across Canada.

The Canadian Teachers' Federation
The Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF) is a national alliance of provincial and territorial organizations that represent nearly 200,000 elementary and secondary school teachers across Canada. For more information about Imagineaction, go to www.imagine-action.caand www.ctf-fce.ca.

Community Foundations of Canada
Community Foundations of Canada is the national membership association for the more than 170 community foundation across the country. Community foundations are local charitable foundations that help Canadians invest in building strong and resilient places to live, work, and play. They are one of the largest supporters of Canadian charities, providing $140 million to local organizations in 2009. Find out more at www.cfc-fcc.ca.

Teachers use Vital Signs to connect classrooms with communities

2010-09-07T08:00:00.007-04:00

This fall, the Canadian Teachers Federation (CTF) will be launching a project called Imagineaction that supports student-driven social action movements.

As part of this project, CTF will be producing teacher resources for all grade levels that provide ideas for using Vital Signs reports from Community Foundations of Canada to determine a starting point for social action projects.

Vital Signs reports are useful starting points for social action projects. They encourage educators to think about our communities in relation to national findings. These reports present facts regarding 10 key issues: work, gap between rich and poor, getting started, health, learning, housing, belonging and leadership, safety, environment, and arts and culture.

Teachers can identify which of the 10 key issues are most relevant to their curriculum or, alternatively, teachers can use all 10 key issues to help students explore their own community.

What I like about CTF’s resource is that it acknowledges that social action projects are most successful when students are highly involved in making decisions about the project, including the initial scope and direction.

It has been my experience that students are deeply interested in their communities, as well as other communities in Canada. Last year, my Grade 12 students in rural Nova Scotia explored issues in our local community and then visited a contrasting community in northern Alberta.

They published a book called 21st Century Communities: A Youth Inquiry Project and produced a documentary called Questions to Learn: A Youth Inquiry Project. This project was initiated by my students and was a response to their desire to think about their roles in current and future communities. I am excited to bring additional resources about communities to my classroom, knowing how information about our communities, such as Vital Signs reports, might be used in classrooms and to help young people think about social action.

Social action can take different forms in our schools. It might be as focused as an awareness activity with a small group of students in one class, to as broad as an extra-curricular club that accomplishes year-long projects. It is important to note that one social-action activity can lead to another, that it can foster projects that include a wider community involvement, or that it can produce multiple initiatives to support a community.

Regardless of the scope of the initial interest, CTF’s Imagineaction resource will offer ideas to help teachers and students use Vital Signs reports to determine a starting point for social action.

Steven Van Zoost, PhD, teaches at Avon View High School in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Find out more at www.stevenvanzoost.com

Some issues not confined by geography

2010-08-16T08:00:00.000-04:00

Many cities are experiencing an increase in homelessness. In London it’s no different – the use of emergency shelters continues to rise – and it’s an issue of concern for London Community Foundation.

In addition to local residents who descend to a life on the streets, we are a regional centre for mental health, justice and social services, which brings with it issues associated with release from provincial mental health facilities to “no fixed address” and criminal discharges to local emergency shelters. The lack of of appropriate social service and emergency shelter services in many southwestern Ontario communities results in an inward migration of the homeless to London.

A growing number are presenting with multiple health challenges as a result of poverty, mental health and addiction, particularly to alcohol and prescription painkillers. Local social service agencies are struggling to cope with this challenging population.

While we do not have an accurate count of the homeless, most local experts agree that on a given day we may have up to 1,500 individuals without stable accommodation. Up to 360 can be accommodated in the city’s emergency shelters.

As the population of homeless people grows within any city, so too does the population of people who become accustomed to witnessing it. As adults we may even be forgiven for becoming desensitized to the images we see of people struggling. We rationalize that it’s one of those unfortunate facts of life in a big city.

Which is why I am so glad there are young people like Hannah Taylor.

Hannah is passionate about helping the homeless. She is only 13 years old, yet she’s already established a foundation to support the homeless called The Ladybug Foundation.

It aims to increase awareness and raise funds to assist operating charitable organizations providing food, shelter, and other needs of the homeless and near homeless in Canada, without judgement, so they can find dignity, security, hope and refuge.

Late last year, the Canadian Club of London invited Hannah to speak at one of their luncheon events. While here, she dropped by London’s Unity Project for Relief of Homelessness. From a stately, large brick home on Dundas Street, this charity provides emergency shelter, transitional housing and drop-in support in a safe, secular and home-like setting. Men and women participate in every aspect of everyday life and shelter operations.

A few months after her visit, we received word that Hannah was issuing a $10,000 grant to Unity Project from her foundation in Winnipeg. It came with a challenge: raise the same amount from donors within our own city.

It was a call to action that could not be ignored.

That is partly why Unity Project was successful in an application for a $5,000 grant from our Urgent Need Grant Program and also in attracting an additional $5,000 of support from The Richard and Beryl Ivey Fund, a donor advised fund within London Community Foundation.

Upon hearing about this collaboration, some London Free Press staff got involved by holding a book sale and giving proceeds to Unity Project.

It will be interesting to see how far we can leverage Hannah’s gift. As we get ready to publish London’s Vital Signs report in October, I’ll be inspired to remember her visit and the impact she has made on our city.

Martha Powell is CEO of London Community Foundation

Pictured: Rob, Silvia Langer, Chuck Lazenby and Marscey display a quilt made by Lazenby that will be sent to Hannah at Ladybug Foundation.

A Call to Action on Homelessness

2010-07-12T08:00:00.006-04:00

Homelessness has been an issue in Victoria for a while – with many questions about how to address it. But actions to tackle this problem in recent years are starting to pay off.

There is no doubt that the Victoria community wants to help the homeless. The question is how best to do that. Does handing the panhandler some change do any good? Well, are you looking to provide short term relief or are you interested in finding a long term solution?

Our city of Victoria’s homeless are a diverse population made up of individuals dealing with unique challenges. The one common thread that ties them all together is the need for a roof over their heads. Everyone should have access to safe, comfortable, affordable housing.

This notion is perhaps one that recently sparked a generous gift of $50,000 from donors to the Victoria Foundation. It started with a couple who, a few years ago, came to the Foundation to establish the Sun Star Fund. But the story doesn’t end there.

The Sun Star gift came with a call to action: A call to the citizens of this region to dig deep and recognize that homelessness is a community problem that requires all of our attention.

For this reason, the Sun Star Fund announced that it would match, dollar for dollar, any and all donations directed specifically to the Streets to Homes program of the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness http://www.solvehomelessness.ca/ – in essence doubling the impact of their grant.

The effect this grant will have on the Streets to Homes http://www.solvehomelessness.ca/news.html?n=70 pilot initiative will be immense. For starters, it will provide a significant boost to this program, which over the next two years will house and support 120 people who are chronically homeless across this region.

Streets to Homes adapts the successful Toronto Streets to Homes program to the Victoria context and builds on the current resources and knowledge that exist in our community and throughout British Columbia.

To find out more about the I’ll Match initiative, visit the Victoria Foundation http://www.victoriafoundation.bc.ca/ .

Shannon Drew-Burrows is Director of Communications for Victoria Foundation

City working with Community Foundation on flood recovery

2010-07-05T14:00:00.002-04:00

The City of Medicine Hat is working with the Community Foundation of Medicine Hat & Southeastern Alberta to receive financial donations for a flood relief fund. These funds will be used to provide mid to long-term recovery assistance to those from Medicine Hat and Cypress County who were impacted by the flood.

"The devastation of this event has touched people not only locally, but across the country," says Acting Mayor Jamie White. "The generosity and willingness of people to help in times of need is astounding, so the City is partnering with the Community Foundation to develop a process that will make it easier to collect and distribute funds."

The Community Foundation will distribute the funds to charitable organizations in the region that are providing assistance in the flood recovery process.

Anyone interested in contributing financially can specify where the funds are applied (e.g. to Medicine Hat, Cypress County or both). To donate, visit the Community Foundation office located at 430-6th Avenue S.E., room 104. Online donations can also be made through the Canada Helps icon on the foundation website, www.mhcf.ca. Charitable tax receipts will be issued for all donations of $20 or more. For more information, contact Community Foundation at 403-527-9038.

If you want to fundraise or donate goods and services, please make all donations directly to the charitable organizations in the region that are providing assistance. For more information about charitable organizations that are assisting with flood relief, call the Flood Information line at 403-502-8900 between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. daily.

For further information, please contact:

Flood Information Line: 403.502.8900
Community Foundation 403.527.9038

Connecting philanthropists to community needs

2010-06-27T21:00:00.006-04:00

Identifying projects that improve the quality of life in our community and supporting those initiatives is high on the list of priorities for The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation (KWCF).

Recently, donors, stakeholders, sponsors, and media partners of The KWCF attended the inaugural launch of “Vital Ideas” – a tool designed to connect donors and philanthropists to community needs and educate them about funding opportunities.

Meant as a companion publication to Waterloo Region’s Vital Signs, a report on quality of life in the Region, Vital Ideas highlights the important work being done by charities in Kitchener, Waterloo and area – work that is making a real difference in our community.

“The programs and organizations profiled in our newest publication Vital Ideas align with the knowledge we gather from our work on Vital Signs,” says Rosemary Smith, CEO of The KWCF.

The initiatives outlined in the publication provide unique and innovative approaches to dealing with root causes of issues such as: health and wellness, learning, and safety, to name a few.

At the launch, The Working Centre’s Director, Joe Mancini was on-hand to talk about one of the Centre’s projects.

“The Psychiatric Outreach Project, rooted at St. John’s Kitchen, is a creative, cost efficient, and integrated approach that meets the most vulnerable where they spend their time,” he said.

“This project demonstrates that deinstitutionalization must be complemented with effective community-based services accessible to those dealing with the fog of mental illness.”

Another organization speaking at the event was Strong Start. New Executive Director Machelle Denison shared that “Strong Start's Get Ready for School Program helps ensure children enter Junior Kindergarten feeling confident, comfortable, and prepared to learn."

“The work of these organizations and the others featured in Vital Ideas and the positive impact their programs and initiatives bring about is what truly makes our community the vital, creative, and innovative place that it is,” adds Smith.

“By working together and tackling issues where they begin, we can make our community an even better place to live, work, and raise a family.”

The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation improves the quality of life in Kitchener-Waterloo and the surrounding area, now and for generations to come, by building community assets, addressing needs through grant making, and providing leadership on key community issues.

Vital Ideas is funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

Foundation of Greater Montreal gives more than $1.7 million to community

2010-06-22T11:10:00.000-04:00

Montreal, June 22, 2010 – The Foundation of Greater Montreal (FGM) will allocate grants of more than $1.7 million to non-profit organizations in the Greater Montreal area.

The total amount includes grants awarded from the FGM’s Community Grants Program sector, as well as donations from individual endowment funds.

The FGM Community Grants Program benefits non-profit organizations in Greater Montreal. The amount of these community funds comes from unrestricted, as well as designated funds.

This year, the FGM is awarding grants totaling $190,000 to cultural organizations, $334,906 to social development organizations, $131,565 to the education sector, $60,000 to environmental organizations, and $177,601 to the health sector, totaling $894,072. Other grants will be announced in October 2010.

The FGM is pursuing its commitment to sponsor projects and programs that meet the needs of the most vulnerable members of society and to improve the quality of life in the region.

For example, the Maison d’entraide Saint-Paul-Émard received a grant for its Camp des P’tits Cuistots. One of their objectives is to educate underprivileged young people about healthy eating, while providing the necessary tools to apply

their knowledge and to share it with their families.

A grant to Fondation Le Plateau will enable the music school to restore 70 alto xylophones. The Quat’Sous s’ouvre à la communauté grant, a Théâtre de

Quat’Sous initiative, will set up a series of activities to reinforce links to the community, more specifically, to provide cultural access to new population segments such as children and cultural communities.

And the Consortium Évolution organization will be awarded a grant for its’ Educ-o-vert project, which will encourage third and fourth grade students to donate an old toy to the Lutins Verts organization, who will restore the toys and sell them in their Biosphere workshop in December 2010. This initiative will teach youth about

overconsumption and its impact on the environment.

A portion of these grants has been allocated to Haitian relief projects, including organizations such as the Haitian community of Montreal office, the Centre d’alphabétisation de NA Rive de Montréal, and the Maison d’Haiti. This FGM grant will help Maison d’Haiti better respond to the needs of victims and bereaved families recovering from the earthquake crisis of January 2010.

“We are especially proud of the number of donations received this year. What a wonderful way to celebrate our 10th anniversary! The quality of projects we received is extraordinary. The Grants Committee decided to allocate a portion of the funds in October of this year, which will be in response to the upcoming publication of Vital Signs,” says Marina Boulos, President and CEO of the FGM.

Of the 150 projects received, 95 were awarded grants. These projects are evaluated with respect to their impact on the quality of life, their viability and practicality, as well as the credibility of the organization.

The Foundation of Greater Montreal Celebrates its 10th Anniversary

“After 10 years of existence, we are happy to recognize that the growth of the FGM will allow us to respond to the ever growing needs of the community of Greater Montreal,” says Marina Boulos.

By the end of first quarter in 2010, the FGM had more than 260 endowment funds totaling more than $102 million (ranging from $10,000 to $24 million), an increase of at least 40 funds since January 1st, 2009.

Since 2003, the FGM has allocated more than $5 million to organizations in the greater Montreal area.

About the Foundation of Greater Montreal

The Foundation of Greater Montreal (FGM) is a non-profit charitable organization dedicated to the well-being of the Greater Montreal community. It establishes and manages permanent endowment funds and distributes their income in the form of grants to charitable organizations working in the areas of health, social services, arts and culture, education, and the environment.

The FGM, part of a group of 173 community foundations in

Canada

, has been in operation for 10 years.

Organizations receive Vital Toronto Fund grants

2010-06-22T10:33:00.000-04:00

TORONTO, June 22, 2009 – Today, along with Mayor David Miller, the Toronto Community Foundation celebrated 26 high-impact community organizations and leaders at its annual Vital Toronto event. The event was hosted by Matt Galloway of CBC’s Metro Morning. Mayor Miller also discussed the scholarship fund in memory of his mother at the Community Foundation.

Three grant programs are fueled by the organization’s Vital Toronto Fund – a community endowment used to contribute to and partner on targeted strategies tackling quality of life issues identified in the Community Foundations’ annual Toronto’s Vitals Signs® Report.

1. Vital Ideas invests in Toronto’s most high-impact organizations by providing capacity building grants to further expand or replicate programs with successful track records in other areas of Toronto.
2. Vital People is a leadership grant that assists Toronto’s exceptional community leaders in the not-for-profit sector to grow through professional development and further magnify their impact.
3. Vital Youth supports free high-quality sports and recreation programs to help develop the leadership skills of youth from Toronto’s more vulnerable neighbourhoods.

“We use our Vital Signs Report as a blueprint for investment to transform lives, communities and our city,” said Rahul K. Bhardwaj, President & CEO, Toronto Community Foundation.

“Our solution-focused strategy relies on partnerships with community organizations and individuals such as those recognized today. They are working on innovative and creative solutions and represent the steps towards a more vital Toronto that we should be proud of.”

A complete list of the recipients is available at www.tcf.ca.

Toronto Community Foundation

Community vitality has been our purpose, promise, and passion since 1981, when we started connecting donors to community needs and opportunities. Home to over 300 funds, we help people invest in Toronto, making it the best place to live, work, learn and grow.

We monitor the quality of life in our city, identifying its strengths and weaknesses through our Toronto’s Vital Signs® report. We provide the leadership and guidance to bring people together from all parts of our community. We exist for Toronto - for now and for always.

Since 1981, the Community Foundation has granted in excess of $70 million to hundreds of charitable organizations. In 2009 alone, it brought together and leveraged the resources of the more than 300 funds under our helm to invest $8.2 million in more than 450 community organizations working on innovative solutions to city challenges.

Time crunch worsening for Canadian families, warns report

2010-06-16T21:51:00.000-04:00

Mounting pressure affects every aspect of community life

A new study released by the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW) paints a portrait of Canadians squeezed the by competing demands work and home life, a formula that doesn’t bode well for individuals or community health, says the CEO of Community Foundations of Canada.

Responding to Caught in the Time Crunch: Time Use, Leisure and Culture in Canada, Monica Patten, said the report clearly points to a population that is less healthy – both physically and mentally.

“This is important research that communities across Canada need to be aware of, and pay attention to,” said Patten, who heads a network of more than 170 community foundations located in cities, towns and rural areas from coast to coast. “If we have less time for ourselves and our families, the entire community suffers.”

Canadians can determine their own personal time profile by taking the ‘Are You Crunched for Time’ quiz on the CIW website.

Recreation and leisure can often get lost in our busy society, said Patten, who noted that community foundations, policy makers, and other local and national organizations need to take note of the changing landscape related to time use in this country. For instance:

• The proportion of Canadians experiencing high levels of time crunch grew from 16% in 1992 to 20% in 2005. About 23% of women felt time pressured and 17% of men.

• In 1992, 23% of Canadians worked non-standard hours (weekends, evenings, nights, rotating shifts). By 2009 the proportion jumped to 29%.

• Adults providing care to seniors grew from 17% in 1996 to 20% in 2006. More women (23%) took care of seniors compared to men (16%).

“Because community foundations fund all kinds of charities in the community, the findings of this report are extremely important to our work,” said Patten. “In addition, they provide important context for us as we work with local networks of community leaders across Canada. The CIW has done us all a service by contributing this research to our national knowledge base.”

The Report concludes with a call for a national dialogue on how Canadians can lead more balanced lives and Patten said the community foundation network will consider ways it can be a part of this dialogue, whether it is locally or through national program like Vital Signs, an ongoing study of quality-of-life issues in our country. On Oct. 5, 16 communities across Canada will release local Vital Signs reports.

KWCF launches Vital Ideas

2010-06-09T23:30:00.002-04:00

Waterloo (June 9, 2010) – Donors, stakeholders, sponsors, and media partners of The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation (KWCF) are invited to attend the inaugural launch of “Vital Ideas” – a tool designed to connect philanthropists to community needs.

Meant as a companion publication to Waterloo Region’s Vital Signs, a report on quality of life in the Region, Vital Ideas highlights the important work being done by charities in Kitchener, Waterloo and area – work that is making a real difference in our community.

“The programs and organizations profiled in our newest publication Vital Ideas align with the knowledge we gather from our work on Vital Signs,” shares Rosemary Smith, CEO of The KWCF.

The initiatives outlined in the publication are providing unique and innovative approaches to dealing with root causes of issues and helping individuals in our community. Issues such as: health and wellness, learning, and safety, to name a few.

“The work of these featured organizations and the positive impact their programs and initiatives bring about is what truly makes our community the vital, creative, and innovative place that it is,” adds Smith. “By working together and tackling issues where they begin, we can make our community an even better place to live, work, and raise a family.”

When: Thursday, June 24, 2010
Time: 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. (Registration: 8:45 a.m.)
Location: K-W Counselling Services, 480 Charles Street East, Kitchener
RSVP: tracy@kwcf.ca or (519) 725-1806 ext. 6
For more information on the launch of Vital Ideas please contact (519) 725-1806.

The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation improves the quality of life in Kitchener-Waterloo and the surrounding area, now and for generations to come, by building community assets, addressing needs through grant making, and providing leadership on key community issues.

Vital Ideas is funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

Community Foundations to release 2010 Vital Signs reports on October 5

2010-06-07T08:00:00.004-04:00

Reports shine spotlight on local, national issues

OTTAWA (June 7, 2010) – Community foundations in 15 communities across the country will release their 2010 Vital Signs reports on Tuesday, October 5. The reader-friendly reports offer a comprehensive look at how communities are faring in key quality of life areas such as learning, health, housing, and the environment.

Community Foundations of Canada will also release Canada’s Vital Signs, a national snapshot of issues facing communities from coast to coast. All Vital Signs reports will be available at www.vitalsignscanada.ca.

“Vital Signs gives communities valuable insight into local strengths, challenges and opportunities. We’ve seen what a powerful tool it can be for community groups, schools, government and other agencies,” said Community Foundations of Canada President and CEO Monica Patten.

This year’s participating communities are:

-Victoria
-Vancouver
-Red Deer
-Calgary
-Medicine Hat
-Sudbury
-London
-Ottawa
-Waterloo Region (includes Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge)
-Toronto
-Kingston & Area
-Hamilton*
-Montreal
-Greater Saint John
-Lunenburg County, NS*

*participating in Vital Signs for the first time.

Statistics from Canada’s Vital Signs 2009 illustrated startling trends in areas ranging from youth unemployment and aboriginal education to violent crime and low birth weight.

For ongoing updates, follow Canada’s Vital Signs on Twitter.

Community/Mission Investing stories illustrate what's possible in Canada

2010-05-25T08:00:00.002-04:00

Community Foundations of Canada, together with Philanthropic Foundations Canada, has just released a report, The State of Community/Mission Investment of Canadian Foundations by Coro Strandberg, one of Canada’s true experts in this space.

It’s a good read, telling the stories of and drawing lessons from nine foundations across the country that are using their assets – not just their grants – to directly support economic development domestically and internationally – jobs for the hard-to-employ, affordable housing, conservation, sustainable venture capital, and non-profit capacity building.

The most common vehicle foundations are using in Canada, by far, are market-rate and below-market-rate mortgages and loans to charities and non-profits. There are a number of other community/mission investing vehicles available to foundations and some of the profiled foundations like Bealight and Vancity Community Foundation are using them. But as Coro says in the report, community/mission investing is really still in its infancy in Canada.

To this point, I was talking recently with Bob Ward, who runs the Edmonton Social Enterprise Fund (ESEF) at the Edmonton Community Foundation, one of the foundations profiled, and I was struck by a comment he made: “The ESCF is still small (about $6.5 million), but it is a very big idea – providing access to capital. It is a great role for foundations.”

Clearly there are some regulatory and legal issues and foundation policies to be considered before embarking on community/mission investing. And there are some challenges related to deal flow and a lack of intermediaries right now, but that is beginning to change.

The potential of using some of the 96.5 per cent of foundation assets not allocated to grants to work in the community in foundation program areas is pretty impressive.

To get a sense of that, I highly recommend reading Equity Advancing Equity, a recent publication of the Futures Matters series, written by Blueprint Research & Design and GPS Capital Partners.

It focuses on the impact investing of about a dozen US community foundations, but I think it is equally relevant to private foundations.

A few examples of the investments being made by community foundations in the US: loans & equity investments for transformational real-estate developments and businesses that create local jobs; debt, equity, real-estate, deposit and loan guarantee investments for housing, small business, green building and foreclosure prevention; market rate fixed-income investments; and donor-customized program-related investments.

As the Equity Advancing Equity report says: “Community Foundations have the opportunity to change the conversation from short-term grantmaking to poor parts of a community, to long-term investment strategies that strengthen business, home ownership, education, and wealth-creation opportunities for the betterment of all.”

Coro’s report shows us where Canadian foundations stand, and these nine foundations are showing extraordinary leadership in this country. Equity Advancing Equity shows us what’s yet possible. Together they make a pretty compelling case for advancing community/mission investing among Canadian foundations.

Betsy Martin is a senior advisor with Community Foundations of Canada

Community to weigh in on Vital Signs

2010-05-21T11:01:00.001-04:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Mike Christie (403) 527-9038

mikec@mhcf.ca

Community Consultations for 2010 Vital Signs:

Community Foundation asks for public input

Medicine Hat, Alberta (May 20, 2009) – 'Hatters will have two chances next week to add their input to the 2010 Medicine Hat’s Vital Signs report. The Community Foundation of Medicine Hat and Southeastern Alberta is hosting two separate public consultations in order for citizens to express what they would like to see in this year’s report.

The first consultation, aimed at the business community, will take place in the Chamber of Commerce’s board room on Tuesday, May 25 from 12 – 1 PM. The second consultation is of a general nature and will take place on Thursday, May 27 from 12 – 1 PM in REDI Enterprises’s board room.

Community consultations play an important role in the kick-off to the Vital Signs process.

“These consultations allow us to hear what citizens believe are the strengths and weaknesses of Medicine Hat,” said Mike Christie, executive director of the Community Foundation. “It also helps us create a better report because we hear what issues are important to ‘Hatters.”

Medicine Hat’s Vital Signs will be released on October 5, marking the fourth consecutive year that the organization has participated in the publication. In 2009, 16 Community Foundations across the country produced the report for their individual communities. Vital Signs serves as a community report card, with volunteers grading each indicator before publication.

Christie urges citizens of all ages to come to a consultation to express their views.

“Vital Signs has become a platform for local action amongst community leaders and volunteers,” Christie said. “Citizens’ input, especially in the early stages of the process, is integral to the final Vital Signs report. The contributions that residents make at these meetings can help us grow a better community.”

The events include free beverages, and attendees are welcome to bring their own lunch. The Chamber of Commerce is located at 413 - 6th Avenue SE and REDI Enterprises is located at 860 Allowance Ave. SE.

No reservations are necessary to attend the events; however, each location has limited seating. For more information regarding the consultations or the Vital Signs report, please call the Community Foundation at (403) 527-9038 or email info@mhcf.ca.

London Community Foundation plants seeds for Clean Air Challenge

2010-05-17T09:00:00.000-04:00

With much enthusiasm, London Community Foundation has launched the Clean Air Challenge, a competitive environmental grant program designed to help both aspiring and established environmentalists bring innovative green ideas, products and services to London and Middlesex County.

Up to $100,000 in seed money is available. The money comes from London Community Foundation’s Community Fund.

Focusing on environmental health is nothing new for us. Several years ago, environmental health was designated as one of our strategic granting areas. This decision was only reinforced by London’s 2008 Vital Signs® Report. This report underscored how crucial it is to invest in green technologies, products and services to improve air quality within our community.

Specifically we are seeking to fund ideas that will improve air quality in our community by addressing one or more of the following objectives:

·    Reducing emissions
·    Reducing greenhouse gases
·    Reducing particulate
·    Reducing waste
·    Improving water or energy efficiency
·    Engaging London’s residents, businesses or communities in pro-environmental behaviour change

The Clean Air Challenge is loosely based on Toronto Community Foundation’s very successful Green Innovation Awards.

It features a two-stage application process. During the first stage, applicants simply submit (by email – no paper!) an executive summary (500 word) of the idea by the June 15th deadline. A panel of community-minded environmental advocates, fundholders, and business specialists will review all entries and recommend the applications that merit further review.

During the second stage, the selected applicants will be invited to submit a more developed proposal of their idea and then present their case to the Clean Air Challenge selection panel – think Dragon’s Den, minus the television cameras and fiery attitudes!

The appetite for this kind of competition in London is big. Already the Challenge has been met with much excitement from local media and environmentalists. Londoners pride themselves on being entrepreneurial, educated, and open to new things. They care about the future and our environment.

The power for positive change is in the hands of each of us.

Martha Powell is CEO of London Community Foundation

Calgary's Youth VitalSigns deepening knowledge of local needs

2010-05-02T09:40:00.004-04:00

It’s National Youth Week in Canada - a celebration of youth and their active participation in their community which is why the recent release of the Youth VitalSigns Report in Calgary is so timely.

Inspired by The Calgary Foundation’s VitalSigns Report, this youth-driven report combines the opinions and perspectives of youth with timely research to inform the public and private sectors, governments, youth funders and youth-serving charitable organizations.

Youth VitalSigns is part of a growing movement that seeks to hear, strengthen, and empower young people. The project was launched by The Calgary Foundation and Youth Central to support positive leadership opportunities for youth to:

Influence change by sharing their experiences and perspectives
Expand their understanding of local community issues
Take action in their school and community

Young people are an important asset to Canadian communities. The report gives voice to over 1,200 young Calgarians who graded their quality of life in 12 issue areas from ‘Employment and Training’ to ‘Going Green.’ By sharing their concerns, reasons to celebrate and suggestions for improvement - posted at youthvitalsigns.ca - they have become a valuable community resource.

The grades of 5 B’s and 7 C’s reflect the concerns the majority of youth graders have for their community. There are over 140,000 youth aged 24 and under living in Calgary, yet graders overwhelming state that there are few opportunities to “have a voice” in their communities and gave the issue area of Youth Voice a C.

Over 90% of graders live with family, yet the key issue area of youth homelessness and housing received a C, one of the lowest grades. With an estimated 700 people under the age of 24 living on the streets of Calgary, graders identified this area as one of the top priorities that needs immediate community investment.

Recreation and Sports received a B, one of the highest grades, with 54% of youth reporting participation in community activities while acknowledging that fee’s are a barrier for some youth. A few of the other vital facts from the 2010 Youth VitalSigns Report:

Calgary has the lowest rate of youth cigarette smokers (grades 7-12) in Alberta, but the highest rate of youth who smoked cannabis in the past year.
Calgary’s Youth offences decreased by almost 25 per cent since 2005.
In 2009, 29 per cent of Calgary’s Grade 3 students were ESL students, compared to the provincial average of 13 per cent.
In October 2009, the unemployment rate for Calgary’s youth reached 15.3 per cent – twice the rate of unemployed adults.

Youth VitalSigns has great value in deepening The Calgary Foundation’s understanding and knowledge of community needs to better inform our work in serving donors and in making effective grants to strengthen the charitable community.

Supporting youth has always been an important focus of The Calgary Foundation and its donors. In the last 2 years, The Foundation has contributed over $7 million towards initiatives that serve Children, Youth and Families including $1.9 million to support over 300 student awards last year.

A small sample of the Foundation’s support in this area includes funding for an employment program for street youth, a musical instrument loan program for underprivileged youth, a learning disability CD, anti-bullying campaigns, immigrant youth education programs and youth mentoring programs.

Engaging young people can build a strong sense of connection to their community, a commitment to civic action, and a passion for active learning. Being part of the process gives youth a feeling of ownership, they can mobilize others and become powerful role models.

Interestingly, the report highlights that youth who reported being very connected to their community tended to give higher grades then youth who reported being less connected to their community.

Youth VitalSigns bridges the developmental gap between childhood and adulthood by giving youth a voice, encouraging them to feel more connected to and engaged in their community as they grow into responsible, socially conscious adults. But youth engagement can only happen when youth voices are heard…and when leaders make an effort to listen.

Eva Friesen is the President and CEO of The Calgary Foundation

Voice of Calgary youth heard through 2010 Youth VitalSigns Report

2010-04-28T10:00:00.002-04:00

Get the grades on how city youth rated their quality of life

Calgary, AB – The Calgary Foundation and Youth Central are releasing the first 2010 Youth VitalSigns Report.

Inspired by The Calgary Foundation’s VitalSigns Report, the Youth VitalSigns Report combines the opinions and perspectives of youth aged 12-24 with timely research to inform the public and private sectors, governments, youth funders and youth serving charitable organizations.

“We know youth have valid opinions, good ideas and a concern for the future of their communities,” said Eva Friesen, President & CEO of The Calgary Foundation. “Engaging youth builds a strong sense of community. In fact, the report highlights that youth who reported being very connected to their community tended to give higher grades then youth who reported being less connected to their community.”

"We believe that the youth in our city can, and should, have a voice in shaping our vibrant communities," said Penny Hume, Executive Director with Youth Central. "As contributing citizens and future leaders, our youth hold important knowledge and vision that can help create a city that truly is great for all Calgarians."

The Youth VitalSigns Report was funded through the generous support of the TELUS Calgary Community Board with a $20,000 donation.

“The mandate of the TELUS Calgary Community Board includes support of innovative youth projects in Calgary,” said Ken King, Chair of the TELUS Calgary Community Board. “This initiative showcases the amazing things that can, and are, being accomplished by our future leaders. It has never been more vital to hear, and take to heart, what youth in Calgary are telling us about their city.”

Not only did the youth grade their quality of life in 12 key issue areas from Employment & Training to Going Green, they also rated their top three concerns, and provided hundreds of comments - concerns, reasons to celebrate and suggestions for improvement that will be posted at thecalgaryfoundation.org and cyfc.ca websites.

A few of the many Vital facts from the 2010 Youth VitalSigns Report:

• Calgary has the lowest rate of youth cigarette smokers (grades 7-12) in Alberta, but the highest rate of youth who smoked cannabis in the past year.

• Calgary’s Youth offences decreased by almost 25 per cent since 2005.

• In 2009, 29 per cent of Calgary’s Grade 3 students were ESL students, compared to the provincial average of 13 per cent.

• In October 2009, the unemployment rate for Calgary’s youth reached 15.3 per cent – twice the rate of unemployed adults.

Full details on the 2010 Youth VitalSigns Report can be found at www.youthvitalsignscalgary.ca.

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The Calgary Foundation (TCF) – Established in 1955, TCF facilitates collaborative philanthropy by making powerful connections between donors and community organizations for the long term benefit of Calgary and surrounding area. In 2008-2009, The Calgary Foundation saw $25 million in new contributions, had an asset base of $274 million and granted $22 million to 655 charitable organizations.

Youth Central (formerly Child and Youth Friendly Calgary) aims to inspire, engage and celebrate youth through community participation. This vision is based on the firm belief that young people who experience involvement and philanthropy at an early age grow up with an ongoing sense of responsibility to their community. Youth Central believes that all youth should participate in shaping a vibrant community.

The TELUS Calgary Community Board is comprised of community leaders and TELUS team members who come together to make local funding decisions and seek out charitable partners – an approach to corporate philanthropy unique in Canada – ensuring the decision-making remains within the community. Since 2005, the TELUS Calgary Community Board has donated $2.8 million in support of 181 individual projects run by not-for-profit organizations, 32 projects were funded in 2009. The TELUS Calgary Community Board will allocate $500,000 to charitable and non-profit groups in the city this year. Nine TELUS Community Boards across Canada lead TELUS’ local philanthropic initiatives. TELUS was honoured to be named the most outstanding philanthropic corporation globally for 2010 by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, becoming the first Canadian company ever to receive this prestigious international recognition.

Community Foundation of Nova Scotia makes "vital" strides

2010-04-19T09:36:00.000-04:00

While still a relatively young foundation, the Community Foundation of Nova Scotia is quickly establishing itself as a centre for philanthropy on behalf of communities right across the province.

The foundation serves the entire province and several rural communities – Annapolis Royal, Bridgetown, Lunenburg County, Wolfville and Yarmouth – have created Community Funds within the Community Foundation of Nova Scotia. These are endowed funds created and led by those on the ground in the community and administered and supported by the Community Foundation of Nova Scotia.

For instance, the fledgling Lunenburg County Community Fund is embarking on its first Vital Signs.

Vital Signs is an annual community check-up, conducted by community foundations across Canada, including 16 in 2009.

“Vital Signs measures the vitality of communities, identifies significant trends, and assigns grades in at least 10 areas,” explains Allison Kouzovnikov, Executive Director of Community Foundation of Nova Scotia.

“The separation of fact from fiction is one of the greatest benefits realized through a Vital Signs process. Often it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, but how do we know that the proverbial squeaky wheel is the one that’s most in need? That’s where Vital Signs plays a key role: because it is based on fact, it gives local citizens an unbiased perspective of their community and a strong foundation upon which to plan accordingly.”

Project manager Lisanne Turner will begin work on the Lunenburg-area community report card in the next few weeks. A Masters student at Acadia University, Turner has focused on rural health delivery and also headed up the 2009 Vital Signs for Wolfville.

“We need to understand our strengths and our weaknesses if we are going to work toward making a better community,” says Jim Barkhouse, chairman of the Lunenburg County Community Fund.

“Our members share a common belief that Lunenburg County has much to offer as a great place to live, work and raise a family. We believe there is much more that can be done here if we work together. Our initial goal is to understand more about the county and the quality of life here,” he says.

The Vital Signs project will involve a series of consultations with community members and area organizations.
“This is an exciting project for many reasons, but especially when you know that there are local people who are prepared to invest in finding ways to improve the future of this county,” notes Barkhouse.

The findings from Vital Signs continue to reverberate for the Wolfville Community Fund in the Annapolis Valley. The community fund produced its first report card in 2009, the same year it was founded.

“It had much to say about our community as a safe and welcoming, healthy environment, with an active art and cultural content, good schools and high-quality sports and entertainment facilities, and a good level of public participation,” says Wolfville Community Fund chairman Dick Groot.

“However, the poverty figures were far worse than we expected. In fact, they were significantly worse than the provincial and national averages.”

Adds Kouzovnikov: “Without a Vital Signs report, it is doubtful that Wolfville’s poverty issue would have ever come to light, or managed to maintain its position in the spotlight as one needing immediate attention.”

That finding led the organization to focus its fundraising efforts on the poverty issue, financing modest projects that will have a significant and long-lasting impact on mitigating poverty in the community.

The Wolfville Community Fund will soon be accepting grant proposals for projects with practical goals related to poverty, and will select recipients in June.

It has also taken a novel approach to fundraising, including a community dinner organized by the local Lions Club on April 30, and an art auction and wine-and-cheese party at Groot’s home – in his studio and his wife’s garden – in late June. He’s also in talks with the Acadia University hockey team to hold a fundraising match with a team of local celebrities.

“By the end of the year we’ll have some early results of our projects, as well as some more money in the fund,” says Groot.

Photo credit: Jim Barkhouse

Vital Youth Grants Boost Teen Spirits

2010-04-07T08:00:00.001-04:00

A new program designed by the Toronto Community Foundation is supporting groups offering high-quality recreational activities for youth aged 12 to 18. And for good reason.

It’s a direct response to the 2009 Toronto’s Vital Signs® Report, says Rahul K. Bhardwaj, President and CEO.

“Youth from low-income families lack access to parks, school yards and recreation centres, often leading to increased health risks as shown in the report,” he says.

“We are responding to this need through our Vital Youth grants that invest in high-quality recreational programs for young people, helping them connect to their community, interact with their peers, and develop their skills and leadership abilities.”

Funding of up to $15,000 – from a $2-million endowment built with support from the Province of Ontario – is aimed at programs starting in September 2010 and available over the course of the year.

Among the interconnected issues impacting youth uncovered by the 2009 Toronto Vital Signs Report were a clear link between low income and poor health outcomes. Indeed, of the 10 neighbourhoods with the highest diabetes rates, 70 per cent lack access to parks, school yards and recreation centres.

Recreational opportunities offer positive benefits beyond health, resulting in a greater sense of belonging and safer communities, according to Mini Alakkatusery, Toronto Community Foundation’s Manager, Programs. She says the Vital Youth granting priorities include access, diversity, and developing leadership.

Recently funded programs include CultureLink Settlement Services’ Newcomer Youth Centre Afterschool Sports Leadership Program, aimed at engaging newcomer and refugee youth in sport they’re familiar with – soccer – while introducing them to winter sports such as skating, skiing and snowshoeing; and Jumblies Theatre’s In the Picture Youth Theatre Program, which brings drama and multi-media to teens living with their families in homeless shelters.

Also receiving a $15,000 grant was the Leaders in Training (LIT) Program (Growing the Future) at Greenest City, which is dedicated to growing local food and developing leaders in Parkdale.

“The support of the Toronto Community Foundation’s Vital Youth program has been the foundation which allowed us to get our much-needed Leaders in Training Program off the ground,” says Executive Director Carolyn Scotchmer.

“We knew that there was a demand for this program among 13- to 15-year-olds in this community, but even we have been positively surprised by the overwhelming response of the community and the momentum the program has gained in such a short time.”

The LIT Program aims to build new attitudes, skills and behaviours around local food and community gardening in an effort to build environmental awareness in the community through participation in an after-school program of interactive workshops and hands-on activities.

“By empowering participants to take action on local food systems and climate change, the Leaders in Training Program aims to be a transformative force in the lives of youth in this low-income, multi-racial neighbourhood,” says Scotchmer.

The deadline for applications for Vital Youth funding is April 19.

Photo credit - Bryan McBurney
Organization - IMPACT - Indian Martial & Performance Art Collective of Toronto

According to FRED, It All Starts in the Sandbox

2010-03-22T13:36:00.001-04:00

When the Central Okanagan Foundation published its first Vital Signs Report in October 2009, areas for action were obvious.

One of the key findings of the report was that 25 per cent of children in our area are not ready for school by the time they enter Kindergarten. In a supposedly affluent area like the Central Okanagan, that is just not acceptable.

Immediately after the Central Okanagan Vital Signs Report was unveiled, the Central Okanagan Foundation joined forces with other funders interested in taking on this issue.

This is not the time to be operating in a silo -- this is the time to join with others in the field and work together to bring about positive change. The old saying that together we are greater than the sum of our parts couldn't be truer!

Historically, agencies have planned and worked in isolation, competing for scarce dollars and reacting to problems that already exist. The more rational approach is to focus on prevention and take competition out of the mix. The right thing to ask is “What can we jointly do to make a difference for children?”

Not only do we need non-profits working together, we also need funders working together if we are truly going to be successful in the long-term. From this observation came the birth of the Funding Really Early Development (FRED) Table, a funders table facilitated by Success By 6. It’s an opportunity for funders such as Central Okanagan Foundation, United Way, Okanagan Kids Care Fund, government and private foundations to liaise and talk about how we are meeting the needs of local children.

The Central Okanagan Foundation is delighted to be a founding member of FRED. As funders, we need to move away from “one-off” initiatives. What the FRED table offers is an opportunity to jointly invest in a high-impact project; have it jointly implemented by non-profits; and jointly evaluated by the investment partners.

Through this model, each investor is able to see how their individual money made a difference -- what their role was – as well as how the project as a whole made an impact in the community. Small investments pooled together can grow exponentially, as does the positive impact for the future of children.

Community research clearly points to the need for central places in the community dedicated to meeting the needs of young children and their caregivers. FRED decided this would be the perfect focus for our first funding initiative. Through Success by 6 and CATCH (Community Action Towards Children's Health) we decided to approach local service providers as a group. The result was a joint proposal by our local child-serving organizations to work together and put children's needs above any one particular service provider's mandate.

While the idea of Family Resource Programs is not new, the partnering approach is novel. Sharing staff, volunteers, resources and synergy is what this project is all about. Affectionately dubbed Sandbox Projects, the new approach offers central places throughout the community for parents and children to come together. The programs strengthen parenting, promote social networking, reduce isolation, and promote community cohesion. They are grounded in the belief that consistent, positive parenting practices and secure, healthy parent-child relationships are fundamental factors in all aspects of healthy child development.

With April as the big launch month, FRED has already raised $128,000 of the necessary $168,000 to enhance and expand seven programs in the coming year. We’re confident we will meet our target. Invitations are being prepared for our special “SANDBOX” announcements at seven locations throughout the area. And what do you think we’ll be serving to toast our success? … Milk and cookies, of course!

Leanne Hammond Komori is Executive Director of Central Okanagan Foundation

Jazz Sudbury hitting all the right notes

2010-03-08T11:38:00.000-05:00

Believing that a strong performing arts sector enriches the community both socially and economically, the Sudbury Community Foundation set out to build and support its local arts scene.

Greater Sudbury’s Vital Signs reports indicated that Sudbury was lagging behind other cities in its commitment to the performing arts. It was clear that more needed to be done, so the Sudbury Community Foundation embarked on a new leadership initiative, Jazz Sudbury, to support and promote the wealth of talent that was growing in Sudbury, and to encourage the community to get behind its budding performing arts sector.

A very warm response to Jazz Sudbury’s kickoff event demonstrated that there is a pent-up demand for jazz music in the north. Cabaret 2009 was widely attended last March and gave us confidence to push forward with the Jazz Sudbury Festival. There are so many talented artists who have moved to bigger cities to flourish. We wanted to show Sudburians that we’ve got world-class performers who need our support, and a festival to showcase our great local talent seemed like a natural decision.

The first ever Jazz Sudbury Festival, headlined by Michael Kaeshammer was held in September 2009 to rave reviews.

The success of Jazz Sudbury in its first year confirmed that people in the community wanted cultural activities and a rich arts scene. “Seeing a project that was informed by Vital Signs come to life is very rewarding and encouraging,” notes SCF president Elyse Clements.

The next step for the Foundation is bringing together a Jazz Sudbury steering committee, not only to undertake festival organization, but to develop a long-term sustainability plan for the festival that will serve the community going forward. A continuing goal of our Vital Signs report is to engage citizens and inspire leaders to act. What better way to show others what can be done than by setting the example?

Others in the arts community have pointed to the Vital Signs report to help their cause. The Sudbury Arts Council used the indicators in Vital Signs to secure more funding for arts and cultural programs in the city – the most funding it has received in the last 30 years.

Having quality research that is readily available to all Sudburians provides an important starting point for other community organizations and active citizens. Along with the Sudbury Community Foundation, they are working towards establishing social innovation projects in Sudbury that will bring together all sectors of the community.

Carmen Simmons is Executive Director of the Sudbury Community Foundation

Every Step Counts marks first year

2010-03-01T08:00:00.000-05:00

Every Step Count ... Especially the First Step

Every Step Counts, a unique running program founded by the Victoria Foundation and hosted at the Victoria Cool Aid Society, marked its first anniversary with a special gathering on Feb. 18.

Drawing on the benefits of running and team work to foster self esteem, confidence, energy and positive growth, the program is for individuals experiencing challenges with addiction, mental health, poverty, homelessness and other social issues.

"By committing to pilot Every Step Counts, our Board was confident it would be an excellent fit for Victoria,” says Sandra Richardson, Victoria Foundation CEO. “Today’s gathering not only demonstrates the support we have from our community partners but the faces around the room are proof of the positive impact we are having within our community.”

The program has provided a wide range of physical and mental health benefits to the participants, including weight loss, decreased body mass index and decreased waist size. As Dr. David Bell, a physician of several of the runners, put it: “I have patients involved in the Every Step Counts program. Their involvement in this
program has had a very positive impact on their mental and physical health. I believe this program has done more to improve self-esteem and integrate these people into society than most of my medical interventions and will result in lower costs to the medical health system in general and the mental health system in particular.”

Almost two years ago, the Victoria Foundation brought forward the idea of Every Step Counts and, with the support of Frontrunners, Vancity, United Way of Greater Victoria, The Jawl Foundation and the TELUS Victoria Community Board, funding was secured. Victoria Cool Aid Society was then approached to develop, house and run this dynamic and positive health and wellness program.

Participants mark running milestones after demonstrating their commitment to keeping with the program. Upon joining they receive gently used running shoes. After five runs, they earn a water bottle, after 10, they receive a certificate and a technical shirt. After 15 runs, they are outfitted with brand new running shoes and at the 25 run mark, they earn two running hats: one to keep and one to give to an individual who has helped to make “every step count."

“This program draws its strength and dignity from each individual who comes out to run or walk,” explains Gillie Easdon, Every Step Counts Program Coordinator. ”We are all equals in our running gear, which means we can leave our histories, diagnoses and financial situations at the door. That is powerful.”

Total individual runs have reached 2,500 by over 120 participants as Every Step Counts enters its second year. Participation growth levels have been steady and the program seeks to add value to participants through things like monthly wellness talks. Both refreshing and empowering, Every Step Counts continues to inspire other communities and enrich its own mandate and potential.

Got a great green idea?

2010-02-15T08:00:00.002-05:00

Nominations are now open for the 2010 Green Innovation Awards, offering up to $50,000 in seed money to help develop and bring innovative green products and solutions to the Toronto marketplace.

The Green Innovation Awards are the result of a partnership between the City of Toronto and the Toronto Community Foundation, made possible through the generous support of Toronto Community Foundation fundholders.

"The incredible passion Torontonians have for a greener city is matched by their ingenuity in finding ways to make it happen," says Toronto Mayor David Miller. "All residents with great green ideas and the ambition to market them should be encouraged to apply for funding through the 2010 Green Innovation Awards."

Rahul K. Bhardwaj, President & CEO of the Toronto Community Foundation, shares that enthusiasm.

"Our Toronto’s Vital Signs Report tells us that, as a city, we're making significant strides towards a greener community – but we require greater investment in green technologies, products and services,” he says.

“We know that Torontonians care deeply about the environment, and many have innovative ideas. By providing entrepreneurial Torontonians the support to get these 'green ideas' off the ground, the Green Innovation Awards are a great response to our environmental challenges. We're pleased to partner with the City of Toronto to help make it happen."

Ideas and projects eligible for funding may include any new technology, product and/or service that will make Toronto a greener and more liveable city and:

reduce greenhouse gases
improve air quality
reduce waste
improve water or energy efficiency
engage Toronto residents, businesses and communities in pro-environmental behavior change
help the City of Toronto adapt to changes caused by climate change

Successful applicants will be invited to pitch their green idea and funding request to a panel of judges, with award recipients announced April 23 at the Green Living Show, Direct Energy Centre, Exhibition Place.

The deadline to enter is March 12. For more information, visit http://www.toronto.ca/livegreen/green_innovation_awards.html

A Vital Conversation in Calgary

2010-02-08T08:00:00.002-05:00

An infectious desire to make this city the best it can be.

Diverse opinions reached a common goal when The Calgary Foundation held the first of a series of Vital Conversations, on the topic of “sustainable city,” in late January.

Vital Conversations are public dialogue events that have become TCF’s way to engage citizens in the development of Calgary’s Vital Signs Report. Each discussion is centred around a key-issue area presented in our report, and the latest was hosted in partnership with the Calgary Public Library and the new Office of Sustainability at the City of Calgary.

The event exceeded our expectations. We had to limit the attendees to 150 people, experienced a full turn-out, had to brew extra coffee and saw every last appetizer eaten. Through planned partnerships, we were able to provide ‘farm-to-fork’ appetizers from a sustainable catering company, Forage, and were supplied with organic, free-trade coffee from a local roasterie.

The early-evening event and reception was held at the downtown branch of the Calgary Public Library, with a casual and energetic tone. After a few short introductory presentations, participants formed break-out discussion groups of 7 to 8 people. The groups were led by volunteers who were equipped with three rounds of questions, ranging from “What possibilities have the power to transform our city and would most inspire you?” to “What in your view are the top three challenges standing in the way of a more sustainable Calgary?” Each group was assigned a scribe who recorded the discussion on a master sheet – soon to be compiled and posted on our website.

Throughout the event, we incorporated ‘live-tweeting,’ a successful experiment that resulted in more than 30 live tweets that brought out highlights, expressed comments and pointed out who was in attendance. Examples of live-tweets were:

Sustainability is more than the environment. It’s about building a great city for everyone forever. #yycf
Ideas for sustainability seem to revolve around community & means of social interaction & connection. #yycf
Sounds like all on the same page. Is that b/c of demographics of ppl there? Why so difficult to do these things? #yycf

By the end of the night, there was a powerful sense of camaraderie as group leaders ran up to the stage for a quick recap, making incredibly inspiring one-minute statements. It was interesting to see how 17 groups from a very diverse crowd managed to come up with very similar discussion highlights – there was a consistent theme of connecting with our neighbours and our community, the need for more public space, community activities, community gardens, collaboration, self-organized events, and teamwork.

One representative came up to the podium to say, “The first step towards building a sustainable city is to go get to know your neighbour. We may not often have much time or resources, but each and every one of you can go out this weekend and meet your neighbour.”

The evening could be summarized in one leader’s presentation: “A diversity of opinions, but a commonality in one goal – an infectious desire to make this city the best it can be.”

We look forward to hosting three more Vital Conversations on other key-issue areas, at different library branches. If you would like more details, please visit www.thecalgaryfoundation.org.

Teri Shortreed is Communications Assistant with The Calgary Foundation

Protecting precious water

2010-01-26T13:12:00.000-05:00

Water is one of the most essential and precious resources -- for humans, animals, anything that grows. For all life, to put it succinctly!

In Canada, we have grown up with the belief that we are living in the land of plentiful natural resources, including fresh water. It may be a residual concept from the idea that we are in the frontier, the land where there is unlimited space and everything that one needs to live a good life. In truth, we are very lucky in Canada, but it is time for us to be much more careful in protecting our natural resources for now and for the future.

That is why Community Foundations of Canada has spearheaded an initiative to coordinate foundations across the Prairies to work collaboratively on the Lake Winnipeg Watershed Initiative.

In conjunction with private foundations – the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, J.W. McConnell Family Foundation and the Thomas Sill Foundation – The Winnipeg Foundation and the Edmonton Community Foundation have joined forces to create the position I currently hold, coordinator of the Lake Winnipeg Watershed Initiative.

The goal is to encourage foundations across the Prairies to get involved in protecting our fresh water and restoring the health of the Lake Winnipeg Watershed, which has gained the reputation of being the sickest lake in Canada due to its massive toxic algae blooms .

The Foundations in the Lake Winnipeg Watershed Initiative started about 20 months ago as a result of area community foundations realizing we need to start thinking like a watershed. We are all upstream from someone else and our actions have an impact on all of those downstream. The watershed’s problems are man-made (PDF) which means we, as citizens, can help solve them.

The initial stages of this initiative involve simply raising awareness amongst the more than 50 community foundations in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba about the urgency of the need to protect water. My mission is to meet with foundations and provide a simple overview of water concerns, as well as some basic ideas about how everyone can get involved in solutions.

In 2010, we hope to involve even more foundations in water issues in their local communities. There are many ways foundations can help, from making grants to convening public meetings to raising awareness. Download our tip sheet to get started.

As well, Dr. Jim Byrne’s documentary, Choking Lake Winnipeg will be released in late spring and we encourage foundations to promote local screenings.

The most important message we want to convey at this point is that all of us hold the key to change. The more individuals we can convince to pay attention, the more likely there will be community and political action. If we choose to protect our precious water, there are numerous simple ways that every one of us can make a difference.

Just start by picking one thing -- together, we can do it!

Vicki Burns is coordinator of Foundations in the Lake Winnipeg Watershed Initiative, and an advocate for the environment and sustainable practices in Manitoba.

Wishing communities a happier New Year

2010-01-11T07:00:00.013-05:00

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors. – African poverb

There’s no doubt that charities around the world were happy to see the last of 2009 – waving an eager farewell to a year that put communities through a turbulent time full of anxiety and duress.

And although the signs are looking better for 2010, it’s clear that the recovery is going to require endurance and optimism. We rode out the storm, but setting a new course is going to take time and patience.

But before we turn our attention to the journey ahead, it’s important to look back. Did we become more skillful sailors in the downturn’s rough seas? Did we learn more about our community and the people who call it home? Did we open our eyes to new possibilities and partners?

As I look back over the past year I can find many examples of individuals and organizations that rose to the challenge. I think of the donor in Guelph who walked up to the community foundation’s executive director with a cheque, saying “Use this where it’s most needed.” Or the businesspeople in Kelowna who helped raise more than $100,000 to support urgent priorities. There are countless examples of donors who stepped forward to help communities across the country weather the economic storm.

Most foundations continued to grant, albeit at reduced levels, and that made our movement even more conscious of the need to grant for impact. Niagara just announced $100,000 for poverty, Toronto partnered on a new after-school program , Victoria focused on homelessness, and Newfoundland and Labrador reached out to rural and coastal communities, to name but a few.

Then there are the stories about how communities came together to support each other: how The Winnipeg Foundation used its regular ad space to encourage people to support their favourite charity at a time when that support was needed the most. Community foundations in Hamilton and Vancouver surveyed local non-profits to determine key issues and priorities so existing funding could be used as strategically as possible. The Calgary Foundation hosted a Sustainability Summit bringing government, the corporate and charitable sectors together to find collaborative solutions to the issues facing charities.

Throughout the year I encountered many examples of determination and perseverance – tales of communities that refused to stop dreaming and doing, even in the face of shrinking dollars. I think of the Fundy Community Foundation’s efforts to reduce poverty in the rural communities of Charlotte County, New Brunswick and how they, and other community foundations, were key partners in the province’s first comprehensive poverty reduction strategy.

At Community Foundations of Canada, the membership association for Canada’s 170+ community foundations, we did what we could to bring our members together to encourage and augment local, regional and national impact. Together, we released 16 Vital Signs reports shining a spotlight on national and local issues and success stories. We continued our collaborative work in the Lake Winnipeg Watershed and started a new partnership with the Ontario Land Trust Association. We also worked with our members to explore new ways to better align the investment of our assets with our mission and values.

The waters were not smooth in 2009, but the journey was rewarding all the same. We know the sailing will not be easy in 2010 either, but I think we’ve become more skillful sailors and are ready for what’s ahead.

Monica Patten is President and CEO of Community Foundations of Canada.

Jed Emerson discusses blended value at Toronto's MaRS Discovery District

2009-12-04T11:09:00.005-05:00

Betsy Martin, Senior Advisor to Community Foundations of Canada and head of its Responsible Investment Pilot Project, listened in on Janice Stein's interview (video) of Jed Emerson, the pioneer of blended value, at MaRS Discovery District in Toronto last night.

Some initial take-aways from what was a rich interview followed by lots of good discussion with a large crowd at MaRS.

Jed has been a proponent of what he calls blended value for years. It is looking at the return on investments as a blend of financial returns and social and/or environmental impact. It’s not having three bottom lines. And it's less like a soup and more like a salad in which you can still taste the individual ingredients.

Jed's personal story is really interesting. He started out as a social worker and now works for a hedge fund in NY. After years as a social worker and running non-profits, he ended up burnt out and cynical about the non-profit world and the fact that how most non-profit organizations get funded has nothing to do what they really accomplish. He now works to make the case to direct capital to companies and organizations that deliver the best blended value.

Jed has a real challenge to the traditional approach to philanthropy.

After he left his last non-profit organization, he started to work with a philantropist who, like Jed, was really bothered by the fact that there is no logic to the capital structure in the non-profit sector. As a friend of his described it, the philanthropy funding model is to “let a thousand flowers wither” because we have no model for growing the funding for ideas and organizations that are making a difference. Good ideas may get initial funding, but there is no structure like there is in business financing to move up the investment ladder to be able to attract greater investment as you prove that you have a successful model.

So they started to apply an impact investment model to working on homelessness and they came up with a couple of sets of indices to track whether or not they were making a difference. One set was on the business performance and one set was on the social outcomes over time of the homeless organizations they worked with. And they also gathered stories about the people the organizations helped find the way out of homelessness. All of that was the blended value of the foundation’s investment in homelessness and they could tell which organizations they were funding had the greatest impact and direct further investments accordingly. And those investments were not just grants – they included loans, mortgages and other investments that allowed successful organizations to grow, plan for the future and diversify their own funding.

As the whole area of impact investing has grown in recent years, there are more and more metrics becoming available to track environmental and social impacts to help foundations and others figure out where their investments can make the most difference.

Which brings me to his other message to foundations: that the grants made by foundations are just one relatively small tool in the toolbox. As Jed described it - If you were trying to get me to invest in your company and said that you'd use 5 cents of every dollar I invest for your business and put 95 cents in the bank, I'd think you were crazy. But that's been the standard foundation model. It's changing and it's fascinating to see how foundations are rethinking this model and how to use more of their assets to invest in making real impact on our social and environmental challenges.

More on how that’s changing later…

Additional Resources

A vibrant city needs vital information to thrive

2009-12-02T14:12:00.000-05:00

Eva Friesen is the President & CEO of The Calgary Foundation. This piece originally appeared in The Calgary Herald on October 29, 2009

Relative to many other cities in the world, Calgary is a dynamic young city that has seen a very high rate of growth, surging to over one million in just over a century. We pride ourselves on our 'can do' attitude, high level of education, employment opportunities, increasing cultural diversity, willingness to volunteer, and access to great parks and pathways. Others think of us as an economic powerhouse and globally, we rate very high for safety and livability.

Yet, in a recent survey, Calgarians gave their quality of life a "B" grade. While not a bad grade, the question remains, how can Calgary do better?

Earlier this month the Calgary Foundation released Calgary's VitalSigns, our 2009 Citizens' Report Card. Over 1,700 citizens and community partners contributed towards developing a snapshot of quality of life in Calgary. Unlike many report cards, not only does VitalSigns provide up to date statistics covering 12 key areas of quality of life in our city, but citizens are invited to grade these areas so that we can take the pulse of our city based on both the facts and perceptions of Calgarians.

Coming as it did in the middle of the worst economic downturn in 80 years, one might be excused for thinking that Calgarians were feeling less than bullish about their city this year.

Not so. Despite the tough economic times, citizen perception of the way things are did not drop in any of the report's categories from last year's scores. While this perhaps speaks to the genuine pride most Calgarians have in their city, as well as an undeniable drive to "tough things out", it also speaks to the need to have solid information and continued citizen engagement about the results.

After all, while it is good that the grades were no worse this year, it should matter that we have seen sense of community belonging drop sharply, voter turnout continue to decline, charitable donations fall, and emergency room wait times increase.

Similarly, while Calgary's unemployment rate remains one of the lowest in the country, it has doubled over the past year, resulting in higher food bank usage, more homelessness, a rise in personal bankruptcies and more high-risk calls to Distress Centre Calgary. Of course, the bad news is tempered by many areas that merit applause--assets to build upon as we look for ways to improve our overall performance.

This year these included the curbside recycling program, which will double the volume of material diverted from landfills; water conservation efforts that are on target to meet the city's sustainable water use target by 2033; a violent crime rate that is much lower than the national average; high library usage; the highest score in the country for lifelong learning; and a 10-year plan to end homelessness that is on track to add 891 units of affordable housing by 2011.

These results speak to a pervasive need to have a different kind of conversation about what is really happening in our city. We need to ensure our actions are informed by the best information available, both factual and perceptual. Systems scientists call this feedback, and it should underpin any conversation about the real pulse of Calgary.

The power of good feedback is remarkable. For example, in a housing development in the Netherlands, electric meters were accidentally installed in the basements of some houses and in the front halls of otherwise identical houses. Electricity use in the houses where the meters were easily visible was 30 per cent more efficient than in the houses where the meters were out of sight. The only difference was the ability to effectively monitor what was going on. So, how can Calgary do better?

As we reflect on the vitality of our city--and the social, cultural, economic and environmental conditions that support or erode resilience-- one response is to continue to improve the breadth and sophistication of how we monitor and celebrate our progress and how we work together to change course when necessary. Community engagement is vital to this process.

Two good upcoming examples are Bowness VitalSigns (PDF) and Youth VitalSigns (Spring 2010). These focused reports will seed conversations and increase our city's capacity to address issues and celebrate success--and hopefully they will be role models for further innovation.

Early in the new year, The Calgary Foundation, in partnership with community partners, will be hosting Vital Conversations (PDF), dynamic community forums inviting citizen engagement around the results of the 2009 report and input toward development of the 2010 report.

Our ability to improve how we monitor our progress and measure what matters also rests on the availability of credible and relevant indicators. This can be a major barrier to telling the full story of quality of life in our city. For this reason, we are calling for opportunities to work collaboratively to identify and develop new and compelling indicators that will enhance our collective capacity to keep a keen eye on our performance.

While getting an "A" for quality of life may remain elusive for a while yet, The Calgary Foundation is committed to continuing to work with community partners to ensure we earn high marks for our combined efforts to monitor and respond to both the good news and challenges affecting quality in life in Calgary.

Our city deserves nothing less; a vital city needs vital information to thrive.

Poverty Reduction Key to Canada’s Economic Recovery

2009-11-25T10:36:00.003-05:00

Campaign 2000 is a cross-Canada public education movement to build Canadian awareness and support for the 1989 all-party House of Commons resolution to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000. Jacquie Maund is the Coordinator for the Ontario Campaign 2000.

Canada’s economic recovery hinges on federal leadership to pull recession victims out of the poor house and prevent Canadians from plunging into deeper poverty, hunger and homelessness, says Campaign 2000’s new report card on child and family poverty.

Keep the Promise: Make Canada Poverty-Free looks at the nation’s most recent child and family after-tax poverty rate compared to 20 years ago, when Parliament unanimously resolved to end child poverty by 2000, and finds today’s after-tax rate is 9.5 per cent, a slight budge from 11.9 per cent in 1989.

“If Canada were a student, she would be in danger of dropping out,” says Campaign 2000’s Laurel Rothman. “Following an unprecedented period of growth since 1998, the small change in the rate of child and family poverty is shocking.

“As Canada develops strategies to foster economic growth and recovery, the most strategic decision the federal government could make would be to take leadership and set a target to lower the poverty rate.”

The report card’s key findings, available at www.campaign2000.ca, show Canada has far to go to prevent and reduce poverty:

· One in 10 children still live in poverty in Canada today. It’s worse for children living in First Nation’s communities: one in four grow up in poverty;

There are more working poor: 40 per cent of low-income children live in families where at least one parent works full-time year round, up dramatically from 33 per cent in the 1990s;
Child poverty is persistent across Canada: rates of child and family poverty (LICO before-tax) are in the double digits in most provinces.
The gap between rich and poor has widened: On average, for every dollar the families in the poorest 10 per cent had, families in the richest 10 per cent had almost 12 times as much ($11.84) in 2007.

“Canada could succeed if our federal government used public policy resources to improve labour market options and make our tax system more progressive,” says Ed Broadbent, the former New Democratic Party leader who moved the 1989 motion to end child poverty by the year 2000.

“All Canadians will benefit from less poverty,” says Peggy Taillon, President of the Canadian Council on Social Development. “As a society we either share the collective responsibility to prevent child and family poverty or we face rising costs in health care services, criminal justice and education.”

“Now that seven out of 10 provinces have committed to poverty reduction, it’s time for the federal government to exercise leadership and develop a clear plan with targets and timetables,” says Sid Frankel, Social Planning Council of Winnipeg.

Making Guelph a better place

2009-11-18T10:29:00.001-05:00

Jim Reid recently joined the Guelph Community Foundation as a volunteer. This piece was published in the Nov 13, 2009 edition of the Guelph Tribune.

Is Guelph “the most caring community in Canada”? Last year Maclean’s magazine gave our city this honour because we have more community volunteers per capita than any other city in the country.

I was surprised by this news, and then thankful that I live in a community where volunteers, churches, foundations and unsung heroes work to make Guelph a better place.

Guelph Community Foundation is one of these groups. Since its inception in 2000, the foundation has directed $1.3 million to community organizations that are working to make Guelph a better place to live. The foundation’s current assets are $6.4 million.

The Tribune reported in August that the foundation helped out to the tune of $127,000 in 2009. The Guelph Community Foundation provided these grants to 47 local charitable organizations in our city and Wellington County. The grants ranged from $500 to $40,961. The foundation also awarded an additional $50,000 as part of its Building Vital Communities, and poverty-related grants in September.

The Guelph Community Foundation is one of many community foundations across Canada that disburse hundreds of millions of dollars to worthy causes in the communities they serve.

The advantage of a community foundation is that it centralizes the administration, management, awarding and receipting of multiple grants from multiple donors to multiple recipients. The foundation’s board of directors in each community is drawn from community leaders and volunteers. The grants committee of the Guelph Community Foundation reviews and recommends the awarding of local grants. The grants are primarily awarded in these general categories: Arts and Culture, Children and Youth, Education, Environment, Health, Social Services, and Research and Development.

Guelph Community Foundation grants this year have helped out familiar groups such as Wyndham House and the Guelph Humane Society. They also assisted environmental organizations such as the Guelph Field Naturalists and the Grand River Conservation Foundation. The foundation placed grants from anonymous donors with the charity of their choice.

The Guelph Community Foundation also regularly circulates an online Vital Signs questionnaire to hundreds of Guelph and Wellington residents. The questions concern approximately 11 local issues such as poverty, education, crime and health.

The answers are collated into a report card format to provide a snapshot of the quality of life in Guelph, and the areas for improvement.

In conjunction with other charitable organizations, the foundation works toward making Guelph a better place over the course of the next year.

Late last month, the Canadian government declared Nov. 15 to be National Philanthropy Day. Locally, philanthropy means giving to make Guelph and Wellington a better place.

The Philanthropy Day celebration falls on Sunday this weekend. Wherever you are this Sunday, whether with friends, family or with someone you are helping through a difficult time, it may be a good day to be thankful.

Thankful that we live in Guelph, one of many caring communities in Canada.

Charitable donations dropped 5.3% in 2008: StatsCan

2009-11-16T13:24:00.001-05:00

The Canadian Press

Reported charitable donations surpassed $8.1 billion in 2008, down 5.3% from 2007. But Statistics Canada says, based on tax returns, the number of donors increased 1.7% to just under 5.8 million.

The agency says the median donation was $250 in 2008, meaning half of the donors gave more and half less -- unchanged from 2007.

Donors in Nunavut reported a median donation of $500, tops in the nation for the ninth straight year.

Donors in Prince Edward Island had the second highest median at $370, followed by those in Alberta with $360.

Donors in Abbotsford-Mission, B.C., had by far the highest median donation among cities at $600, the sixth straight year they have led the way.

Kelowna, B.C., followed with a median of $380, slightly ahead of Calgary with $360.

Community foundations launch toolkit to encourage advisors to ‘Ask the Giving Question’

2009-11-12T10:24:00.001-05:00

OTTAWA (Nov. 12, 2009) – As National Philanthropy Day approaches on November 15, Community Foundations of Canada is launching an online toolkit to encourage financial, investment and legal advisors to ‘ask the giving question’ in their discussions with clients over the coming year.

“We know that 21% of Canadians account for 82% of the donations to charity in this country,” said Monica Patten, President and CEO of Community Foundations of Canada. “We also know individuals are three times more likely to include charity in their will when the issue is raised by a lawyer, accountant or an investment or financial advisor. We developed this toolkit to share our experience with advisors, in the hopes that it can lead to more giving.”

“Many advisors are eager to start discussing philanthropy with their clients, but it can feel like a daunting exercise when you’re not an expert, said Mathieu Paradis, Certified Financial Planner, Wealth Strategies, Investment and Financial Planning. “This new toolkit provides an easy way for advisors to access the information they need to get started.”

Professional Advisors eResource
The online toolkit, called Professional Advisors eResource, offers advisors a wide range of basic and more technical information about charitable giving including:

•    Adding giving to your practice
•    Talking about charitable giving
•    Detailed information on six common gift options
•    Handouts that advisors can personalize and to share with clients
•    Donor stories that illustrate how giving can be used to help clients meet their financial and personal goals

The toolkit can be found at http://www.cfc-fcc.ca/pa-eresource/. Advisors can also sign up for the site’s RSS feed to keep up to date on the latest news about charitable giving.

Vital Signs determines key priorities in Waterloo Region

2009-11-05T15:43:00.001-05:00

CFC's Vital Signs Canada blog is featuring guest bloggers who are experts on various aspects of community vitality. Today's contributor is Rosemary Smith, CEO of The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation

What are the people of Waterloo Region most concerned about? Where do we need to improve and what are we doing well? Where should we, as a community, devote time and energy if we want to ensure that our Region is a healthy, vital place to live, work, play, and grow?

These are some of the questions that The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation (KWCF) in partnership with the Cambridge & North Dumfries Community Foundation attempt to answer with the third Waterloo Region’s Vital Signs report. Providing us with reliable and valid data, this learning tool has helped us identify key priorities important to the overall health of our Region.

For instance; low literacy and learning findings from the first two reports were behind The KWCF’s decision to make a $100,000 four-year commitment to the Pathways to Education program. They were also behind this year’s strategic grant of supporting intergenerational family literacy with Project READ’s Get Set Learn 2 program. In fact, in 2008, the largest grants made by The KWCF’s Community Fund went to support the top four priority areas outlined in the 2007 Vital Signs report: Arts & Culture, Housing, Health & Wellness, and Learning.

As community foundations, it is essential that we have a good understanding of the needs and trends of the communities we serve. Whether it’s connecting donors to opportunities, making impactful grants, or providing leadership on issues of importance, we need to know what makes our community tick.

With each Vital Signs report we have gained a better understanding of the every day enjoyment and satisfaction experienced by those living in the Region of Waterloo. In addition, each report has shown us that many of the quality of life issues being faced by our communities are interrelated. For example: finding affordable housing can impact the number of people being forced to move further away and therefore effects both transportation and the environment by the number of cars on the road. Having a vibrant arts community entices people to move to a city and directly impacts the health of the local economy. Helping those less fortunate can lead to a decrease in health concerns and provide a stronger sense of belonging.

Waterloo Region’s Vital Signs is both a celebration and an important reality check. It provides us with an opportunity to keep an eye on the future. Using Vital Signs as a tool for learning, each year we highlight a few areas on which we think a closer look must be taken. These areas help us to focus our grant making and support others in the work that they are doing. This year’s areas included: a lack of spending from our regional, provincial, national, and private sectors in arts and culture, concerns over the fact that many of our residents do not eat the suggested five to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, a declining elder poverty rate, that we have fewer child care spaces available for our families and that we lag behind the province with our investment in child care overall.

In conclusion, recognizing and understanding all of these connections is vital to everyone living and working in Waterloo Region. Only by working together do we have the ability to create positive change where it’s needed most.

Community Foundations exploring responsible investment to leverage assets

2009-11-02T08:00:00.001-05:00

OTTAWA (Nov. 2, 2009) – Community Foundations of Canada is today launching www.responsible-investment.ca, the first phase of its new website devoted to sharing its growing collection of Responsible Investment (RI) resources with foundations and other funders.

The website is part of CFC’s Responsible Investing Pilot Project, which is assisting community foundations across the country to: start or advance their journey along the path of mission-based investing; adopt appropriate investment policies and programs; and increase the percentage of their assets that are aligned with their mission.   The pilot project is supported by the U.S.-based Ford Foundation and The Co-operators Group Ltd.

“Responsible Investment offers community foundations and other funders many opportunities to leverage our assets. We’re just beginning our journey but we’re eager to share what we’ve learned to date with others,” said Monica Patten, President and CEO of Community Foundations of Canada (CFC), the membership association for more than 160 community foundations from coast to coast.

Interest in responsible investing (also known as mission-based investing or socially responsible investing) is growing as community foundations consider ways to have an even greater impact on the issues that matter most to their communities. Community foundations collectively hold more than $2.4 billion in assets and provided $169 million in grants in 2008.

“The market turmoil of the past year has underscored the importance of finding the most effective ways to use foundation assets. Many long-term investors – including foundations – are also re-examining their investment beliefs and philosophies to take into account environmental, social and governance factors,” said Patten.

CFC’s pilot project is guided by an advisory group of experts in the RI field, including Michael Jantzi (Jantzi Research Inc.), Robert Walker (Northwest & Ethical Investments LP ), Peter Chapman, (Shareholder Association for Research and Education), Derek Gent (VanCity Community Foundation), and Tim Draimin, Social Innovation Generation, and Eugene Ellmen (The Social Investment Organization). CFC is also working with other funders such as Philanthropic Foundations of Canada on developing and sharing specific RI resources.

"It's important for foundations to invest their assets in a way that respects their work in social responsibility and sustainability," said Eugene Ellmen, Executive Director of the Social Investment Organization. "Donors count on it, and local communities expect it. This new resource is the first step in a long-term process to align the investment and granting of foundation assets."

Community Foundations & Responsible Investment

Although community foundations are relatively new to the field of responsible investing, several foundations have stories to tell about their growing commitment.

Edmonton Community Foundation: The foundation’s $5-million Social Enterprise Fund, launched in partnership with the City of Edmonton and the United Way, is supporting new social enterprises and affordable housing. Its initial loans are all current, returning 5% to 6.5%, or paid in full so the foundation is now adding other financing products to its mix.

Osprey Community Foundation: Serving the community of Nelson, British Columbia, the Osprey Community Foundation currently has 15% of its capital placed in a Socially Responsible Investment Fund, held by Vancouver Foundation. In addition, all of the foundation’s new donations will be invested in this fund. The foundation says on its home page that its plans to “gradually move all of the foundation’s endowment capital into socially responsible investments.”

Community Foundation of Ottawa: The foundation has established a task force to review their investment policy and incorporate responsible investing. The foundation is interested in adding ESG factors as well as the potential for community investments. This process will include web-based policy development with a wider group including other community foundations and Canadian RI experts.

Vancouver Foundation: The largest community foundation in Canada, and one of the oldest, currently has a $12-million Socially Responsible Investment Fund in which donors can opt to place their donation. The foundation is also exploring potential options around community investment funds with economic and social returns.

Available at www.responsible-investment.ca
CFC’s RI website currently offers visitors an overview of RI approaches and a comprehensive list of RI resources including:
•    Primers on responsible investment
•    Reports on research and trends
•    Information on financial performance and fiduciary issues
•    A directory of consultants and asset managers as well as organizations and websites to follow

This is the first phase of the site’s development and CFC plans to add to it over time.

About Community Foundations
Canada’s 168 community foundations are local charitable foundations that help Canadians invest in building strong and resilient places to live, work, and play. They are one of the largest supporters of Canadian charities, providing $169 million to local organizations in 2008. Find out more at www.cfc-fcc.ca.

How is the Community Foundation of Ottawa engaging citizens on the issues raised in Vital Signs?

2009-10-29T07:00:00.009-04:00

On Tuesday, October 20, the Community Foundation of Ottawa held Checkup 2009, a public event open to anyone wanting to participate in a community conversation based on the 2009 Ottawa’s Vital Signs report. Taking place in the auditorium of the Ottawa Public Library’s main branch, the two-hour event was moderated by Kathleen Petty (host of CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning), and led by a panel that consisted of Caroline Andrew (University of Ottawa professor and Director of the Centre on Governance), Ken Gray (Ottawa Citizen columnist and Editorial Board member), and Carl Nicholson (Executive Director of the Catholic Immigration Centre of Ottawa).

Attracting a capacity audience of close to 200 people, Checkup 2009 was indeed a lively discussion of Ottawa’s hot topics, as well as a number of issues that were true eye-openers for many people in the room, including the panelists and moderator. In one instance, a woman whose son was incarcerated for a year in the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre awaiting trial tearfully described her own treatment as a visitor to the facility and her struggles to help her mentally ill son receive the medical attention he needed. Other passionately-articulated stories included those describing the ongoing difficulties faced by Ottawa’s physically disabled citizens in accessing public buildings, as well as those grappling with a lack of affordable housing and the growing gap between rich and poor in the city.

“This is what the Ottawa’s Vital Signs program is really all about,” says Barbara McInnes, President & CEO of the Community Foundation of Ottawa. “While the report is full of fascinating stats and data on everything from health and wellness to how people make their way around the city each day, it’s really only the beginning of an important discussion that needs to take place amongst the citizens of Ottawa. Checkup 2009 was a great opening to that conversation – the one about what kind of city we want to live in and how we’re going to make that vision a reality.”

Ken Gray – a highly knowledgeable and prolific writer on municipal affairs – was particularly taken with his experience as a Checkup panelist, later writing in his Ottawa Citizen blog: “Because journalists are, of necessity, a mile wide and an inch deep, I felt rather like a tricycle between two Ferraris trying to keep up with the two other panelists who actually know of what they speak. Nicholson discussed Ottawa sleeping through a revolution what with 22 per cent of the population in the city born in other lands. With the best voice since James Earl Jones and quoting Martin Luther King, Nicholson is very learned and impressive. Andrew has a depth of knowledge of political affairs that a city hall plodder like myself can only envy. She is so nice she can say you are full of beans and you thank her for it.”

“Kathleen and all three panelists deserve a world of thanks for their contributions to this event,” responded Barbara, “and we think Ken’s pretty impressive, himself!”

Checkup 2009 was the first in a series of community conversations planned as part of the Ottawa’s Vital Signs program. Planning for the 2010 report will revolve significantly around ideas and feedback received at Checkup events in the early part of the year, to be followed by a similar reflection on the findings in the resulting report.

“From the beginning, Ottawa’s Vital Signs was designed as a vehicle to engage the entire community on issues of importance, and to stimulate public dialogue on how we can work together to improve the quality of life in our city,” says Barbara. “We expect the Checkup series to bring us even further along the way towards realizing that goal.”

Ken Gray’s Checkup speech was published as his column the day after the event, and can be read here

Read Ken’s blog about his experience as a panelist

Toronto: a city of “world class” contradictions

2009-10-23T07:00:00.003-04:00

Throughout the month of October the Vital Signs Canada blog will feature guest bloggers who are experts on various aspects of community vitality. Today's contributor is Rahul Bhardwaj, President and CEO of the Toronto Community Foundation

A message to fellow Torontonians: take pride, our city is right up there at the top.

According to the 2008 MasterCard index of 75 leading global centres of commerce, we’re 13th in liveability and 4th in ease of doing business – in the world.

And when it comes to innovation we stack up even higher reaching second place in North America and among the top 20 cities globally.

Our quality of life, says Mercer in its 2009 Quality of Living Survey, ranks 15th out of 215 global cities for the fourth year in a row.

While we’ve not been spared the affects of the global recession, compared to other Canadian cities we’re doing quite well. Toronto is the second wealthiest city in the country after Vancouver, with an average household net worth of $562,000.

The Toronto Community Foundation’s annual Toronto’s Vital Signs® Report tells us all of this. It compiles volumes of independent pieces of research, both qualitative and quantitative, captures them across issue areas and tracks outcomes and trends.

This year’s Report confirms our current standing. We’re more prosperous. We’re more creative. We’re safer. We’re greener. We’re the full package. We are – without doubt –“world class”.

But when we get beyond the blush of our international stature and we take a closer look, another Toronto emerges.

Our city is rated “seriously unaffordable”, ranking 190th internationally, and 29th in Canada, with median housing prices 4.8 times median household incomes.

Toronto is approaching the same company as Italy and Japan – countries with the world’s oldest populations – when it comes to our Older Dependency Ratio – a measure of the pressure on a community as the population ages.

We are also in a country that ranks last among 14 western nations in spending on early learning, childcare, and kindergarten programs.

We know that too many of us are much worse off than others – some having to choose whether to feed the family or pay the rent.

A family of four on social assistance in Toronto would need to spend 33% of its income on food and 72% on rent – yes, that’s more than they have and leaves nothing for other basic needs. More than 30% of children five and under in Toronto are in families that are below the Low Income Cut-off.

Access to affordable housing is increasingly out of reach. In the mid-1990s there were two low-income families for every one moderate-rent market unit of suitable size. By 2006, there were seven such families for every one unit.

Toronto has the highest proportion of seniors in the GTA and nearly double the Ontario rate of low income seniors. More seniors are living alone, cut off from family and community.

The youth unemployment rate surpassed 20% in June 2009, up 5% in just one year and 4% higher than the national rate. There are almost twice as many youth gangs as in 2000.

What’s even more startling is the sweeping shift in income levels across our neighbourhoods. In 1970, 66% of Toronto neighbourhoods were middle income. In 2005, just 29% were classified as middle income, and by 2025 it is projected to be just 20%, most having slid down the economic ladder.

This is the unvarnished picture of the Toronto of today. What does it tell us about the city of tomorrow?

Young families will choose other cities where the cost of living is lower and affordable housing is available.

Toronto may not be able to count on much needed immigration to support our declining population and workforce because newcomers won’t have a fair chance to succeed.

The number of middle income neighbourhoods will have been significantly eroded, and the widening gap between rich and poor will reduce social cohesion increasing the risk of further disengagement and crime.

We will not be competitive in the knowledge economy because we did not invest in early learning.

Clearly, all this calls for a plan because the fine balance that is Toronto is much better kept than recovered.

At the Toronto Community Foundation we believe in our city. We believe that the knowledge and creativity that rank us so high internationally give us the tools to ensure a different and better future.

Now is the time to put our much praised innovation to use, to harness all our unique advantages and direct them towards finding new solutions to the challenges faced by our city. We need to create a more efficient city that can withstand the inevitable shifts ahead. We must invest more in education and youth, in particular. We must demand our governments lead with policies that go beyond their own narrow electoral horizon. We must move beyond the here and now and invest in the Torontonians of tomorrow. And above all, we must not forget what makes this city “world class” are its people - all of them

New times, new tools

2009-10-21T12:30:00.001-04:00

Throughout the month of October the Vital Signs Canada blog will feature guest bloggers who are experts on various aspects of community vitality. Today's contributor is Faye Wightman, President and CEO of the Vancouver Foundation

In 2009, Vancouver Foundation took part in the Vital Signs initiative, but we tried something different.

Many of the young people involved in our organization were interested in Vital Signs, but felt it didn't accurately represent their perceptions, and their experience of life in Vancouver. They wanted something that had more of a youth perspective. So, for the first time, we supported a Vital Signs that was specifically designed for, and by, young people.

Youth Vital Signs (YVS) was a year-long, youth-driven research and public opinion initiative that gave a fresh voice to Vancouver youth aged 15 to 24.

We captured the experiences of Vancouver youth through a public survey and a separate mobile text survey. We also analyzed census data and gathered youth stories.

The results of YVS were markedly different from the ‘typical’ Vital Signs in some cases, and in others, remarkably similar. One thing that stood out was young people’s enthusiasm at being consulted – 1,700 filled out the on-line survey or a hard copy version, and 3,000 responded to the text survey.

Many of their answers showed that they were far more optimistic about the future than adults in some ways, and in others, far more pessimistic. They brought up different concerns -- especially around personal safety and the environment.

For highlights, or more detail, you can see the whole Youth Vital Signs report at www.youthvitalsigns.ca

We learned many things through this process. We learned that youth have strong opinions, good ideas and a concern for the future of their community. We learned that there are many decision-makers who want to know how youth experience the world, and are willing to provide support and resources to make sure youth are heard.

We also learned that if we want to reach youth, we need to use their tools. Most polling companies don’t include people under 18 in their polls. Even if they did, it might not be effective, as many young people use cell phones rather than land lines. This means that youth are not usually included in the traditional public opinion research that is used to shape policy and investment decisions.

To overcome this, the YVS project contacted a local leader in powering mobile communities and wireless social networking. The company issued a five-question poll by text message to its 15- 24-year-old clients, with dramatic results -- 3,000 replies were received in a single day.

While the results of this kind of poll are not statistically valid (because it’s not a random sample) the response rate was huge and fast. It showed that youth are willing to share their opinions and can be reached very quickly, if you use their preferred communication tools.

At Vancouver Foundation, we learned that, if we are serious about our concern for the world we leave our children, we should ask them what kind of world they want.

Youth Vital Signs survey showed us that -- whether they are part of an ethnic minority; gay or straight; a new immigrant or someone who has lived here their entire life; whether they live with their parents or in foster care – young people all want a roof over their head, safety on the streets, equal opportunities for education, a green and livable city, and a voice on the future of their community.

(* thanks to Lynne Slotek and her blog entry of October 15 for the paraphrased title).

Oct. 16-18: Stand Up and Make Poverty History

2009-10-16T07:00:00.002-04:00

Throughout the month of October the Vital Signs Canada blog will feature guest bloggers who are experts on various aspects of community vitality. Today's contributor is Dennis Howlett, National Coordinator, Make Poverty History.

My job is rewarding, but I’ll admit, working in the campaign to end poverty can sometimes get a little discouraging. Every time you seem to be making progress, dreadful things happen and it all starts rolling back down the hill.

That’s why for very personal reasons, I am so happy when “STAND UP” comes around. It’s restorative. For four years now, millions of people across this world of ours, come together over three days to "STAND UP AND TAKE ACTION NOW TO END POVERTY”. It’s inspiring. And it’s as if the event is on steroids, it’s growing so rapidly.

The first Stand Up in 2006 attracted 23. 5 million people, the next, 43.7 million and last year, an amazing 116.9 million citizens Stood Up, and took the Stand Up pledge. That is almost 2% of the world’s population! That sent a loud firm message to our political leaders that we want them to live up to the UN Millennium Development Goals and alleviate poverty at home and around the world.

We’ve broken the Guinness Book of Records for the largest human mobilization on record and this year, we expect that during Oct 16th, 17th and 18th, we’ll break it again. We’ve had scores of emails and calls from people in every province in Canada wanting to set up events.

People come together in the most creative ways. This year, STAND UPs will be happening at a Montreal football stadium, at a giant Pumpkin Toss in Edmonton and a Thrift Fair in Fort McMurray. The events involve groups as small as 10 – or 10,000. A lot of students get involved and they find wonderful ways to get the message across. On the day before Stand Up begins in Perth, Ontario every one in 6 students at St John Catholic School will paint a white stripe on his or her face to represent the 1 in 6 people who live in poverty. On Friday, all students will wear white shirts and create a giant white circle around the track to symbolize the Make Poverty History bands.

For Canadians this year, STAND UP has a special mission. Canada is hosting the G8/G20 meetings next June in Huntsville. It’s an opportunity for Canada to show bold leadership leading the fight against global poverty. Remember that discouraging bit I mentioned at the beginning? Right now, real progress that was finally underway reducing hunger, increasing education and creating steady economic growth in Africa has been kneecapped by the twin disasters of a global financial meltdown and climate chaos. Famine, drought and flooding are on a death march through Africa and Asia. Global leaders need to step up to the plate now.

The elimination of poverty at home is a critical part of STAND UP. We’ve joined with the DIGNITY FOR ALL campaign and we are determined to make both federal and provincial governments implement poverty reduction plans. Nothing makes me more shamed as a Canadian than the appalling statistics on the health and living conditions of Aboriginal Canadians.

Without a doubt, STAND UP does raise consciousness about these issues; it gets people mobilizing far beyond the 3 days of action. Our voices raised in unison are heard by the powerful. They are paying attention. Now we must convince them to keep their promises.

Join us on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, Oct 16-18…visit the MAKE POVERTY HISTORY website to find an event near you. You'll be inspired!

(Make Poverty History is part of the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP).The campaign was launched in Canada in 2005 with the support of a wide cross-section of public interest and faith groups, trade unions, students, academics, literary, artistic and sports leaders. National campaigns are now active in over 100 countries.)

Spotlight on Income Inequality

2009-10-15T14:42:00.006-04:00

Throughout the month of October the Vital Signs Canada blog will feature guest bloggers who are experts on various aspects of community vitality. Today's contributor Lynne Slotek, CEO, Institute of Wellbeing and National Project Director, Canadian Index of Wellbeing

In Vital Signs most recent report, ‘total income’ is the indicator used to provide a snapshot on ‘The Gap Between Rich and Poor’. According to Vital Signs, “income inequality in Canada has grown over the past 25 years, through both bad and good economic times… and the current economic challenges run the risk of worsening the trend.”

Recessions are a difficult way to learn a lesson. Still, there’s one thing that the current economic meltdown has taught us, and that is to question the notion that all growth is a sign of progress. The “growth is good” concept is one that has been increasingly reinforced by the dominance of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – a tool that was invented in the Great Depression and has often been misused as a surrogate for quality of life.

New times call for new measures. We need to adopt a new paradigm for the way we measure our wellbeing and think about ourselves and our world. Just as Vital Signs shines a light on the quality of life of communities, the Institute of Wellbeing with its signature product, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), is designed to do that at the national level.

One of the key goals of the Institute of Wellbeing is to connect the dots between Canadians’ public policy decisions and quality of life (measured by indicators) – to promote a new understanding of wellbeing and the interrelated factors that contribute to it; and to encourage policy makers to make evidence-based decisions that respond to the values and needs of Canadians.

In its First Report, How are Canadians Really doing? the CIW drew attention to the dynamic interactions among income, health and education. People with higher incomes and education tend to live longer, are less likely to have diabetes and other chronic conditions, and are consistently more likely to report excellent or very good health. “The stark reality”, the report says “is that household income continues to be the best predictor of future health status. This is true in all age groups and for both women and men.” For policy shapers and decision makers, it highlights the need to confront disparities in education and health, in addition to income in order to come up with real and sustainable solutions for poverty reduction.

The CIWs First Report’s message also clearly demonstrated that “the poor stayed poor”. The poverty gap – the amount of money by which the average poor family fell short of the poverty line – was the same in 2007 as it was in 1981. At the same time, “the rich got richer”. The after-tax income of the top 20 percent of households rose 38.7 percent from 1981-2007 while the increases for all other income groups were between 21.4 and 25.8 percent.

The recession is not helping. In July 2009, the Institute of Wellbeing, released a Special Report, The Economic Crisis through the Lens of Economic Wellbeing. The report comments that the current recession will erase many of the economic and standard of living gains made since the mid-1990s. Unemployment and poverty will likely continue to rise and stay at high levels for years. The report points out that there has been a great loss of income since the onset of the recession and the hardest hit have been the bottom 20 percent of households. Based on previous recessions, the report predicts that unemployment will likely peak at around 10 percent in 2010 and the poverty rate will rise to 13.2 percent in 2010.

There is a wealth of information on income inequality in this country. About 11.4 percent of the total population, or nearly 3.5 million Canadians, including nearly 880,000 children aged 17 years and under, lived in low-income in 2005 (Statistics Canada 2008b). According to the OECD (2008), both inequality and poverty rates in Canada are now higher than the OECD average. The Senate of Canada, Subcommittee on Cities (2008) reported that “labour force participation is no longer enough to keep Canadians out of poverty.” And Food Banks Canada (2008) report that nearly 15 percent of food bank users in Canada get all their income from work and still aren’t able to care for and feed their family. Despite all of this, in June 2009, Canada rejected the UN Human Rights Council recommendation for the development of a national strategy to eliminate poverty.

So, what does this mean for policy application? The Institute’s Living Standards report links changes in the income inequality of Canadians with specific government public policy decisions. Some policy decisions have been harmful to wellbeing, such as changes to Employment Insurance and the significantly lower Welfare Benefits in 2007 than in 1986. On the other hand, the introduction of the Child Tax Credit and the National Child Benefits Supplement in the mid 90s, has provided additional income to poor working families and has lowered the poverty rate for this group somewhat – a good start towards Canadian wellbeing.

We can learn from these examples of policy decisions. The CIW, Community Foundations of Canada, other partners, and concerned Canadians, are engaging in dialogue to discover new possibilities. Sometimes, confronted with the need for significant and immediate change to complex problems, we fall back on band-aid solutions. To do so, means that we will still be looking at the same challenges or worse, come the next recession. Instead, let’s find innovative and sustainable solutions that confront root problems in integrated ways.

2009-10-14T12:07:00.003-04:00

Today’s Globe & Mail features our two-page Canada’s Vital Signs insert which features Vital Signs stories from across the country and the results of CFC’s new public opinion survey about quality of life in our communities, conducted by Environics Research Group.

Download the PDF version of the insert.

Read today’s commentary about the survey results, featured in the online edition of today’s Globe and Mail, written by Monica Patten, CFC’s President and CEO and Michael Adams of Environics, (below)

Quality of life differs based on community size

2009-10-14T07:00:00.005-04:00

Throughout the month of October the Vital Signs Canada blog will feature guest bloggers who are experts on various aspects of community vitality. Today's contributor is Michael Adams, Environics Research, and Monica Patten, President and CEO of Community Foundations of Canada. This piece was also published in the Oct. 14 online edition of The Globe and Mail.

Toronto Mayor David Miller might be the only prominent figure in history to leave a high-powered job claiming he wants to spend more time with his family—and actually mean it. Explaining his decision not to run for a third term as mayor, Miller discussed in detail the moments of his kids' lives he had missed during his six years at the reins of Canada's largest city, and said that his first post-mayoral gig will be to serve as assistant coach to his 14-year-old daughter's soccer team.

The public might have been forgiven for initially assuming, "I need more time with my family," was code for, "I am tired of trying to run a 21st century city in a 19th century system." Like many societies around the world, Canada has urbanized at a tremendous rate over the last century. According to Statistics Canada, the proportion of the Canadian population living in urban regions was 80 percent in 2006—a dramatic shift from the start of the 20th century, when just 37 percent of us lived in urban regions. Moreover, the demographics of our cities have changed radically: once dominated by people of European heritage, they are now populated by immigrants and the descendants of immigrants from everywhere on the planet, including increasing numbers of Aboriginal peoples.

Many of our systems—political, economic, infrastructural—have had a hard time keeping pace with this massive demographic shift. Mayor Miller was handling not only the ordinary managerial issues that face any municipal leader (a city workers' strike over the summer was one recent hurdle) but also the broader systemic challenge of leading a fast-growing city with one of the most diverse populations on earth, while wielding very little power to generate revenue or fund advances in areas like planning, transit, and infrastructure. Citizens watch in dismay as their mayors implore senior governments for a share of their own tax dollars, like children begging for candy, and wonder who is to blame in this perennial charade.

A recent survey of Canadian public attitudes suggests that people living in Canada's larger cities are less satisfied with local quality of life than people living in smaller towns—a finding that may suggest this country's urbanites are feeling the lag between what their cities need in order to thrive and what existing systems are able to provide.

In August, 2009, Community Foundations of Canada commissioned Environics to survey Canadians about the quality of life they experience in their communities across the country. The survey found that Canadians are generally very pleased with the quality of life they enjoy locally. Nearly nine in ten describe quality of life where they live as at least good, and over a third (36%) describe it as excellent. But there is a notable variation by community size in the quality of life Canadians report. Among those in communities of fewer than 5,000 residents, 43 percent rate local quality of life as excellent, as compared to 32 percent of those in cities of 100,000 people or more.

Life in smaller towns isn't perfect: Canadians in smaller centres report a greater sense of urgency about revitalizing their local economies and obtaining better health care close to home. But overall, residents of smaller towns are not only more satisfied today, they also have more confidence that their local leaders are capable of making the changes necessary to improve life in their communities over time.

When Canadians are asked about their confidence in various forms of leadership, they say they have the greatest faith in the leaders of charities and community organizations to make a positive difference in their communities. Three quarters of Canadians (77%) have at least some confidence in those in the charitable sector, while business leaders (70%), and elected municipal leaders (63%) inspire less—but still majority—confidence. One in two Canadians (50%) sees local religious leaders as likely to improve local quality of life. But here again we find notable differences between big-city residents and people in smaller towns: Canadians in communities of 5,000 people or fewer express higher levels of confidence in every type of local leadership.

Do small-town leaders inspire greater trust because, rooted in smaller communities, they are more likely to know their voters, customers, donors, and spiritual adherents personally? Probably. But it's also likely that small-town leaders really are more equal to the challenges of their local communities because the challenges of small towns have not changed as rapidly as those of big cities, which are more likely to be sites of immigrant integration challenges, transportation conundrums, pandemic threats, organized crime, large-scale waste and energy issues, and other pressing contemporary worries.

Recognizing that the challenges our cities face are immense and urgent, leaders from a range of backgrounds and sectors have begun to tackle urban issues with new seriousness. These leaders recognize that urbanization has caused a seismic change in the way Canadians relate to each other and engage with the state—and that cities can't wait for provincial or federal powers to make the necessary changes.

The Maytree Foundation, for instance, has called for more power and autonomy for Canadian cities, and launched the C5 initiative, which brings together the mayors and civil society leaders of Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal to share information and ideas. Community foundations in Canada are active partners with Maytree, along with a host of other community-based organizations. As well, local community foundations are currently working to advance a range of important projects with other partners, from a city-wide poverty-reduction project in Hamilton to targeted education programs in some of Winnipeg’s poorest neighbourhoods. Some urban solutions are coming from government, but many—as ordinary Canadians seem to have already whiffed—are coming from business and civil-society organizations that are less constrained by jurisdictional boundaries and systemic inertia.

As Canada's big cities continue to grow, and a dwindling oil supply suggests that density may be the only way forward, we will need all the help we can get in finding ways to make our urban centres wonderful places to live, work and participate—for mayors, kids, assistant soccer coaches, and everyone else.

The Importance of Aboriginal Education

2009-10-13T13:16:00.000-04:00

Throughout the month of October the Vital Signs Canada blog will feature guest bloggers who are experts on various aspects of community vitality. Today's contributor is Dr. Andrew Sharpe, Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards.

Canada’s Aboriginal population is in crisis. In 2007, the National Council of Welfare concluded that, “To date, no governmental response has made major inroads into the issues” faced by Aboriginal people. Improving the social and economic well-being of the Aboriginal population is not only a moral imperative; it is a sound investment which will pay substantial dividends in the coming decades. Aboriginal education must be a key component in any such effort.

In recognition of the educational challenges facing Canada’s aboriginal population, the Vital Signs initiative led by Community Foundations of Canada this year selected the aboriginal high school completion rate as one of the 10 core indicators to be used in the Vital Signs reports released by 16 community foundations across the county. The objective of this article is to highlight some of this key facts and issues related to aboriginal education, building on research that the Centre for the Study of Living Standards has conducted for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (Sharpe et al, 2007 and Sharpe et al, 2009).

The importance of the Aboriginal population for Canada and the Canadian economy is best exemplified by these key observations:

In 2006, the Aboriginal identity population made up 4.0 per cent of the Canadian population, with 1,311,200 persons.
The Aboriginal population is much younger than the average Canadian, with a median age in 2006 of only 26.5 years, compared to 39.5 years for all Canadians.
Aboriginal Canadians aged 15 and over have a much lower educational attainment than their non-Aboriginal counterparts with 43.7 per cent not holding any certificate, diploma or degree in 2006, compared to 23.1 per cent for other Canadians.
As a result, the labour market outcomes for Aboriginal Canadians are significantly inferior to the Canadian average. In 2006, Aboriginal Canadians had lower incomes, a higher unemployment rate, a lower participation rate, and a lower employment rate.
Aboriginal people with a high school diploma or higher had significantly better labour market outcomes, both in absolute terms and relative to non-Aboriginal Canadians than those who did not.
In 2026, using the medium growth projection for Aboriginal and the General population, the Aboriginal population is projected to make up 4.6 per cent of the Canadian population.

Given these observations, Canada’s Aboriginal population could play a key role in mitigating the looming long term labour shortage caused by Canada’s ageing population and low birth rate. The potential contribution of the Aboriginal population to Canadian labour force and employment growth could be even larger than predicted by simple demographic trends because their participation and employment rates currently lag far behind the Canadian average. Indeed, if Aboriginal participation and employment rates reach 2006 non-Aboriginal levels by 2026, it is projected that the Aboriginal population will account for 19.9 per cent of labour force growth and 22.1 per cent of employment growth over the 2006-2026 period. In other words, if in 2026 Aboriginal people experienced the same labour market outcomes as non-Aboriginal people did in 2006, the Aboriginal share of the Aboriginal population to the Canadian labour force would nearly double by 2026. This equates to nearly 200,000 additional productive Canadian workers. Given that educational attainment is one of the key driver of participation and employment rates, there are clear incentives for the Canadian government to make Aboriginal education a priority. If in fact Aboriginal education were not prioritized, the drag on Canadian productivity caused by below average Aboriginal education will grow as the Aboriginal population’s share of Canada’s labour force increases over time.

CSLS research has concluded the following.

Education is by far the most important determinant of labour market outcomes, and also plays a preeminent role improving social outcomes.
Given the demographic structure of the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, Aboriginal people will undoubtedly play a significant role in shaping the economic future of Canada, and in particular that of the Western provinces.
As a result, if businesses are to thrive in the environment of limited labour supply that is currently developing in Canada, they will need to integrate an increasing number of Aboriginal people into the labour force. If these individuals do not possess the necessary skills, businesses will suffer.
In addition, the long-term fiscal impact for governments of better education and better social outcomes for the Aboriginal population are massive. If government want to deal with looming fiscal issues, addressing the pressing needs of Aboriginal today may be part of the solution.
Finally, increased education can have dynamic effect on the leadership capacity of the Aboriginal community and therefore may underestimate the contribution of increased education of Aboriginal Canadians to future output and productivity growth. Better educated Aboriginal Canadians will be more effective leaders and thereby provide better direction for the economic development of Aboriginal communities.

Investing in disadvantaged children is one of the rare public policy with no equity-efficiency tradeoff. Increasing the number of Aboriginal Canadians who complete high school is a low-hanging fruit with far-reaching and considerable economic and social benefits for Canadians.

The key message is clear: investing in Aboriginal education will not only benefit the Aboriginal population itself, but will also benefit Canadian governments and businesses, and, by extension, the entire Canadian population. Increased output will drive up productivity which is the key driver of our standard of living. Furthermore, decreased government cost and increased government revenue will provide Canadian government with the fiscal flexibility needed to cut taxes, increase services or reduce debt.

References

National Council of Welfare, (2007). “First Nations, Métis and Inuit Children and Youth: Time to Act” available online at http://www.ncwcnbes.net/documents/researchpublications/ResearchProjects/FirstNationsMétisInuitChildrenAndYouth/2007Report-TimeToAct/ReportENG.pdf
Sharpe, Andrew, Jean-Francois Arsenault and Simon Lapointe (2007) “The Potential Contribution of Aboriginal Canadians to Labour Force, Employment, Productivity and Output Growth in Canada, 2001-2017,” CSLS Research Report No. 2007-6, November. http://www.csls.ca/reports/csls2007-04.PDF
Sharpe, Andrew, Jean-Francois Arsenault, Simon Lapointe and Fraser Cowan (2009) “The Effect of Increasing Aboriginal Educational Attainment on the Labour Force, Output and the Fiscal Balance, ” CSLS Research Report No. 2009-3, May. http://www.csls.ca/reports/csls2009-3.pdf

Young workers highly vulnerable in our unsettled economy

2009-10-09T07:00:00.010-04:00

Throughout the month of October the Vital Signs Canada blog will feature guest bloggers who are experts on various aspects of community vitality. Today's contributor is Dr. Sharon Manson Singer, President and CEO of Canadian Policy Research Networks.

Collaboration between public and private sectors the key to enhancing youth employment

The recent Community Foundations of Canada (CFC) Vital Signs report on youth unemployment highlights that young workers (ages 15-24) are particularly vulnerable when economic times get tough. According to the report, the youth unemployment rate stands at 16.3% -- a staggering figure which is expected to grow faster than unemployment in the general population. For those youth lucky enough to be employed, the average work hours per week (a meager 23.4) are the lowest in more than 30 years.

Youth have always been some of the most vulnerable workers in our society and often get left behind in policies and programs designed to enhance job skills, training and employment. Last year, Canadian Policy Research Networks (CPRN) published a series of research papers entitled, Pathways for Youth to the Labour Market which examines how young people in Canada navigate from school to the labour market, and the outcomes associated with taking different paths. Our research found that Canadian youth often take a non-linear route to the labour market, taking time off from their studies or switching educational programs – a reality our government and school training and employment-readiness programs do not always accommodate.

CPRN research confirms that graduates of post-secondary education (university, college and trades programs) are more likely to be employed and earn more than those who only have a high school diploma, high school dropouts, and even those who temporarily take a break from high school (but later graduate). This means that the link between education and employment is critical, and that career development programs and services that can increase educational attainment for Canadian youth, and help ready young people for the jobs that match their interests and skills, are paramount.

Unfortunately we found that career development services for youth in Canada are (with some notable exceptions) largely fragmented, inconsistently funded, piecemeal and difficult for young Canadians to access. We also found that much more needs to be done to encourage an emphasis on a vocational curriculum in high schools, and to enable partnerships between schools (secondary and post-secondary) and employers, and to strengthen co-operative and apprenticeship programs in the public and private sectors.

Our research series highlights opportunities for schools and governments to expand and coordinate resources between regions to enhance learning pathways for Canadian youth, and highlights the need for a national career development strategy for youth or national standards for service quality and provision. But governments are not the only players.

CPRN research also highlights the important place of business and the labour movement in career training and guidance. In our Youth Dialogue on learning and work, more than 140 youth from across Canada told us that they feel they did not have the appropriate information about the array of careers open to them. They called for more, and better, information on both employment and educational opportunities, including entrepreneurial paths and the trades. Canada falls well below other developed countries on employer investment in workplace learning – so there is an opportunity here. The private sector in partnership with schools and governments could work together to help accommodate this need and better prepare Canadian youth for the labour market.

Canada will soon experience a significant inter-generational transfer of employees with a large outflow of baby boomers from the labour force; at the same time, Canada will require a highly skilled labour force to compete in today’s global markets. Increasing resources and attention to targeted youth education, training and employment programs will have lasting benefits for the Canadian economy as a whole. If we are to increase our productivity as a country we cannot afford to let this generation drift off. This is not just about their future, but our future as well.

Dr. Sharon Manson Singer is the President of Canadian Policy Research Networks (CPRN), a leading non-partisan think tank providing socio-economic policy research and engagement to Canadian leaders. Follow CPRN on http://twitter.com/CanadianPolicy.

www.jobquality.ca

To assist youth, and others, to navigate through the labour market, CPRN runs the website JobQuality.ca which is sponsored by governments, labour and the private sector alike, and provides information on the quality of jobs in Canada. Site information includes news articles and reports, interviews and online surveys, as well as job quality indicators on such issues as work-life balance, job security, job design, pay

Measuring Up: A New Approach to Assessing Aboriginal Learning

2009-10-08T07:00:00.020-04:00

Throughout the month of October the Vital Signs Canada blog will feature guest bloggers who are experts on various aspects of community vitality. Today's contributor is Dr. Paul Cappon, President and CEO of the Canadian Council on Learning.

As the majority of those reading this will be aware, the connection between lifelong learning and community well-being is a long-established one. This is reflected in the annual Vital Signs Canada report, which evaluates quality of life in 16 Canadian communities by using a measure of 10 domains, from health and housing to safety and the environment. It should come as no surprise that learning has earned a spot on this list.

The 2009 Vital Signs report highlights a fact of Aboriginal education that has been constant for more than a decade; that attendance and completion rates for Aboriginal learners in high school and university are much lower than for non-Aboriginal learners. Although these are important statistics, indicators like high-school completion rates are only part of the larger picture of lifelong learning for Aboriginal people in Canada.

Since its founding in 2004, the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) has identified Aboriginal learning as a key area of learning in need of further research and attention.

In order to better report on the state of Aboriginal learning in Canada, CCL began by asking an important question: How do Aboriginal Peoples view success in learning?

Despite their cultural, historical and geographic diversity, Aboriginal people share a common vision of learning as something that is more than simply an individual pursuit. To the majority of Aboriginal people, learning is a means of nurturing relationships between the individual, the family, the community and the Creator. It is the primary process of transmitting values and identity, the guarantor of cultural continuity—and its value to the individual cannot be separated from its contribution to the collective well-being.

In contemporary terminology, Aboriginal learning strengthens a community’s social capital. This more ‘holistic’ view of learning is all encompassing and demands recognition as an integrated whole.

Historically, conventional indicators of success in learning have failed to reflect Aboriginal Peoples fuller vision of lifelong learning. That’s why in 2007, CCL initiated a partnership with First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities and organizations across Canada to develop a more appropriate set of tools to measure progress in learning. The initiative, Redefining how Success is Measured in Aboriginal Learning, resulted in the development of three Holistic Lifelong Learning Models which reflect First Nations, Inuit and Métis perspectives on learning.

The models shift the emphasis from an external approach that focused on learning deficits relative to non-Aboriginal standards, to a more expansive, or holistic, approach that recognizes and builds on success in their own terms.

Developed in partnership with Aboriginal learners and educators, the three models helped identify indicators required to measure success, which are illustrated in the interactive versions of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis models.

Since then, CCL has used the models as the frameworks in which to report on learning in Aboriginal communities; whether it’s in the school, the home, the community, at the workplace or on the land. With this data in hand, we’ve been able to draft our first State of Aboriginal Learning in Canada (which is scheduled for a December 2009 release) that we hope will help redefine not only how Aboriginal learning is measured, but how it is understood and perceived by all.

We look forward to working with our many partners in this initiative, including the Community Foundations of Canada, to help integrate this research into their future reports, policies and programs.

Vital Signs Day 2: Local issues in the media spotlight

2009-10-07T15:15:00.005-04:00

• Toronto’s immigrants increasingly marginalized despite living in Canada’s most diverse city

• "Every school should have this program." Aboriginal students in Hamilton are completing high school at a rate ten times the national average

• Oakville shows third highest gap between the rich and poor among this year's VS participants

• The economy in Saint John is doing exceptionally well at handling the economic downturn, however there’s a significant shortage of beds in shelters and nursing homes and health concerns are growing

• In Guelph, the richest 10 per cent of families earn six times more than do the poorest 10 per cent

• Taking early action on poverty is key, especially as the number of poor elderly increases in Waterloo

• Although still a top concern, in Calgary residents gave their city a better mark on housing this year over 2008

• Mental health, particularly among youth is a top concern in Ottawa

• Red Deer’s Vital Signs revealed that law and order is perceived by residents as the number one concern. The same day the city announced plans to address security in the downtown core

What's making early headlines across the country

2009-10-06T17:06:00.007-04:00

Today Canadians awoke to tv and radio broadcasts announcing major social and health trends affecting Canadians.

Two significant findings – one on low infant birthweights, and the other a surge in youth unemployment were featured on CBC radio and Canada AM respectively.

On the local scene, the following made early news:
* Central Okanagan’s first Vital Signs Report reveals public concerned about two main issues: the gap between rich and poor and housing
* Calgarians feeling safer as crime rate dips below the national average
* Ottawa needs to make health improvements its top priority
* Medicine Hat’s residents are relying more on EI and food banks as a result of the recession
* Red Deer residents rate law & order top concern, despite drop in crime rate
* Toronto is described a city of contradictions, an affluent community where the poor get poorer
* Waterloo is experiencing rapid urbanization and an increase in the number of elderly living in poverty
* Victoria residents give their city high marks though youth surveyed are critical of area’s income disparity
* Wolfville's first report report reveals economic inequality and a high child poverty rate

Watch for more key news coverage tomorrow and follow us on Twitter for the latest news coverage and information about Vital Signs 2009.