Vibrant Communties
Vibrant Communities is an initiative of the Tamarack Institute for Community Engagement, the Caledon Institute of Social Policy and The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation. A comprehensive place-based national program, Vibrant Communities aims to reduce poverty in selected Canadian cities and at least 100,000 individual households by 2011.
Launched in 2003, it now includes 13 ‘Trail Builder’ communities that have undertaken locally-designed initiatives led and implemented by groups comprising municipal leaders, businesspeople, community organizations and people living in poverty.
Linked to the Trail Builders is a larger learning community of interested stakeholders amongst all levels of government, donors and activists, collectively learning from and contributing to anti-poverty activities.
Strategic Vision
Through this initiative, the Foundation envisions communities where people and resources are mobilized to fight poverty and exclusion, becoming more inclusive, resilient and sustainable.
Granting Total
$7,285,000.
Program History
Since Vibrant Communities started in 2003, 13 communities, from Saint John to Victoria, have become Trail Builders. Each selected city has a multi-stakeholder managing body, raising funds locally to match the Foundation’s contribution (since 2003, $2,430,000 in grants to the communities has leveraged a further $4,998,000 from other sources). As recently as June 2008, 56,806 households have received support through measures affecting access to housing, asset development, employer practices and income supports. A total of 1,985 organizations have been active participants (non-profit 621; government 423; business 425; low income 127).
In the learning stream, there have been 26 teleconferences on topics such as innovation and leadership, living wage and employer practices, community-government collaboration and so on). Face-to-face regional and annual meetings have also taken place, including the annual Tamarack-sponsored Communities Collaborating Institute.
Analytical papers have been published by the Caledon Institute; other educational tools are available from Tamarack.
Vibrant Communities programs are now underway in Abbotsford, Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, Montreal, Saint John, St. John's, Surrey, Trois-Rivières, Victoria, Waterloo and Winnipeg.
Key Lessons
- Quantitative indicators are important but often problematic (for example, there is still not agreement on how to define poverty). All stakeholders must agree in advance on how outcomes are to be measured.
- Creating a common platform to combat poverty allows a more multi-faceted strategy and broad-based support than piece-meal approaches, but collaboration takes time and requires skills that must be fostered and developed.
- Using a matching formula for external funding mobilizes additional resources and reinforces local ownership.
- A learning community in tandem with the program helps to share lessons and can also inform and motivate people and communities that are not yet ready to carry out their own anti-poverty strategies.
- At an operational level the three principal partners played distinct roles as facilitators, trainers and guides; researchers, data-gatherers and knowledge managers; and funders. In this way, each stuck to their area of competence but contributed to a joint undertaking.
- Maintaining continuity of staff is often difficult through the implementation phase, and too-rapid turnover carries a heavy price in lost experience, relationships and institutional memory.