About the Event

This event is for community engagers, practitioners, and innovators. It is an opportunity to come together with inspirational leaders from across the country and beyond to share ideas, successes and failures and to take this learning home and apply it to the community change work you're passionate about.

This event is about building the five interconnected practices that are vital to getting to impact when tackling complex community challenges - diving deep in an area you haven't explored or getting acquainted with different leverage points that may be missing from your community changemaker toolkit.

This event will inspire. It will build capacities. It will build connections. Most importantly, it will give us a chance to CELEBRATE with others who dedicate their time, wisdom and passion to making communities stronger.

Collective Impact

One of the biggest challenges facing community change leaders is impacting systems and policies to improve the well-being of citizens. In 2011, FSG in the United States defined an approach to large-scale, system-wide community change called Collective Impact. The Collective Impact idea provides a useful framework for community change and is situated within the broad frame of collaborative efforts focused on systems and policy change. Tamarack collaborates with colleagues in Canada, the United States and internationally to intentionally build the field of practice in Collective Impact and collaborative community change efforts.

Community Engagement

Community Engagement is the process by which citizens are engaged to work and learn together on behalf of their communities to create and realize bold visions for the future. We apply the theory to community contexts and teach and coach organizations, municipalities and groups to engage their communities meaningfully. We stress the importance of approaching engagement with an outcomes-based lens, of always involving context experts, and to provide community ownership of solutions whenever possible. We specialize in applying Community Engagement to systems-thinking in order to work collaboratively for community-wide change.

Community Innovation

We see Community Innovation as a particular form of social innovation that is place-based, within the specific geography of a community. As dynamic ‘living labs’, communities offer the perfect container for innovation. Through our experience with community change, we have come to understand that to be effective, innovation requires an appreciation of both the issue one is hoping to address, as well as a deep understanding of the unique characteristics of the community – the place and the people within it – where the innovation will be implemented.

Collaborative Leadership

The premise of Collaborative Leadership says: If you bring the appropriate people together in constructive ways with good information, they will create authentic visions and strategies for addressing the shared concerns of the organization and community. When collaboration works, it reproduces and builds the characteristics of civic community, allowing us to deal with future issues in constructive ways. Collaboration builds social capital. Collaboration is the new leadership, and we work with communities and organizations to implement Collaborative Leadership processes to achieve impact.

The learning arc

At the Community Change Festival the learning doesn't just happen at the gathering itself. We will be releasing a series of papers and webinars across the five interconnected practices leading up to the festival which will offer you some foundational thinking to bring with you to the event, as well as releasing resources after the event in response to the challenges and opportunities we uncover during our time together.

The Community Change Festival will take you on a journey. Each activity builds on others, helping you leave confident and inspired to drive community change.

Check out the papers we've released so far below, and visit the Resources tab for a full list of Learning Arc Resources.

Creating Containers and Co-Design: Transforming Collaboration

By: Liz Weaver, Co-CEO, Tamarack Learning Centre

Read the Paper

Community Engagement - A Foundational Practice of Community Change

By: Sylvia Cheuy, Tamarack Consulting Director, Community Engagement

Read the Paper

An Overview of Community Innovation Trends - Part One: Design-Based Approaches

By: Galen MacLusky, Tamarack Consulting Director, Community Innovation

Read the Paper

This Festival is all about the Five Idea Areas - Collective Impact, Community Engagement, Collaborative Leadership, Community Innovation and Evaluating Impact. That's why our 5 Idea Faculty is comprised of experts on each. On our final day together we will also have the opportunity to hear from and engage in dialogue around the topic of the Future of Community Change – Overcoming Power and Privilege with Greater Good Studio Founder, George Aye.

Meet George AYE

George co-founded Greater Good Studio with the belief that design can lead to positive behaviour change.Previously, he spent seven years at global innovation firm IDEO before being hired as the first human-centered designer at the Chicago Transit Authority. Since founding Greater Good, he has worked across multiple social issues including autism, criminal justice, education, public health and health care. George is an Adjunct Full Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. With his co-founder, he was awarded the TED Prize City 2.0 (2012) and recognized in the Public Interest Design 100 list (2013).

Meet Our 5 idea faculty

Liz Weaver

Liz is Co-CEO of the Tamarack Institute, and is also Tamarack's resident expert on all things Collective Impact. Liz is well-known for her thought leadership on collective impact and is the author of several popular and academic papers on the topic. She is a co-catalyst partner with the Collective Impact Forum and leads a collective impact capacity building strategy with the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

Consulting Director, Collective Impact

Sylvia Cheuy

Sylvia is an internationally recognized community-builder and trainer. Over the past five years, much of Sylvia’s work has focused on building awareness and capacity in the areas of Collective Impact and Community Engagement throughout North America.

Consulting Director, Community Engagement

Galen MacLusky

Galen is a Consulting Director of the Tamarack Institute’s Community Innovation Idea Area. He is passionate about working with community organizations to help build and scale new ideas that deepen their impact. An experienced design, innovation, and co-creation consultant, at the core of his work are approaches that help organizations engage with those who are impacted by their services and test new programs and services with minimal investment.

Consulting Director, Community Innovation

Mark Cabaj

Mark is President of the consulting company From Here to There and an Associate of Tamarack Institute. Mark’s current focus is on developing practical ways to understand, plan and evaluate efforts to address complex issues (e.g. neighborhood renewal, poverty and homelessness, community safety, educational achievement and health). He has first-hand knowledge of using evaluation as a policy maker, philanthropist, and activist, and has played a big role in promoting the emerging practice of developmental evaluation in Canada.

Associate Director, Evaluating Impact

Loisann Hauer

Loisann is an organization, leadership and learning strategy professional whose expertise lies in providing leaders with the knowledge, strategies and solutions for complex environments. This includes systems-oriented approaches that enhance leadership capabilities, foster organizational learning, lead sustainable change, and influence culture development and business performance.

Idea Lead, Collaborative Leadership

A Festival CELEBRATION

This gathering is not just about strengthening your community change competencies, but about celebrating the amazing work that is being done by leaders like you all across the country and beyond. Throughout our time together we will: enjoy artistic performances by local artists; explore the city we're in and celebrate the local projects that are taking place within it; make time and space to connect, socialize and learn from one another; and, offer opportunities to contribute to the emerging learning community that we will create together throughout the week.

All are welcome

We want to make sure no one misses out on this opportunity, so if you are an early career community change leader, youth leader or work for a small not-for-profit and need support to attend, check out how to apply for scholarships here - deadline is July 15th.

Community Change Festival

250

Changemakers

12

Tool Sessions

15

5 Idea Sessions

8

Provocateurs

10

Immersive City Experiences

About the Event

A Festival of Ideas

Collective Impact

Community Engagement

Community Innovation

Collaborative Leadership

Evaluating Impact

The learning arc

Our Festival Faculty

Meet George AYE

Liz Weaver

Sylvia Cheuy

Galen MacLusky

Mark Cabaj

Loisann Hauer

A Festival CELEBRATION

“I’ve travelled enough to realize there are brilliant people in every community who know solutions. They don’t need saviours, they need allies.”

The Community Change Festival will take place at the Toronto Metro Convention Centre

Thank you to our partners