Blog

The Lord Dufferin Centre situated just steps from downtown Orangeville was the perfect venue for yesterday's Collective Impact workshop. About 25 people mainly from the Dufferin County region gathered to hear Sylvia Cheuy (pronounced 'choi') explain what Collective Impact is all about. Sylvia who has the interesting title of Director, Deepening Community Engagement for Tamarack (http://tamarackcommunity.ca/) made a strong case for using Collective Impact to help solve complex community issues like poverty. Tamarack's website is loaded with information and resources about CI so check it out. The Collective Impact Summit conference starts Sept. 28 in Vancouver and Conference details are available at Tamarack’s website http://tamarackcommunity.ca/.

Keith Palmer, Dufferin County's Director of Community Services was on hand to share news about a new community initiative he is bringing before Council next month. "DC MOVES" plans to engage community stakeholders to share information and mobilize action on the important community issues facing Dufferin County. Sounds like a terrific opportunity to use Collective Impact to me.

Measuring the progress being made tackling complex community change isn't easy. The Rural Ontario Institute with financial support from the Provincial Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing has launched "Measuring Rural Community Vitality" to enable information sharing, capture of practitioner insights and lessons learned, and enable the peer exchange of best practices surrounding these hard to measure aspects of community change. Contact Mark Cassidy at mcassidy@ruralontarioinstitute.ca for more information or visit our project webpage at http://www.ruralontarioinstitute.ca/measuring-community-vitality.aspx.