Strategic decisions regarding a collaborative group’s governance, planning, funding, staffing, technical assistance, and evaluation will all influence both the process and the product of the initiative's work.
On this page you’ll find examples, research and techniques from Vibrant Communities’ experience related to:
Collaborative leadership groups work to engage the broader community in longer term, broader community change effort, using influence and relationships to encourage change, rather than top down authority.
These resources describe the ideas and practices in collaborative governance that have emerged in Vibrant Communities.
Background Papers
Patterns of Governance - A practical description of governance models, challenges and questions from six communities participating in the Vibrant Communities initiative prepared by Mabel Jean Brannan. Coming Soon.
Operational Versus Adaptive Leadership - A description of the principles and implications two distinct, but overlapping, kinds of leadership required to steward community efforts to tackle poverty: traditional operational leadership, with its focus on managing staffing and resources, and adaptive leadership, with its emphasis on bringing together stakeholders in a creative, often tension filled, emergent problem solving process. Coming Soon.
Online Seminars
Coming 2009-2010!
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One of the central tasks for the members of a local effort to reduce poverty is to create a comprehensive strategy to guide their long-term effort.
The process is usually highly participatory, designed to address more than one root cause of poverty, iterative, and takes into account the complexities of building consensus and commitment amongst diverse stakeholders. The resources below are based on ideas and techniques developed over the past six years of Vibrant Communities.
Background Papers
Building a Framework for Change to Reduce Poverty - A resource developed collectively by the coaches and communities participating in Vibrant Communities to develop, monitor and upgrade a framework for change, the basis upon which a community can craft concrete strategies and plans, evaluate progress, and communicate its approach to the broader public. Coming Soon.
Aides for Action
The Poverty Matrix: Understanding Poverty in Your Community - An aide developed by Mark Cabaj to assist groups frame and understand the different levels of poverty (e.g. working poor, homeless) and its impact across different demographic groups (e.g. youth, seniors, immigrants, etc.) in their community. Access the aide here.
Making An Impact: Screening & Selecting Opportunities for Poverty Reduction - An aide developed by Mark Cabaj to assist groups explore and make decisions about which poverty reduction strategies to pursue in a transparent and systematic manner. Access the aide here.
A Comprehensive Approach to Poverty Using Strategic Drivers: An Aide for Action - An aide developed by Garry Loewen to assist groups develop and link multiple poverty reduction strategies in a manageable way. The resource incorporates the resiliency framework outlined by Sherri Torjman of the Caledon Institute for Social Policy. Access the aide here.
Online Seminars
Coming 2009-2010!
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Traditional approaches to evaluation are rarely designed to capture the scale, depth and complexity of a community’s change effort. Organizers struggle to meaningfully engage a diverse group of stakeholders, each with different information needs, provide timely feedback, and adapt to often rapidly changing environments and poverty reduction strategies.
In Vibrant Communities, communities and sponsors have experimented with a variety of evaluation approaches that address these limitations, to contribute to the newly emerging field of developmental evaluation.
Vibrant Communities also hosts an Evaluation Community of Practice, where practitioners meet regularly by teleconference and online for learning opportunities. Although our communities of practice are focused on poverty reduction, anyone involved in multisectoral collaborations is welcome to join them. To learn more, visit our page on Communities of Practice.
Background Papers
Measuring Less Poverty - While poverty in communities is often measured through income rates or percentages of low income households, broader measures include elements such as social inclusion, community development and well-being. This paper provides an overview of different approaches which organizations and governments have used to measure “less poverty”. Access the paper here.
Measuring More Vibrant Communities - Some community wellbeing indicator systems look across a broad selection of domains to provide a holistic approach with the potential for more complete picture of a community. This paper provides an overview of different approaches which organizations and governments have used to measure “more vibrant communities”. Access the paper here.
Measuring More Collaboration - This paper provides an overview of different approaches which organizations and governments have used to measure “collaboration”. Access the paper here.
Measuring More Community Engagement - This paper explores metrics drawn from a variety of sources including Vibrant Community experiences and local, national and international sources, that measure the engagement of citizens in their communities. Access the paper here.
Are the Outcomes the Best Outcomes? - This report by Sherri Torjman challenges the obsession with outcomes as part of the current preoccupation with accountability. While she recognizes and concurs with the importance of setting and trying to meet clearly defined targets, she argues that many crucial and equally important developments inadvertently can be overlooked in the quest to quantify. Access the report here.
Learning and Evaluation for Poverty Reduction - The paper explores the issues involved in evaluating comprehensive community initiatives. It discusses the ‘theory of change’ approach to evaluation. This approach is based on the assumption that there is a sequence of events which must take place, and that build upon each other and connect in a logical fashion, in order to effect any complex change. Access the paper here.
Aides for Action
Tamarack staff participated in the small Developmental Evaluation Training Group sponsored by Du Pont Canada and the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation and Vibrant Communities was one of the first programs in Canada to experiment with this approach.
Emerging Learning about Developmental Evaluation – This primer, written by Jamie Gamble, considers developmental evaluation and includes an overview of the approach, patterns and insights that are emerging from its use. Access the primer here.
Capturing and Making Sense of Collaborative Outcomes: A Resource Kit - The aide contains a variety of techniques, aides and methodologies that have emerged out the day-to-day work of community efforts to evaluate the results of their comprehensive and collaborative efforts to reduce poverty. Coming Soon.
Online Seminars
Measuring Community Change - This four part series looks at evaluation within Vibrant communities and other poverty reduction movements, and explores four metrics papers, Less Poverty, More Vibrant Communities, More Collaboration and More Community Engagement, which have been developed by Vibrant Communities as part of the Ontario Trillium Foundation's 'Community Capacity' Series. Each seminar explores a variety of promising practical tools that measure the impact and change in a community. The tools and approaches identified in each of the four seminars provide an interesting overview for communities engaged in collaborative processes to increase their effectiveness. Access the seminars here.
Getting the Most Out of Evaluation - Often evaluation processes are static and focus on end of project results. Mark and Jamie talk about designing an evaluation process for maximum impact. With the end-user in mind, Vibrant Communities is asking key stakeholders about the questions that should be asked, the format of the end product and how, as a participant in the evaluation process, might they use the results to inform their work. This process has uncovered some interesting questions, reflections and has increased engagement in the evaluation design, product development and potentially in how end-users will engage with results. Jamie and Mark share interesting insights and early lessons learned. Access the seminar here.
Measuring Learning: Developmental Evaluation - This online seminar focuses on developmental evaluation, a term coined by Michael Quinn Patton. As he explains,goals and outcomes aren’t always pre-set; evaluations can evolve as learning occurs. Developmental evaluation seems best suited for initiatives that are at an initial stage of development or undergoing significant change, and can benefit from careful tracking. Access the seminar here.
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Community change efforts require dedicated human and financial resources.
These resources describe the different approaches and techniques communities participating in Vibrant Communities have used to resource and structure their own community support groups.
Aides for Action
Friendraising - Raising Funds, Finding Friends to Realize Bold Community Visions – A workbook that describes a new way of thinking and practical steps to mobilize the resources required to support a multi-year, collaborative and comprehensive campaign to reduce poverty. Access the workbook here.
Resource Models To Support Collaborative Efforts - A paper and online seminar that describes different models for resourcing and structuring the planning, research, networking and evaluation activities of a collaboration, based on the different approaches employed by communities participating in Vibrant Communities. Coming Soon.
Online Seminars
Five Good Ideas about Fundraising – Five Good Ideas is a series of conversations focusing on essential management skills, sponsored by the Maytree Foundation. In this online seminar, Paul Born describes a new way of thinking and practical steps to mobilize the resources required to support a multi-year, collaborative and comprehensive campaign to reduce poverty. Access the seminar series here.
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Many of the interventions employed by communities participating in Vibrant Communities aim to address the systemic root causes underlying poverty.
These measures include changing policies, resource flows, priorities, and decision-making processes in areas such welfare and income support policies, workforce development systems, transportation and housing arrangements.
The following resources describe the research and techniques emerging from the on-the-ground experience of researchers and collaboration members in the Vibrant Communities initiative.
Background Papers
What is Policy? - This paper was written to support the work of community initiatives interested in policy development and provides a practical description of policy and its role in reducing poverty. The formulation of public policy can be understood as a process of making good decisions – for the public good. Access the paper here.
Poverty Policy - This paper discusses ten major policy areas that comprise the core of a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy. Access the paper here.
Aides for Action
Vibrant Communities Storytelling Guide: Creating Memorable Messages - This publication describes how stories have been used by various Vibrant Communities organizations to define, shape and learn from their work. it offers suggestions for packaging community messages in order to effect changes in attitudes or outcomes.
Collaboration on Policy: A Manual - Developed by Caledon with partners known as the Community-Government Collaboration on Policy, this manual provides practical lessons for the establishment and operation of effective government-community collaborations on policy. The many examples, tools and references provided in the manual are helpful both to those new to policy work and to groups already engaged in collaborations on policy. Access the manual here.
Online Seminars
Policy Change from the Ground Up - In this five-part online seminar series, community practitioners from across Canada came together to discuss different ways that communities can shape the design or implementation of public policies and practices. The seminars explored successful local policy initiatives in the areas of income security, neighbourhood revitalization, and housing. Access the seminar series here.
Reducing Poverty – Ten Core Policy Areas – This online seminar focuses on ten core areas that are key to any poverty strategy, the roles that communities can play in policy development and some of the interventions that help place-based initiatives create more durable change. The ten policy areas are drawn from Poverty Policy by Sherri Torjman of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy. Access the seminar here.
Community Roles in Poverty Reduction Policy – Communities engage in public policy making as they seek improved access to public programs and services, or help design local spaces and programs that respond to their concerns. This online seminar introduces a manual for effective government-community collaborations on policy and gives an overview of ways communities can participate in shaping government policies related to poverty. Access the seminar here.
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