As the head of the Toronto City Summit Alliance, David Pecaut has galvanized prominent Toronto citizens to take action on ideas to strengthen the city - ideas such as expanding the knowledge-based industry, reversing the decaying infrastructure of the city and creating affordable housing.

David has a unique capacity to bring together people from different walks of life, work with them to arrive at a collective understanding of a problem, and then craft an action plan that everyone can buy into. It's a capacity that's been tested in his position as a Senior Partner in The Boston Consulting Group and the Chair of the Board of a new organization, the Boreal Institute for Civil Society.

In this seminar David speaks with us about collaborating for social change and shares how the Toronto City Summit Alliance's remarkable collaboration is working to address the challenges the city faces.

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Meet the Speaker

David Pecaut is a Senior Partner in The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). David founded and managed the Toronto office of BCG from 1993 to 2000. During that time he also launched BCG’s e-commerce practice. In June of 2000 David became CEO of the iFormation Group, a venture capital partnership of BCG, Goldman Sachs, and General Atlantic Partners.

A well-known speaker, writer and media commentator, David Pecaut has advised companies and governments on public policy issues in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. He been featured or quoted widely in numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, the Globe and Mail and Maclean’s. His articles have appeared in publications from Time Magazine to the Harvard Business Review.

David Pecaut is currently the Chair of the Toronto City Summit Alliance, a coalition of civic leaders in the Toronto region, which has formulated an action plan to revitalize the region. David also Co-Chairs the Task Force on Modernizing Income Security for Working Age Adults which will release its proposal to reform income security in the fall of 2005.

David Pecaut is also the Chair of the Board of a new organization, the Boreal Institute for Civil Society, based out of the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. Boreal is dedicated to advancing human development in Canada and worldwide by strengthening connections within the civil society. Boreal's goal is to help unlock human potential by finding ways to better link grassroots development work with large public and private institutions. Boreal's work is based on results-driven, mutually respectful collaborations across civil society.

David Pecaut holds a Master's in Philosophy from the University of Sussex, England, and a BA magna cum laude from Harvard University.

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Notes & audio clip from our seminar

Toronto City Summit Alliance

The Toronto City Summit Alliance (TCSA) grew out of the Toronto City Summit. Held in June 2002, the Summit brought together the City Region’s leaders to consider Toronto’s strengths and challenges. Leaders realized that the city, though performing well economically, was on the verge of decline.

The Toronto City Summit Alliance was formed to address the challenges the Summit identified as critical to the future health and wealth of the city – finance, infrastructure, education, immigration and the health of the regional economy.

A diverse steering group of 40 of Toronto’s leaders was formed to develop a roadmap for the City. From November 2002 to April 2003, they broke out into larger working groups to develop a common fact base and recommendations for moving forward on key issues.

That work culminated in the report, Enough Talk: An Action Plan for the Toronto Region, which made recommendations for action on key issues.

Developing a Common Fact Base

In his work, David has learned the importance of achieving common understanding before moving to action on an issue. It is critical to have everyone at the table reach a common understanding of the issue. Tackling an issue from a perspective based on common facts, facts that those involved have created and owned, allows ideology and false arguments to dissipate.

For example, in a working group on housing, developers could not understand why there was a homelessness problem in Toronto when so many housing units lay vacant. Once they were provided with an analysis of the income levels of those without housing, the developers realized that there was a housing “mismatch”. Those who required housing could not afford the housing that was available. The working group was then able to work together on solutions for affordable housing because everyone at the table understood the issue in the same way.

Including the “Unusual Suspects”

Including the “unusual suspects”, those who might not naturally be attracted to the work or issue, is critical to the success of a collaborative.

Bringing new faces and voices to the table adds to the credibility of the entire group. It also adds new expertise and a new perspective to the issue at hand, increasing the chance of finding a solution that works because it builds on the expertise of a diverse, and representative, community voice.

The Boreal Institute For Civil Society

In 2004 David launched the Boreal Institute for Civil Society. Dedicated to advancing human development by strengthening connections within the civil society, Boreal’s goal is to help unlock human potential by finding ways to better link grassroots development with large public and private institutions.

Boreal builds on David’s work with TCSA by convening all partners in society to tackle major social and economic issues, using a joint problem solving process on a project by project basis. Each project will move from arriving at a collective understanding of the problem, to building usable knowledge, and then taking concrete action. Boreal will work to find points of leverage in the system to take successful solutions to scale.

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Additional material & learning resources

• Toronto International Arts Festival - a 16-day celebration of arts and culture expected to premiere in June 2007, will present to the world Toronto's creativity and cultural energy. Learn more here.

• The Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council - working to improve the employment outcomes of skilled immigrants in the Toronto region. Learn more here.

• The Toronto Region Research Alliance - bringing public and private institutions in the Toronto region together to build research excellence in areas of strength, increase the commercialization of research, increase venture capital financing to all areas of research and development, and market the Toronto region internationally as a premier R&D location. Learn more here.

• The Toront03 Alliance - dedicated to post-SARS tourism recovery through a marketing campaign to bring tourists, especially Americans, back to Toronto. Learn more here.

• The Affordable Housing Coalition - uniting the private and community sectors to advocate for greater access to quality affordable housing through government lobbying, public education campaigns and creative partnerships. Learn more here.

• The Strong Neighbourhoods Task Force - articulating a vision for strong neighbourhoods in Toronto. Learn more here.

• Task Force on Income Security - TCSA and St. Christopher House have launched the Task Force on Modernizing Income Security for Working Age Adults to address the urgent need to reform income security policies. Learn more here.

• New Deal for Toronto - Members of the TCSA are actively promoting for a new financial deal for cities, and in particular for the City of Toronto. Learn more here.

• YMCA-Toronto Alliance Youth Forum Series - On April 14, 2005, more than 100 adults, youth and volunteers came out to participate in the first YMCA - Toronto Alliance Youth Forum. This inaugural event brought youth from the Rexdale neighbourhood together with adults from a variety of business, non-profit, political and academic backgrounds to meet face to face and talk about the issues facing youth and their aspirations for the future. Learn more here.