All Saints’ Anglican Church in Waterloo, Ontario, purpose-built the SideWalk Community Centre as part of an extensive redevelopment of its property to provide one of the only in-neighbourhood community centres in the city. The creation of the community centre stemmed from the realization that there was a lack of spaces for recreation and connection in this rapidly changing neighbourhood with a large percentage of new Canadians, visible minorities, and families with limited disposable income. To ensure that it met the community’s needs, leaders and church volunteers collected data from nearby residents, local politicians, and social services in interviews and conversations over a multi-year planning period.

In 2023, the Community Sector Council of Newfoundland and Labrador (CSCNL) launched the Social Innovation Lab and its flagship pilot, the Social Enterprise Through Acquisition (SETA) program, to preserve small businesses while diversifying revenue streams for community organizations. SETA connects community organizations with businesses available for acquisition in rural Newfoundland and Labrador to ensure that these businesses continue to serve their communities. Potential buyer organizations can access up to $15,000 to cover transition-related costs. They also receive one-on-one assistance throughout the process. The program supports a variety of acquisition models, including full business purchases, worker co-operatives, and transfers of specific assets, such as equipment or facilities. The SETA program helps business owners by playing a confidential matchmaking role, identifying buyers who share similar values through outreach and partners such as community business development corporations, and creating profiles for prospective buyers. To ease organizational strain on community organization buyers, CSCNL also aims to connect them with wage subsidies, student placements, and newcomer employment programs – or, in some cases, to facilitate acquisitions that include existing employees. For community organizations that are not yet ready to venture into acquisition, CSCNL offers revenue diversification training (the Thriving Non-Profits program) in partnership with Scale Collaborative and the Community Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador. CSCNL demonstrates how social enterprise models can preserve critical services while building long-term resilience. Succession planning, often treated as a private matter, can instead be a powerful tool for community development, economic stability, and social innovation.

The small communities of Bruce and Grey Counties have been hit hard by Canada’s decades-long opioid epidemic. Opioid cases and death rates soared during the COVID-19 pandemic and still haven’t returned to pre-2020 levels. In response, a team of paramedics and community health workers has built a nimble, compassionate model for addictions-related health care in the community. The Supportive Outreach Service (SOS) grew from a May 2021 crisis in Hanover, Ontario, where a COVID-19 outbreak in a rooming house led to over 50 residents being quarantined, many with mental health and addictions issues and little in the way of personal support networks. For weeks, various local agencies collaborated to meet their needs on-site, asking few questions and providing health care as well as other necessities such as regular meals, hygiene supplies, counselling, and even shoes. The infected residents recovered – and general health indicators of the group had also improved significantly, with many later entering addictions treatment programs. Today, SOS responds to calls seven days a week across Bruce Grey with a similar “no wrong doors” approach – meaning that when someone seeks help through any point of contact, SOS prioritizes their immediate needs and connects them to a range of supports. Its teams provide medical care, harm reduction equipment, vaccinations, crisis management, and supportive addictions treatment aligned with patient goals. In a region with no public intercommunity transit and few private bus carriers, SOS meets patients where they are, through mobile clinics and home visits, rather than asking them to travel to facilities when in crisis.

Mental health care in Canada is fragmented across a diverse ecosystem of providers and delivery methods. Patients often pass through siloed organizations that struggle to coordinate care, information, and resources. The consequences can range from frustration at the challenge of navigating resources to re-traumatization if patients must recount their experiences at each intake. Health care providers interact with different funding streams and privacy laws from all levels of government, which can discourage and complicate collaborations. Converge Mental Health Coalition formed in 2022 to help improve coordination and data sharing among providers. Starting in Alberta with six members, Converge now has over 100 members across multiple provinces and sectors. After interviewing mental health providers across Alberta about their challenges, Converge developed its Information Sharing Framework (ISF), which reframes the sharing of information, often seen as a risk, to be a benefit to organizations – even an obligation, since it can improve patient care. The ISF helps providers identify partner organizations, applicable regulations, reasons for collaborating, and the type(s) of collaboration needed to achieve their goals. Converge’s work helps organizations understand and navigate their place within the response. Information sharing has great potential to reduce administrative burdens and the duplication of work at organizations that are often stretched thin. Implementing it well is easier said than done, but for a growing number of organizations, Converge makes doing so easier.

In 2019, the City of Edmonton launched the Affordable Housing Investment Program (AHIP) to address urgent funding gaps and catalyze affordable housing development and rehabilitation. The AHIP positions the City as the first investor in affordable developments, providing up-front support that allows housing providers to mitigate risk and attract additional funding at the provincial or federal level. For every dollar the City contributes to the program, it secures approximately four more from other governments. The AHIP was designed to be flexible, aligning with changing federal and provincial priorities. Its evaluation criteria mirror those of the CMHC Co-Investment Fund, making it easier for projects to compete across multiple funding sources. A housing reserve account provides funds pre-approved by Council, so City staff can negotiate quickly with provincial and federal government partners – and can reallocate money annually in response to shifts in those higher-level government programs. Since its launch, the program has distributed more than $125 million and supported the creation of over 2,400 affordable units. Edmonton’s stock of social and affordable housing has grown by nearly 33%, from 13,536 units in 2019 to over 18,000 in 2025. The AHIP positions the City to achieve its long-term goal of residents having access to affordable housing in all parts of the city.

Brique par Brique is a non-profit organization established in 2016 to respond to rapid gentrification and displacement in Parc-Extension, one of Montreal’s most diverse neighbourhoods. The organization operates under a dual mandate of building affordable community housing and spaces and cultivating collective action and local leadership through community development and cultural programming. To obtain capital funding for its work, Brique par Brique launched its first community bond campaign in 2018, raising over $360,000 in nine months from 40 community investors. Community bonds are guaranteed fixed-rate bonds provided by a community issuer to a non-profit borrower. They offer an innovative pathway for non-profit and community-led housing providers to finance projects in a way that keeps wealth within communities and strengthens community organizing. Funds raised from the bonds can then be used for site acquisition and development, to leverage additional funding, or to pay down higher-interest debts. With these funds and some additional support from the Government of Québec through the (now-abolished) AccèsLogis program, Brique par Brique acquired land and is constructing a 31-unit social housing complex with the aim of renting out units by 2027 at 25% of household income or less. They also used some of the funds to open a cultural centre in 2021. Community financing offered Brique par Brique a launchpad for its affordable housing project, as well as an opportunity to build relationships with community investors and create support for future social-purpose projects.

The Killick Ecovillage Co-operative in Portugal Cove-St. Phillip’s, N.L., is a cohousing village that has worked to address many of the challenges that smaller communities face when creating a Community-Led Housing (CLH) project. First among these is obtaining the necessary knowledge base, resources, and funding. The project began with a group of individuals with a vision who pooled resources to buy a 58-acre heritage farm. Once built, the village will be a 51-home sustainable, multi-generational, mixed-income community. Founders combined resident investment, grants, and external financing to build a shared foundation for the project. Resident investment in the village makes the project unique among CLH models available in Canada. While traditional models such as co-ops and CLTs provide residents with decision-making power in the development of their community, the residents are still leasing the land from a larger organization that manages ownership. Members of the Killick Ecovillage, in contrast, will have long-term leases on their own homes, with the autonomy akin to home ownership, as part of Canada’s first Mutual Home Ownership Society (MHOS). At Killick, the governance model is intended to foster continued community engagement. From its inception, the resident community was shaped through a participatory design process, with workshops that invited brainstorming and discussion about the members’ ideal future together. This shared governance framework sustains community decision-making while ensuring that operations, services, and long-term plans remain aligned with the community’s values and needs.

Founded in 2023, mddl has established itself as an expert advisor in middle housing – that is, housing at a scale between single-family homes and large apartment buildings. Its aim is to bridge the critical knowledge gap that many small-scale and new-entry developers, including homeowners, experience in the process of delivering middle housing. Combining education with planning and municipal policy innovation, mddl provides a hub for knowledge and support. Its mddl School, a one-day in-person course on the fundamentals of delivering middle housing, has now reached over 1,400 participants in five cities across Canada. Spring 2026 saw the launch of mddl U, a certificate program hosted within the University of Calgary’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, which provides a start-to-finish overview of the missing middle housing development process. The mddl Masters and mddl Accelerator services offer more personalized technical assistance and expert mentorship for middle housing providers with projects already underway. Through its educational and advisory services, mddl empowers developers, citizens, housing providers, and municipal staff to create more middle housing in scalable, sustainable, and simplified ways. Every place has its own champions for middle housing; expertise hubs like the ones mddl creates can concentrate and mobilize the experts and resources that already exist within the Canadian middle housing sector, empowering local actors to get their shovels in the ground and turn their plans into much-needed finished homes

Construction is a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions (39% globally), with cement production alone accounting for about 8% of global carbon dioxide output. The construction industry also faces deep labour challenges: many workers encounter mental health and safety risks, while women and other underrepresented groups remain largely excluded from leadership positions in the trades. Tooketree Passive Homes, a modular housing developer based in Muskoka, Ontario, was founded in 2018 to address both of these issues, as well as the high cost of housing. Central to the Tooketree model is the development of sustainable, ecological, efficient, and durable (SEED) panels, which sequester carbon and insulate the building so that it uses 90% less energy to heat and cool than a conventional home. The standardized design allows Tooketree to guarantee fixed pricing and deliver homes with higher energy performance than typical site-built construction, where efficiency features are often cut to save time and money. To date, Tooketree has sequestered 105,000 kg of carbon through SEED panels, created nearly 56,000 hours of living-wage employment, and delivered 65 housing units. Since 2022, it has provided nearly 5,000 hours of on-site training to Indigenous women and employed more than 30 women in trades. Tooketree’s is helping to reshape the construction industry into one that has a lower carbon footprint, is more inclusive, and prioritizes collaboration. By proving that sustainable, affordable housing can also strengthen local economies and diversify the labour force, Tooketree demonstrates that tackling the housing crisis and the climate crisis can – and must – be pursued together.

Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) created the Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Program (SNAP) to improve the sustainability and resilience of older neighbourhoods in the Greater Toronto Area, many of which face challenges in stormwater management, home retrofits, or water and energy conservation. By better connecting neighbours, government agencies, and other stakeholder groups, the program encourages sharing knowledge, improves planning efficiencies, builds implementation partnerships, and explores opportunities for expanded impact. The result is accelerated progress toward solutions rooted in local priorities and conditions – place-based interventions focused on ensuring older urban neighbourhoods are resilient, sustainable, and vibrant. To select neighbourhoods for the program, TRCA uses geographic information software (GIS) tools to identify hotspot areas with overlapping priorities, such as flood risk, socio-economic vulnerabilities, and residents with mobility challenges. Once a project is underway, the SNAP approach involves a heavy investment in relationship building, and as a result TRCA has become an innovator in community-led engagement and collaborative implementation. The organization identifies the unique interests and priorities of each neighbourhood – for example, community safety, access to green space, or resilience to heat – and tailors its approach to reflect local voices. Since 2009, SNAP has revitalized 17 neighbourhoods across 14 municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area, touching nearly 250,000 residents. It has also inspired municipal policy shifts, scaling local action into broader urban sustainability and climate resilience strategies.

Conventional municipal asset management in Canada is focused on built assets, many of which are in urgent need of repair or adaptation to meet the needs of growing communities and a changing climate. Natural assets, such as wetlands, forests, and shorelines, are often overlooked, yet they are part of a critical green infrastructure and boost resilience, often at lower cost and with less risk than can be achieved with their engineered counterparts alone. The non-profit Natural Assets Initiative (NAI) is a global leader in bringing nature into municipal decision-making, and has created what is now the most widely accepted framework for natural asset management (NAM) in Canada. Working alongside local governments and conservation authorities, NAI provides ecological and economic expertise to support the identification, valuation, and integration of natural assets into financial planning and asset management. NAM measures value through the services that natural assets provide, including water filtration and flood mitigation, carbon sequestration, and even recreational benefits that would otherwise require built infrastructure. Many cities have institutionalized NAM results into municipal policy and take natural assets and natural infrastructure solutions into consideration when drafting community plans and climate adaptation strategies. Ontario has integrated NAM into provincial regulation via O. Reg 588/17, which requires all 444 municipalities in the province to include green infrastructure in their asset management planning process.

Mass Culture has developed the Data Narratives for the Arts (DNA) initiative to support arts organizations in developing cultural indicators that illustrate their work and tell their stories in an authentic way – one that is backed by data. Now in its third year, the DNA program has supported 30 organizations across the country through online workshops – delivered in partnership with non-profit consultancy Purpose Analytics – and tailored, one-on-one data training with a dedicated coach. These programs build participants’ confidence and help organizations strengthen their ability to measure impact and communicate tangible outcomes to stakeholders and funders. Mass Culture has also built a data-sharing platform with insights from 4,200 organizations across the country, allowing groups to compare themselves with their peers. Financial information forms the backbone of the dataset, but other indicators include staffing trends, community feedback, and partner engagement. Participating organizations regularly document their work with learning log journals and ripple effect mapping, to trace successes and challenges at different points in the journey over a period of years. Mass Culture has built a culture of “training the trainers,” so groups can be ambassadors to others with peer-to-peer knowledge sharing through the DNA Platform and an annual DNA Expo. By transforming how organizations approach data – reframing it from an administrative reporting burden to a medium for understanding impact and telling meaningful stories – Mass Culture has strengthened the capacity of organizations in the arts and culture space across Canada.

The CityHive CityShapers in Schools program is a four-session classroom-based workshop series for grades 5–12 that challenges students to think more deeply about climate action, housing affordability, and public space design. By connecting students to governance, civic engagement, and city planning processes within their schools and neighbourhoods, the program uses local issues to nurture their curiosity and give them the tools to make their voices heard in civic processes. The program is offered for free or on a sliding pay scale to public schools throughout the Metro Vancouver region, giving priority to communities that have historically been under-represented in municipal politics and that experience greater barriers to civic participation. The workshops are designed in consultation with certified teachers and co-led by a CityHive educator and a youth leader. Local government staff and elected officials are a key component of the program’s success, and CityHive works with municipalities on a fee-for-service basis to provide student input directly into open engagement projects. Over 300 students have met with municipal staff and elected officials to learn about and engage with such planning projects as the Squamish Nation Climate Action Strategy, the North Vancouver Active Transportation Plan, and the Clayton Corridor Skytrain Expansion Plan. Many students continue to follow projects after the classroom component ends, as the experience has helped to build a sense of agency and connection to issues that affect their communities.

Communities are exploring alternative, safer ways to travel to school through bike bus programs, which organize and schedule times for children to bike to school alongside parent or teacher volunteers. Parents map routes, repair bikes on the way, and invite other families to join. A highly visible critical mass on the street, including a protective barrier of adults, discourages risky behaviour from drivers. This encourages active transportation for vulnerable road users and fosters a sense of community. Communities can also form walking buses for kids using walkers, wheelchairs, and other mobility devices. Bike buses typically operate weekly from the middle of September to the end of October, resuming after March Break – although a warming climate and cheaper equipment are making winter riding more feasible. Bike buses exist across Canada, including two in Toronto (in Davenport and Scarborough) established with the help of Toronto’s “Bicycle Mayor” alongside a coalition of biking groups, non-profits, and parents. The programs require only minimal funding for basic supplies like safety vests and repair kits. Wider community support is critical. Parents rely on principals to help coordinate with school staff and encourage students to join, addressing opposition with proactive empathy by emphasizing the goal of creating safe spaces for the community’s kids. Advocates point out that bike bus programs will have been truly successful when they are not needed, because the city streets are safe enough for cycling children as a matter of course.

Many young people across Canada face barriers to accessing education and employment, particularly in remote, rural, and Indigenous communities, which can affect their long-term well-being. The Tamarack Institute sought to address these challenges through its Communities Building Youth Futures (CBYF) network. From 2019 to 2024, it developed the network and implemented programming in 20 communities across 11 provinces and territories. At its core, the initiative provides young people with opportunities to shape local youth support strategies themselves. Rather than giving convening responsibility to existing staff, CBYF compensated local youth for taking on these roles, leading community engagement initiatives, and co-creating solutions with adults. The resulting strategies went beyond traditional employment and educational programs to support young people holistically, including their basic needs, mental health, and cultural identity. Tamarack acted as an intermediary between each community and the federal government, providing a backbone of funding, facilitation, and capacity building throughout the program. It also took on the administrative work of reporting, which allowed community organizations to focus on program implementation. CBYF’s multi-year funding enabled hiring at least one full-time employee in each community, mentored and supported by the CBYF program staff, to build skills and experience. Youth often have ideas for how to address challenges in their own communities, but may lack the support and resources to make substantive change. Initiatives like the CBYF model demonstrate ways to engage them not as subjects of policy, but as active agents with the knowledge and skills to shape it.

Vancouver is the first major city in Canada to institute a mandatory community benefit agreement (CBA) policy, after years of advocacy from community stakeholders including Buy Social Canada. The policy, which applies to developments over 45,000 square metres in size, requires that developers demonstrate their best effort to reach three targets: 10% local employment, especially of members of equity-seeking groups (inclusive employment); 10% local procurement (from within Vancouver); and 10% social procurement (from verified social impact or equity-seeking businesses). Projects must continue to practice social procurement and inclusive employment throughout their operations. The New St. Paul’s Hospital redevelopment, owned by Providence Health Care, is the first project to trigger the City of Vancouver’s CBA policy. Buy Social Canada is the CBA’s independent third-party monitor, overseeing compliance and supporting its success. Since construction started in 2023, the New St. Paul’s Hospital redevelopment has generated nearly $100 million in social procurement spending and $200 million in local procurement spending. Beyond the dollars flowing into the local and social economies, Buy Social Canada is using this first major project to develop networks, demand, and, eventually, capacity in the social enterprise community. Buy Social Canada is striving to make the New St. Paul’s Hospital redevelopment, and by extension the Vancouver CBA policy, a clear and transparent model for other projects and cities to follow. Following its iterative and aspirational approach to advocacy and policy development, places across Canada can build on this momentum to create local social returns on development investment.

Penticton lies at the heart of the Okanagan region in the south of British Columbia. The region’s temperate climate, beautiful lakes, and award-winning wineries have made it a popular tourist destination in recent years. The community of 37,000 has also seen rapid population growth in the last decade: between 2016 and 2021, the city’s population grew three times as fast as projected in its most recent Official Community Plan, in part due to an influx of remote workers during the pandemic and a growing workforce supporting the tourism industry. This growth has put pressure on the community’s housing stock, with the result that housing prices spiked by 50% in five years. 

Building a new life in a new country starts with making a new home. For families arriving in Canada with few resources, newcomer services can be a help in obtaining housing – but the items needed to fill the new homes are often overlooked. Some newcomers arrive with only their suitcases and urgently need bedding, kitchenware, seasonal clothing, and other essentials. ]Home Essentials Newcomer Support](https://henstoronto.com/) (HENS) began in 2018 with a single volunteer and her family who noticed this major gap in the settlement system and began collecting household goods for newcomer families. This effort grew into a neighbourhood non-profit organization that now operates across Thorncliffe Park, Flemingdon Park, and Scarborough – three Toronto neighbourhoods where many new arrivals to Canada first settle. A volunteer-led effort, HENS redistributes donated goods to newcomers in need, with the goal of helping families establish safe, functional homes to begin their new lives.

Post-secondary students in Hamilton, Ontario, are getting a close-up view of the value of municipal operations while building transferable skills as part of CityLAB Hamilton’s experiential learning program. An innovative partnership between the City of Hamilton, Mohawk College, McMaster University, and Redeemer University, CityLAB Hamilton connects students, faculty, and civic leaders with community-focused projects that align with the City’s strategic priorities. Since its inception in 2017, the program has welcomed more than 4,500 students and supported over 260 hands-on projects across the city.  

Modelled on similar experiential learning programs elsewhere in Canada, CityLAB Hamilton is distinct because it is housed within the City Manager’s Office, which gives the team a level of insight and access into priorities, projects, and staff across multiple municipal divisions. As a result, the projects are varied and represent the city’s current strategic priorities, giving students meaningful opportunities that address specific local needs. Projects may be suggested by city staff, faculty members, or the community, and have encompassed a wide range of academic disciplines and programs of study. They have included designing public awareness campaigns, conducting policy research, analyzing data, and increasing community engagement. Each year, program participants contribute to dozens of projects as part of their coursework, including independent or group research, hands-on participation outside of the classroom, and research competitions such as the Higher Education Analytics Data competition.  

Imagine a single program that creates meaningful employment opportunities, revitalizes derelict properties, and makes homeownership a possibility for local low-income families. It exists in downtown Sault Ste. Marie thanks to the Affordable Home Ownership Program (AHOP), an innovative partnership between the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the District of Sault Ste. Marie Social Services Administration Board (DSSAB).  

Sault Ste. Marie is the third-largest city in Northern Ontario, with a population of 72,000. It is experiencing a high level of housing pressure and a growing wait for social housing despite its comparatively affordable homes. At the same time, there are many abandoned properties downtown, which contribute to lower property values and raise concerns about safety among neighbours. More recently, the city’s economy has also suffered in the wake of U.S. tariffs on the steel industry, which have resulted in widespread layoffs and unemployment despite investments (from both the private sector and the federal government) aimed at shoring up the sector.  

Health-care practitioners have long known the positive impact that community has on well-being, but it is only recently that linking non-medical resources to health care has been recognized and codified as a national practice in Canada. The Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing (CISP) was founded in 2022 to establish a community of practice and to create a research and evidence base for demonstrating the efficacy of this approach at a national level. Through network building, training and accreditation programs, and practical toolkits, CISP has begun to shift health-care policy and practice across the country.  

Social prescribing is a health-care model that enables providers of health care or of social services to refer individuals to community resources and other non-clinical supports in order to improve their health and well-being in a variety of ways. Some provide basic needs in the form of income supplements, housing, and food. Others connect patients with local activities – such as arts organizations, cultural events, or nature outings – creating a sense of belonging and supporting their physical, mental, social and emotional health. The connections to local organizations are facilitated by link workers within the health or community-care sector. The practice is centred on equity and local context, and is adaptable to different cultures, capacities, and needs. 

Young people need spaces in their neighborhoods where they feel safe, are heard, and can be themselves. In 2016, the City of Mississauga recognized that youth in Malton – an ethnically diverse and geographically isolated neighbourhood in the city’s northeast – lacked sufficient access to health and community services, as well as dedicated spaces for recreation and arts programming. In response, they created the Malton Youth Hub, a one-stop destination for the area’s youth. The Hub, a converted swimming pool, houses in its 18,000+ square feet of space a recording studio, a commercial kitchen, multipurpose rooms, and a spacious atrium space for casual meet-ups and performances on a pop-up stage. Since its opening in Fall 2023, the Hub has become a vibrant destination for Malton residents aged 12 to 25, who find there a place to access services, express themselves without judgment, learn, grow, and have fun.  

The impact of climate change is uneven: often, low-income, highly racialized urban areas with fewer resources are harder hit. Young people living in these communities want to be part of the solution, but they are under-represented in environmental leadership spaces and can face significant barriers to participating in climate action. Skills for Change, an employment resources organization based in Toronto, sought to address both of these challenges by creating the Youth Climate Action Initiative (YCAI) in 2023. The program provides climate education and skills-based leadership development for participants aged 16 to 29 and was designed with youth from newcomer, racialized, and underserved communities in mind. Over the course of the 6-to-10 week program, participants develop the knowledge, skills, networks, and confidence they need to take meaningful action in local sustainability initiatives. 

In designing the climate education workshops, Skills for Change sought to include a variety of perspectives and to not just teach knowledge but provide tools for building participants’ confidence. Workshop content includes long-term visioning, community engagement and needs assessments, project management, grant writing, and professional communication skills. Some workshops have explored sustainability through an Indigenous lens, teaching traditional knowledge about our relationship to land and climate action. The program also builds interpersonal connections between participants, most of whom identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of colour, with many living in Toronto's identified Neighbourhood Improvement Areas. YCAI participants value being part of a community that shares similar lived experiences and backgrounds and that offers them a space where they can feel welcome, represented, and fully able to contribute.