Be Greater. Do Good. Every Day. Change Forward!
Liz Weaver is the Co-CEO of the Tamarack Institute, based in Waterloo, Ontario. I met Liz several years ago at the first collective impact “Champions for Change” event in Cincinnati. Since that time I have had the opportunity to get to know Liz, work with her, and even do some writing with her. In the … Read more
Four years ago I worked with the Prevention Institute of Saskatchewan to help leadership and staff establish a province-wide community of practice. The community of practice was originally set up for people and organizations working in the field of adolescent sexual health. Of course, adolescent sexual health is one of those issues that is impacted … Read more
Change is inevitable, regardless of how we feel about it. This is beyond being a mostly certitude of change…it is a certitude. We only deceive ourselves if we think change will not occur simply because we do not want it.
Correctly learning and using the names of people is still one of the easiest and best strategies in community building and community change. Each of us can do it and we can do it all by ourselves. The only permission we need is the permission of the person whose name we are trying to learn and use.
What is the meaning of community for us; each of us, as individual persons? This question has been nagging at me since September when I attended Tamarack’s Community Change Institute in Toronto. It has come into sharper focus for me in the wake of the results of the U.S. Presidential election this past week.
Despite both the reality and perceptions of Baltimore, Maryland, there is at least one place with a deep, thriving sense of community.
May 2015 was an exciting month for me. First, I discovered Red Nose Day, a poverty alleviation effort begun in the United Kingdom that had made its way to the United States. Second, I wrote a blog asking people to submit their Five Words of Gratitude to someone they would like to honor. Then, I got sick and spent a couple of months trying to figure out why; until I landed in the hospital in Philadelphia and met my new best friend, Jude (my pacemaker).
Community engagement and community mobilization are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same. In fact, mixing them can be confusing, problematic, and incorrect.
How do you express gratitude to the people in your life who have done more for you than you can say…in only five words? This is the challenge and opportunity I’d like to present.
Has an over-reliance on “best practices” and “evidence-based” practices struck a deathblow to our ability to think creatively and our courage to be experimental? My mind is still mulling over my experience at the inaugural Collective Impact Summit last October in Toronto. No individual presenter had a greater impact on my thinking in that meeting … Read more