12:00pm to 1:30pm
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (U of T)
252 Bloor St. West (Room 3-104)

*Free event | No registration required

While the idea of a 'Basic Income' or a 'Guaranteed Annual Income' is attractive to many across the political spectrum, this attraction may be due to the idea remaining vague enough to encompass a range of what are actually very different programs.

On the one hand, those on the right see a relatively small unconditional payment to all adults replacing almost all other income security programs and many social services. Libertarian advocates of a Basic Income see it replacing even Medicare for the poor and the young. The right sees the Basic Income or Guaranteed Annual Income as reducing government expenditure or at the worst with the income guarantee low enough so that it is fiscally neutral. On the other side of the spectrum, the left sees the program as offering an unconditional benefit large enough to lift everyone out of poverty, while leaving social insurance and many other programs, and certainly all social services, intact. In the left's vision, taxes would rise radically to cover the costs and the beneficial result would be significant income redistribution.

For those looking for progressive change that can meaningfully reduce poverty and inequality, the question is whether there is a practical way to implement a Basic Income or Guaranteed Income, which might not accomplish immediately the full-scale goals of sweeping away all poverty and radically redistributing income, but which would represent significant progress from where we are today. Or, are progressives advocating for a Basic Income or a Guaranteed Annual Income, actually playing into the hands of a right wing agenda?

Details for Is It Time for Basic Income?

About the Presenters

Art Eggleton has served the people of Canada and the city of Toronto in public office for over 35 years. He served 22 years as a member of Toronto City Council and the Metropolitan Toronto Council, most of those years on the Executive Committees of both Councils. Between 1973 and 1980, he served as City Budget Chief, the member of Council responsible for financial matters. From 1980 to 1991, for 11 of those 22 years, he was Mayor of Toronto, the longest serving Mayor in the City’s history. In recognition of his service to the City, Mr. Eggleton received Toronto's highest honour, the Civic Award of Merit, in 1992. Mr. Eggleton served 11 years in the House of Commons as the member for York Centre. On March 24, 2005, Mr. Eggleton was appointed to the Senate of Canada. He currently serves as Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology and is a member of the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications. In December 2009, the Social Affairs Committee completed a study on poverty, housing and homelessness in Canadian cities entitled, In From the Margins: A Call to Action Poverty, Housing and Homelessness. In 2012, he co-founded and is co-Chair of the All Party Anti-Poverty Caucus, a group consisting of Members of Parliament and Senators from all political parties. Mr. Eggleton also serves in various volunteer capacities. He is Chair of the World Council on City Data which was created by the Global Cities Institute at the University of Toronto. In 2015 he was appointed by the Mayor of Toronto to be Chair of the Mayor's Task Force on Toronto Community Housing. He is an honorary member, or member, of several non-profit boards and advisory committees.

Michael Mendelson is Senior Scholar at the Caledon Institute of Social Policy, a consultant for Canadian governments and institutions and Chair of the Board of the Environics Institute. He has previously held senior public service positions in Ontario and Manitoba: Deputy Secretary of Cabinet Office in Ontario; Assistant Deputy Minister in Ontario’s Ministries of Finance, Community Services and Health; Secretary to Treasury Board and Deputy Minister of Social Services in Manitoba. Mr. Mendelson has published many articles on social and fiscal policy including: The Training Wheels Are Off: A Closer Look at the Canada Job Grant with Noah Zon [Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation and the Caledon Institute]; Is Canada (still) a fiscal union? [Caledon Institute]; Canada in 1996 is not the UK in 2011 [Barrow Cadbury Foundation, London, UK]; Aboriginal Peoples and Post-Secondary Education in Canada [Caledon Institute]; Financing the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans [American Association of Retired Persons, Public Policy Institute, Washington]; Measuring Child Poverty: Measuring Child Benefits [Caledon Institute]; Benefits for Children: A Four Country Study ed. with Ken Battle [Caledon Institute and the J. Rowntree Foundation].

6:00pm to 9:00pm
Bathurst Bowlerama
2788 Bathust St. (at Glencairn Ave.)

Last year, $35,000 was raised in support of Common Ground Co-operative's (CGC) programs and services. This year, help them do it again!

Make a social investment in a community of people with Autism, Down syndrome and other developmental disabilities by supporting Common Ground Co-operative's 6th Annual Bowlathon Fundraiser and Silent Auction. On October 20th, over 100 people will come together for a night of fun and fund raising to support our Charity. Every dollar raised for this event goes directly into the support that CGC provides to an amazing group of individuals that are employed and empowered in Toronto.

Create Your Own Team or Individual Fundraising Page!

Started in 1998, the Lemon & Allspice Cookery was created by three friends and a part-time job coach. In 2000, increased demand for opportunities led to the formation of Common Ground Co-operative. Today, over 50 people are supported by six job coaches in five programs/partnerships where people with developmental disabilities enjoy meaningful and sustainable employment that encourages integration into the community.

CGC also provides other programs that encourage ongoing learning in both life and work skills.

Help them reach their 2016 event target of $35,000.00. Fundraising closes on October 31st, 2016.

Even if you are unable to attend this great event, you can still help by creating your very own fundraising page. 

If you would like to include a promotional video in your message, you can find one here

Be a part of something great by helping people with disabilities move toward self-sufficiency!

Watch Common Ground Co-operative in the documentary film Autism Grows Up here 

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"Moving the needles" on community-wide issues requires cross-sector coordination, an engaged community... and a new approach to evaluation.

There are countless community change initiatives working on a diversity of issues in our country, such as early childhood development, health care, education, poverty and homelessness, immigration and workforce development. Evaluating Community Impact: Capturing and Making Sense of Community Outcomes is a three-day workshop intended to provide those who are funding, planning and implementing community change initiatives with an opportunity to learn the latest and most practical evaluation ideas and practices.

This workshop is best suited to those who have an interest and some basic knowledge and experience with evaluation and are eager to tackle the challenging but critical task of getting feedback on local efforts to change communities. It is not designed for professional evaluators. Please browse this webpage to learn more about the workshop and how you can become a member of our learning community from November 15-17 in Hamilton, ON.

Register for Evaluating Community Impact

A New Curl & Five New Workshops

A new workshop format that helps workshop participants develop concrete elements of an evaluation strategy for their work back in their home community.

1. Three frameworks to organize and communicate the “progress” of community change initiatives
2. Four scenarios for using hard and soft indicators to capture outcomes
3. A new method for demonstrating a group’s contribution – rather than attribution -- to outcomes
4. Five aides to improve the chances that social innovators and evaluators develop evaluations that are used
5. A continuum of strategy – ranging from emergent to traditional – and their implications for evaluation

Who Should Attend?

This workshop is for you if:

• You manage programs that need to be evaluated
• You are part of a collaborative that is trying to understand how to evaluate
• You are a community development professional who wants to make the connection between learning and community change
• You are in a collective impact network and wanting to understand shared measurement
• Evaluation is part of your job description

Learning Agenda

• The case for using adaptive strategies to tackle complex issues
• Designing evaluations that are used: five aides for action
• Principles and frameworks for capturing systems -- rather than programmatic -- changes
• Innovative methods and tools for assessing outcomes
• Assessing a group's readiness and capacity for capturing community change

See Full Agenda

Curriculum Team

This workshop will be led by Mark Cabaj and Liz Weaver. Mark is a leading practitioner in Canada in developmental evaluation and has worked in community change his entire life. Liz has run Canada's largest Collective Impact initiative and consults across North America on issues related to community change. Together, they have designed this workshop to incorporate their practical experiences in developing and measuring community impact initiatives, as well as the challenges they have faced in doing so.

1:00pm to 1:45pm Eastern Time

The Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF) Measurement and Evaluation staff is hosting a webinar on Thursday, October 13th from 1:00pm to 1:45pm to discuss how digital data and outcomes-based approaches can drive evidence-based decisions and investments in the not-for-profit sector.

This is the first of many conversations the OTF will have about measurement and evaluation, starting with Evidence. This webinar will talk about what makes the best evidence, the value of sharing what we learn with others, how evidence and an outcomes-based paradigm can better inform our decision-making.

Register for Using Evidence to Further the Public Good

The webinar will also try to answer these questions:

• What do you mean by evidence?
• What is 'good' evidence?
• Why should I care about evidence?
• How can it help me?

The OTF wants to hear from you about how you currently use evidence and about what are some of the challenges and opportunities you've experience. This is part of an initiative to build a dialogue about how good digital data and evidence will help all of us improve our work and in turn create healthier and more vibrant communities.

Log-in details will be sent the day before the webinar to the email address used to register your attendance.

Questions? Contact Stacey McDonald at smcdonald at otf.ca

12:00pm to 1:00pm Eastern Time

Too often evaluation is a mysterious noise. We can’t discern a beat we can tap our feet to. The melody we seek is elusive. From a poverty reduction perspective, we are inundated with the voices of our clients, funders, donors, colleagues, governments, business leaders, and labour counterparts. Reducing or ending poverty is the music we want to create and listen to, but how can we lessen the noise that envelopes us and increase our capacity to make this music together?

On October 14th, join Mark Holmgren and Mark Cabaj as they discuss this emerging innovation about a Game-Changer approach to poverty reduction strategy and evaluation and share your thoughts as well. Topics covered will include:

• What a Game-Changer in poverty reduction looks like and how this approach can help enhance focus on the development and evaluation of big change efforts to end poverty;
• The case for moving from an evaluation focus on attribution to contribution;
• How this approach can help us understand progress and serve as a catalyst for learning about what is working across the country to address poverty;
• How Game-Changer thinking can foster nation-wide attention on needed systems and policy change; help frame research; and also offer a touchstone for funders in their efforts to resource effective poverty reduction initiatives; and
• How Game-Changers can contribute to Movement-Building and a Collective Impact approach to poverty reduction.

Register for A Game Changer Approach to Poverty Reduction Strategy and Evaluation

Start Your Learning Early

Read Mark Holmgren's brand new paper:

Sometimes to Hear the Music you have to Turn Down the Noise

Speakers

Mark Holmgren joined Tamarack in January 2016 to lead its Vibrant Communities initiative and sits on Tamarack’s team of Directors. His background includes providing executive leadership to two Edmonton-based, inner city human service agencies focused on addressing poverty and homelessness; as well as providing consultation to a number of groups on issues relating to social housing development, organizational change, strategy development and leadership. Most recently Mark served as CEO of Bissell Centre (www.BissellCentre.org) where he led a team of 130 staff delivering Housing First services, assertive street outreach, family and children services, and programs in the areas of mental health, addictions, homelessness prevention, FASD interventions, and employment services.

Known for his big picture view and his ability to work on the ground, Mark has a long history of leading and contributing to social innovations that benefit low income people. Examples include leading the collaborative design of the Community Bridge (homelessness prevention); developing a multi-purpose centre with housing attached for inner city seniors; leading the development of three social enterprises; and, developing innovative approaches to employing marginalized populations.

Mark Cabaj has spent twenty-five years as a social change practitioner, policy maker, funder and consultant in Canada, the USA and Europe. He is a former Vice President of Tamarack, and was the Executive Director of Vibrant Communities Canada - one of the country’s first and largest Collective Impact Initiatives.

Mark is now President of Here to There Consulting Inc. currently focusing on developing practical ways to understand, plan and evaluate efforts to tackle complex issues (e.g. neighborhood renewal, poverty, community safety, environmental sustainability). This includes playing a strong role in building the practice of development evaluation - using evaluation to inform the work of social innovators working in fast moving contexts - as well as practical methods for social innovation, systems change and collaborative action.

Reflections from Scotland Social Enterprise Tour

How has Scotland become a global leader in social enterprise? What can Canada learn from the vibrant landscape of 5,000+ social enterprises in that country?

In early September, a pan-Canadian group of social enterprise stakeholders visited Scotland to tour the landscape. Hosted by Community Enterprise in Scotland, the largest third sector business support provider in Scotland, we met with government representatives, intermediaries, and a diverse mix of social enterprises.

This webinar presented key findings from the tour and shared reflections for the continued evolution of the social enterprise landscape in Canada.

SPEAKERS

David LePage, Principal with Accelerating Social Impact CCC, Ltd (ASI)

ASI CCC was created to serve and promote the emerging blended value business and social finance sectors. David works as a consultant, trainer and advisor with a cross section of social enterprises, social purpose businesses and social impact investors. He is a founder of Buy Social Canada, an initiative to promote social purchasing and social enterprise certification.

David is the Chair of the Social Enterprise Council of Canada. He serves as a Program Adjunct to the Sandermoen School of Business MBA in Social Enterprise Leadership. He is a member of the Social Enterprise World Forum Steering Group, the Canadian CED Network's Policy Council, Imagine Canada’s Advisory Committee, and the BC Partners for Social Impact. He is also a Board member of the Vancouver Farmer's Market and a Board member of Ethelo Decisions. David is the former Team Manager of enp-BC and played a lead role in the development of enp-Canada.

Nabeel Ahmed, Network Coordinator for Social Enterprise Toronto

Nabeel is the Network Coordinator for Social Enterprise Toronto. Previously, he was a Financial Analyst at the University of Central Asia in Bishkek as part of a fellowship in microfinance and microenterprise with the Aga Khan Foundation Canada. He was also the Managing Editor of SocialFinance.ca, where his keen eye and deep knowledge of the field aided him in supporting the conversation around social finance and impact investing in Canada.

This fall Nabeel returned to school to complate a Master of Environmental Studies, City/Urban, Community and Regional Planning with York University.

Darcy Penner, Social Enterprise Policy & Program Manager with the Canadian CED Network

Darcy has been working in community economic development since graduating from the University of Winnipeg with a BA (Honours) degree in Politics. Starting at CCEDNet in 2013, his role has seen him work with member-organizations to pursue a broad policy agenda through workshops, presentations, budget submissions, policy papers and community-organizing, while specializing in supportive social enterprise policy and research – including coordinating the Manitoba Social Enterprise Sector Survey and the Manitoba Social Enterprise Strategy being co-created with the Province of Manitoba. Darcy was also a contributing author to the Alternative Municipal Budget for CCEDNet-Manitoba.​