On March 2-3, a group of inspiring community change leaders from across the province came together to kick off ABSI Connect’s Community Catalyst Program.
Enjoy this brief introduction to the cohort and their projects that we recorded during our launch event.
This pilot program brings together a cohort of changemakers from six communities across the province who want to find and test new solutions to a “stuck” problem facing their community. Our goal is to draw on the amazing people and resources within ABSI Connect’s network over the coming eight months, providing the six teams / individuals in the program with:
A supportive peer network
Access to capacity building opportunities and facilitation resources
Up to $12,000 in funding to catalyze change in their communities
Opportunities for reflection, learning, and personal growth
Opportunities to share the work they are doing and lessons they are learning with our provincial and national networks.
Our pilot cohort consists of a fun, dynamic, and diverse group of teams and individuals pursuing important community change goals. Learn more about them and their projects here.
We gathered together for a day and a half in the beautiful Skills Society Action Lab in Edmonton. So much has changed since then as we all adjust to our “new normal” with COVID-19 and make necessary adjustments to this program and the projects participants are working on. But we’re immensely grateful to have had time together with this incredible group, and wanted to share a recap of the time we spent together.
Launch Event: Recap
Part 1: Community Catalyst Program Launch (Monday Morning Session)
Participants: Community catalyst participants and ABSI Connect representatives (15 people total)
Facilitator: Naomi
Overview:
The community catalyst cohort and ABSI Connect team spent our first morning together focused on building relationships, gaining alignment and clarity around program details, and co-designing the communication, reporting, reflecting, and learning components of this pilot program.
Personal artifacts shared by Community Catalyst participants and ABSI Connect team during our introductions.
We started with a land acknowledgement and a sharing circle. Each participant shared a personal artifact--something that represented an important quality about themselves, their community, or the work they’re doing.
We then discussed the background, history, goals, and structure of the Community Catalyst program, and participants spent time providing input to help shape the program timeline, reporting mechanisms, learning / sharing activities, and other elements of the program design.
Participants all joined an online platform where we plan to connect, share updates, and continue building community. We also came away with a revised group agreement, timeline, reporting / reflection journal, and other program details.
Part 2: Social Innovation for People and Planet (Monday Afternoon Workshop)
Participants: Community catalyst cohort plus supporters, buddies and advisors from ABSI Connect’s community (25 people)
Facilitators: Annand Ollivierre and Pieter de Vos
Overview:
In the afternoon, additional members of our network joined us as we piloted an introductory-level social innovation workshop designed by Joshua Cubista for Social Innovation Canada’s curriculum project. We’re grateful to Annand and Pieter for helping us adapt and deliver the workshop.
The purpose of this workshop was to help the Community Catalyst cohort deepen their understanding of social innovation and systems change, explore how these concepts relate to their work, and experience facilitation tools / approaches they could take back to their communities. We also invited various buddies and network weavers from Alberta’s social innovation community to join us for the afternoon so they could begin to build relationships with program participants, learn more about SI Canada’s curriculum project, and share examples and insights from their work.
We began this session with powerful spoken word poetry from Nasra Adem, a local artist (and Edmonton’s former youth poet laureate), who was invited to join us by Catalyst participant Jerome Morgan. We then used visual explorer cards to speak about our hopes for our communities, and we spent the rest of the afternoon engaging in discussions and activities to explore what social innovation is, why it’s needed, and some principles of creative problem solving. A highlight for many participants was an intense marshmallow challenge activity and subsequent debrief. This fun activity led to some thoughtful reflections about creative problem solving, prototyping, team dynamics, and working with time / resource constraints.
Part 3: ABSI Connect Appies (Monday evening)
It’s often the personal connections and conversations that end up being most meaningful when we come together as a community. We hosted a networking / appies evening at Brewsters after our workshop for participants (and others) to meet and mingle.
Part 4: Community Catalyst Project Kitchen (Tuesday morning)
Participants: Community catalyst cohort plus supporters, buddies and advisors from ABSI Connect’s community (26 people)
Facilitator: Naomi
Overview:
Our final morning together was spent learning more about the Community Catalyst cohort’s projects and providing ideas, connections, and feedback to help them strengthen their project plans. After an icebreaker to get to know the new “buddies” / supporters who joined us for the day, we used a “project kitchen” format:
Two groups presented an overview of their projects, the key questions they were exploring, and areas in which they were looking for support.
All other participants picked one of the two groups to learn more about and share feedback / ideas with. We divided into two groups, each of which followed a facilitated peer input process to ask questions and offer ideas and input.
We repeated the above process until all six groups had an opportunity to present their project ideas and receive feedback and suggestions from their peers in the room.
We enjoyed a meal together before everyone departed on their way back to their communities.
Many great ideas and questions were shared! Over the coming weeks, each Community Catalyst participant / team will summarize some of the key input and ideas they received and how this input has helped them shape / reshape their project plans. We also shared contact info and a list of “asks” and “offers” with all participants and encouraged them to follow up on connections, resources, and ideas shared during our in-person session.
Summary
With COVID-19 now disrupting most local and provincial plans, some of the themes we discussed together in early March (such as the complexity and interconnectedness of today’s pressing challenges, and the need for creative and empathetic local leaders) feel even more pertinent now. We’re grateful for the time we spent together with this incredible group and we’re hopeful that the work they’re doing will be important and meaningful--even as their priorities and timelines shift to respond to needs in their communities. We’re excited to see what we’ll learn together over the course of this pilot program, and hope you’ll continue following our blog to hear first-hand stories from these inspiring community change leaders.
