Solid Foundations

There come those quick moments in time when, if captured well, can highlight one of those instances where someone could look back and say, “That was when we started to turn the fate of our community around.”  We had one of those moments yesterday in my hometown of London.  There have been a number of such occasions of late, but the announcement of some dynamic new initiatives by the London Community Foundation (LCF) successfully captured the will of our community to shape the future rather than play victim to it.Ours is a city struggling for a narrative and yesterday another chapter was written that stated our own community had the resources to build a new future.  What are required are some organizations willing to think outside of the box and build new ventures.  Fortunately a few of those groups have come forward to take the lead and yesterday was the Foundation’s turn.The key vehicle for driving the renewal for the LCF has been its Vitality Grant program – a donor initiative that puts significant amounts of resources behind projects destined to change how we think and act as citizens and institutions.  Yesterday the LCF informed the public of its next three game-changing ventures.

1. Extreme Clean (VHA Home HealthCare) – currently there are few supports available for individuals to bring their homes up to acceptable public health standards and to connect them with community resources to support long-term maintenance of safe housing.  This is vital in a number of cities where homelessness is growing.  Extreme Clean is an innovative homelessness prevention program that will maintain safe housing for at-risk individuals.  Those without secure homes require places to live and this will help keep physical locations viable.
2. London Poverty Research Centre (LPRC) – two of our city’s more high-profile organizations (the Sisters of St. Joseph and the London Food Bank) came together to pioneer something our city has been seeking for a long time – its own database of poverty indicators and research that is unique to our community and which can lead to more effective solutions.  The LPRC will make all its findings public as they become available.
3. Communities, Career & Connect – as with the other ventures, this initiative brings together key players in London (Habitat for Humanity, Fanshawe College, and Ontario Works) as a coordinated approach to provide employment skills for youth by connecting them with skilled tradespeople to restore community housing and undertake environmentally sustainable projects.  In a city struggling to retain the next generation of leaders, this program has a meaningful future.

In making these funding announcements, the LCF announced to the community in which it functions that it is willing to take on an enhanced leadership role that will put its money where its dreams are.  And to accomplish that goal it would work to bring other key players to the table to enable projects that would be otherwise impossible without the Foundation’s intervention.  Many Canadian communities experiencing trouble economically getting up off the mat require initiatives just like these to start turning around their own stories. The LCF has been quickly building momentum by making key investments already in organizations like ReForest London and My Sister’s Place, but the new venture grants announced yesterday take action to the next level and spreads responsibility across a wide spectrum of key community players who can bring their own resources to make the broad collaboration work.In a previous times, communities would just wait for the overall economy to bounce back and begin to build again, but following the Great Recession of recent years, the good times haven’t returned, leaving communities searching for new solutions.  It has taken time, but as organizations like the London Community Foundation make their move to a more dynamic leadership, new futures are beginning to emerge.  Someday the history books might well record that these years constituted the time when local communities came into their own in the broader federal arena.Today is Giving Tuesday – a national campaign in which people can donate to many non-profits furthering terrific causes.  We've had Black Friday and purchased what we wished for.  Today's it's time to give back to our respective communities.  Giving the LCF’s recent demonstration of leadership, many are opting to support their local foundation as it spreads the goodwill and innovation around. If Canada's city's are on the verge of change, a new renaissance of community living could be in the offing.