Stories of Success Across the CED Field or CCEDNet in the Past 25 Years

Histoires de réussite dans le domaine du DÉC ou du RCDÉC au cours des 25 dernières années

Working with partners like Buy Social Canada - David LePage in particular - to advance social procurement policy at the City of Calgary - Social Procurement (calgary.ca). By working together, the City now better recognizes and contracts with businesses working to provide opportunities for under-represented groups in our community. Jeff Loomis - Momentum

I first came to know CCEDNet while working at Momentum stewarding a network of local community economic development practitioners. CCEDNet's incredible work, access to resources and network of passionate members informed so much of our work. The national gatherings were a source of inspiration and broadened my network of others doing similar work across Canada. I had the honour of co-hosting EconoUs2017 in Calgary, Alberta with esteemed co-hosts passionate about showcasing our local economy in action. I was amazed by the CCEDNet team and their dedication to this network. Since then, I have joined the board at CCEDNet to contribute back to this growing community.

I was also introduced to CCEDNet through Momemtum, and my work with Courtney Mo on CEDIFs, which we presented at Econous in Calgary. It was an inspiring and energizing event, which prompted me to become a member, and not long after I joined the board. Our board meetings are often the highlight of my day, and I've had the pleasure of attending two in-person board and staff retreats, in Quebec City and Toronto. I am still sore that I missed the Social Finance Forum last year!

CCEDNet has been such a big part of my personal and professional growth. Thanks for your support over the last few years. I think I joined CCEDNet in 2008, and in one of the conferences hosted in Saskatoon, I attended a session by Ekonomos and they presented a Sustainable Livelihoods assessment tool which I thought was great and a good fit for the group of women we worked with. The next CCEDNet conference was in Winnipeg, and I met a team from the Women's Economic Council using the same tool; they were recruiting participants to implement the approach, so I signed up and went through the training; in the end, our final assignment was to set up programs in our community.

Before the end of the training, I applied to the Status of Women and got funding for 18 months to set up a women’s program. The first round was so successful that they funded a second round, which gave us time to convince IRCC that it was a great program. The program is now part of our core programs and has been in place for 14 years.