All In for Youth
All In for Youth is a citywide initiative focused on school completion. The goal is to reduce the high school dropout rates and improve completion rates in Calgary. By working together, we can ensure all youth grow and thrive, finish high school, and are set up for future success.
BMF/Max Bell Policy Fellowship
Burns Memorial Fund and the Max Bell Foundation jointly funded a senior policy fellowship from 2017 to 2021 to identify policy opportunities to enhance natural supports for potentially vulnerable Albertan children 6-16 years of age and their families, with the goal of optimizing positive lifelong development. The Policy Fellows, Nancy Reynolds and Dr. Suzanne Tough, have now completed their research.
We would like to thank Nancy and Suzanne for all of the work they have done to generate knowledge and enthusiasm about the importance of natural supports! Their work has been influential to many projects across the province and has helped to build great momentum in this area. To learn more about the Policy Fellows’ work and other natural supports initiatives happening in Alberta, please visit connectionsfirst.ca.
The Connections First website highlights research and resources, including the Guide to Building Naturally Supportive Communities and the Social Snacking Toolkit (developed by Antyx Community Arts and the Calgary Public Library). We hope this website will grow as a hub for natural supports work in Alberta. Please feel free to get in touch with us if you would like to share your own natural supports resources and activities on the Connections First website. Contact: Kendall Quantz at kendall.quantz@burnsfund.com or 403-234-9399.
Collaborative Funders’ Table
In 2014, a community of funders in Calgary came together to support positive social emotional development among vulnerable children and youth by supporting high-quality programming during out-of-school hours. The initiative, known as the Collaborative Funders’ Table, involved several funders in the city. Some provided pooled funding, others served in an advisory role and another supported an outcome and process evaluation. Partners included Burns Memorial Fund, the Calgary Foundation, the City of Calgary, RBC Foundation, and United Way of Calgary and Area. After three years, the initiative resulted in an effective and successful collaborative funding process, which saw increased participation of children and youth in out-of-school programming. For information on the achievements of the Table in its first three years of funding, see the video below and the Learning Brief.
Building on the success of the Table, members committed to a new four-year initiative in 2018 (the Collaborative Funders’ Table 2.0) aimed at improving employment outcomes for vulnerable youth in Calgary. The Table convened a social innovation lab that brought together youth, employers, youth-serving agencies, funders and other stakeholders to explore, learn, innovate, work together, test and ultimately expand strategies to address youth employment issues in Calgary. The Table is now funding several pilot projects in the community and continuing to learn about how to improve employment outcomes for vulnerable youth in Calgary. For more information and resources related to this work, please visit the webpage for the Calgary Youth Employment Initiative.
Enough for All
Enough for All (E4A) is Calgary’s community driven poverty reduction strategy. Burns Memorial Fund has signed a Shared Values Understanding with E4A and is proud to be one of the champions of E4A 2.0, the refreshed strategy adopted in 2019.
The vision of the strategy is “a community where there is enough for all.” The mission of the strategy is to create opportunities to align and leverage the work of hundreds of organizations and thousands of Calgarians to reduce poverty in our city.
Advancing the objectives of the strategy will include three goals:
- All Calgarians live in a strong, supportive and inclusive community
- All Calgarians have sufficient income and assets to thrive
- All Indigenous People are equal participants in Calgary’s future
The strategy has an aspirational goal of reducing Calgary’s 2015 poverty level by 30% by 2023.
For more information, visit https://enoughforall.ca.
