Project Background
Through the summer and fall 2006, ONESTEP consulted with over sixty agencies in Ontario’s nonprofit employment and training sector. We asked leaders to submit their experiences through a “Lessons Learned Sharing Guide”. We then brought leaders together for a day and a half Think Tank forum in Toronto. Our goal was to pool our sector’s collective experience, knowledge and insight – our “collective wisdom” – of lessons learned on how to become financially vibrant.
We worked with members of an Advisory Committee who are outstanding Executive Directors from small, medium and large agencies across the province. We consulted with expert resource people, including Marilyn Struthers, Jane Zhang of the Partnership Platform, and others. We worked closely with our evaluation consultants Janet Murray and Mary Ferguson of Eko Nomos.
Dr. Adam Lodzinski researched and wrote the content for the Lessons Learned Compendium Report, which contributed to the content for the website.
The overall project was managed by Shelley Smith.
In the end, what we have produced is the first ever account of financial vibrancy in practice. We are in the process of developing new initiatives to continue to build and evolve this important body of work and to keep the sector collaborating and learning from one another.
We are grateful to all the agencies in Ontario and their visionary leaders who recognized the importance of the peer-to-peer learning model and shared invaluable insights, experiences, resources and success stories.
Help us continue to grown the online community of practice. Get involved. Share you stories.
Business as usual is no longer a reality. We can build capacity from within.
Defining Financial Vibrancy
The Paths to Financial Vibrancy Project, and this site are inspired by the research of Marilyn Struthers of the Ontario Trillium Foundation who coined the term financial vibrancy, and defined it as:
“… the capacity of an organization to make the transition from one sustainable moment to the next. It is a set of capacities that create a ‘lens’ or a way of thinking about their work that enables these organizations to manoeuvre through instability in an opportunistic and optimistic way. In a rapidly changing economic environment, the goal may not be to achieve stability, but to build the fluidity to change organizational shape, build alliances and take up the opportunities of the moment. (Struthers, 2005)”
While there is no single secret formula to achieving financial vibrancy, there are some important principles to bear in mind: Research shows that there is no single path – or route – to financial vibrancy.
Developing financial vibrancy is a holistic process. Though each of these paths contributes in unique ways, they are inter-related and bulding capacity in any one path is likely to have positive impacts on others.
