CCVO News

CCVO 2012 Connections Conference Will Explore Issues Affecting the Future of the Nonprofit Sector

In a time of economic volatility, workforce shortages, budget challenges, and growing communities, the time is ripe for  nonprofits, businesses and governments to find new and creative models to work together to build strong communities.

CCVO's upcoming conference, Connections 2012: Three Sectors for Strong Community will bring together leaders and representatives from the nonprofit, business, and government sectors to look at the challenges and opportunities ahead in collaborating to sustain and develop thriving, diverse communities in Alberta. The day and a half conference will be held at the University of Calgary on April 25-26, 2012.

The conference will address two overarching themes: looking ahead at changes in the relationships between governments, nonprofits and the business community and the implications for communities; and "Measuring Social Impacts." Our two keynote speakers will address these themes.

In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister David Cameron's "Big Society" agenda has changed the way nonprofits, governments and businesses interact and collaborate. Karl Wilding, Director of Research and Policy at the UK's National Council for Voluntary Organizations (NCVO) will provide the opening plenary session with his address, "Building a bigger society: lessons for Canada from the British experience."

Jason Saul, the Chicago-based founder of Mission Measurement LLC, will present the second keynote address on "Measuring Social Impact". He is the cofounder of the Centre for What Works, a nonprofit organization focused on benchmarking for nonprofits, and he an expert on how nonprofits, funders, and corporations can measure social impacts.

Workshop sessions will explore new funding and financial models; new ways of collaborating between the nonprofit and business sectors to meet community needs; measuring outcomes and impacts; implementation of social enterprise and social finance concepts; building nonprofit sector capacity and recent research on the state of the Alberta nonprofit sector.

This conference is an opportunity for representatives from business, government and the nonprofit sector to explore ideas that will impact our future capacity to work together to build strong communities.

Registration information is available on the CCVO website.

Presenting Sponsor

: Alberta Beverage Container Recycling Corporation (ABCRC)