INSTITUTE FOR
COMMUNITY PROSPERITY
2021/2022 Annual Report

DIRECTOR’S
REFLECTION
Learning into the Long Emergency

and the rise of proto-fascist discourse across North
America, are potentially catastrophic. The scale and
complexity of such challenges means that virtually
every kind of organization – from the smallest local
retail business to the largest multinational corporation, from grassroots community groups to multilateral bodies – must adapt their priorities, capabilities,
mindsets, and modalities (and often radically so).
Universities are not immune to the effects of The Long
Emergency. Mount Royal University, as a recognized
Changemaker Campus, must ensure that we are fit for
purpose in a world experiencing multiple existential
threats, but also filled with liberating forces and potentials – Indigenization, equity-driven decision-making, actioning the UN Sustainable Goals…

“The Long Emergency”
Nearly a decade and a half ago, this phrase was coined
by urbanist and social critic James Howard Kunstler.
The Long Emergency is shorthand for the current epoch
humanity now finds itself in; A time where we are experiencing wave after wave (and year after year, into
the foreseeable future) of global challenges, each of
which threatens to derail or reverse social, economic,
environmental, or scientific progress. Some of these
challenges, like the climate emergency, the nuclear instability precipitated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,

But after a deeply challenging two-plus years of learning-amid-a-pandemic, more and more students,
many acting out their own versions of the “great
resignation”, are reasonably asking questions like
the following: “Am I getting greater value for the
(growing) dollars I am putting in to my education?”
“Does my learning reliably ladder into a career that
has purpose, meaning and future-readiness?” “Are
universities the engines of innovation – especially
social and ecological innovation – that communities
expect them to be?” As Re_Generation, a coalition of
40 Canadian student and youth organizations, points
out, Canadian students are not generally taught about
the scale of the problems we face as a society and a
planet, or about what we can collectively do to address
these problems effectively and work toward equitable,
sustainable and thriving communities.

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This challenge is laid at the feet of Institutes as well:
What are WE doing, concretely, to step up our game
in this hyper-VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and
ambiguous) world? Or in the context of the more contemporary acronym BANI (brittle, anxious, nonlinear,
and incomprehensible). Part of the answer, we think,
is embedded in our name: “Community”
Community implies trust-based relationships,
attention to context, and emphasis on collective
approaches. The Long Emergency is also a phrase
used regularly now by Mark Cabaj, an Alberta-based
thought-leader on complexity, community development, and social innovation. Cabaj is also North
America’s leading expert on collective impact, a set
of methodologies and tools that bring community
groups together in ways that amplify their ability
achieve lasting positive social change.
The Institute for Community Prosperity, spurred by
Cabaj’s challenge to apply the tonic of community
to the complex ills of The Long Emergency, seeks to
embed collective social impact and innovation
within post-secondary learning, and reciprocally to
embed learning within community change. We work
to develop the knowledge, capacities, tools, and confidence in students to approach issues in this VUCA
world thoughtfully, open to insights from many disciplines within the academy as well as insights from
well beyond academia.
But most importantly, we never go it alone; Every one
of our programs, projects and publications is co-led
by, or otherwise in meaningful partnership with, other
community organizations and/or other post-secondary institutions; Collective learning, community-as-classroom.

These three themes also suffuse the just-released
Earth4All model, a major 21st century upgrade to the
World3 model developed by the Club of Rome in the
early days of supercomputing, half a century ago.
Captured in the 1972 report Limits to Growth, this was an
early attempt to apply technology to systems mapping
and modeling in the service of recognizing that mainstream approaches to economic growth were on a trajectory that could lead to a period of extreme hardship,
beginning somewhere between the years 2020 and
2030 and intensifying by 2050, potentially leading
even to civilizational collapse. Even absent this simulation upgrade, most of the key projections of the
original World3 model – though it has weathered many
criticisms - have proven distressingly accurate.
But, while the challenges we collectively face are
immense, the opportunities to create new futures
are equally abundant. The Institute for Community
Prosperity is fortunate to have a team of extraordinary
changemaker-educators, many of whom are recent
MRU alumni. The pages that follow outline the remarkable contributions of these colleagues, and of the
talented new generation of students who have become
part of this movement for social change education.
They are uncovering, exploring, and deepening ways
to make a positive and lasting impact on a host of
issues, from understanding the young talent diaspora
exiting Alberta to enhancing equitable access to affordable housing, education, health care, technology,
and wilderness. As the lead author of Limits to Growth,
the late, great Donella Meadows, once remarked,
“There is too much bad news to justify complacency.
There is too much good news to justify despair.”

For this year’s Annual Report, we are describing our
work on three thematic fronts, each one outlining a
cluster of co-curricular undergraduate and community-partnered learning programs and ‘products’:
1.

Learning in the service of building a WELLBEING
ECONOMY;

2. Learning in the service of designing SOCIAL
PURPOSE TECH; and

James Stauch
Executive Director,
Institute for Community Prosperity

3. Learning in the service of provoking SYSTEMS
CHANGE.

PAGE 3

WELLBEING
ECONOMY

This past year, the Institute became a member of the global Wellbeing Economy Alliance, a collaboration
of changemakers working together to transform the economic system such that all people feel secure
in their basic comforts and can use their creative energies to support the flourishing of all life on this
planet. The Alliance includes social movements, non-governmental organizations, research centres, think
tanks, foundations, economists, and activists. The Institute for Community Prosperity contributes to
this movement towards a wellbeing economy through the following programs, publications and outputs:

Activating the Sustainable
Development Goals on Campus
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted
by the world’s countries in 2015, provides a shared
blueprint for people, prosperity and the planet. The
17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), are at the
centre of this Agenda, and are an urgent call to action.
Canadian post-secondary institutions have unevenly
taken up this call to action, but in almost every case
they have done so in response to student-led collective action.
In partnership with MRU’s Institute for Environmental Sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development
Solutions Network, youth division, based at the University
of Waterloo, we hired Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) student-changemaker Emma Berger to raise awareness
of, and support student action on, the UN Goals.
Emma created a Student SDG Hub (registered as a
SAMRU club) that aims to help students learn about
each of the SDGs from social, environmental and
economic perspectives; discover best-practices
and possible solutions from individual to interna-

tional scales; take action toward a specific SDG each
semester; connect with faculty, local professionals
and clubs working towards sustainable development;
co-design events with other passionate peers to make
change; and build leadership experience. The Student
SDG Hub has a presence on Discord, Instagram, and
Linktree platforms, and has organized a monthly
film night showing sustainability-themed movies.
Garnering student interest during the pandemic and
on a commuter campus is no small feat, but Emma
and her fellow student activists have shown that there
is a deep desire among many students to engage with
and take action on the UN Goals.

Economics of Social Change
Neoliberal economics has failed the planet, and it is
failing much of humanity. But state-driven economies
are problematic for different reasons. Economics of
Social Change is a five-part workshop series that
explores and highlights alternative economic models,
norms and systems that build community wealth
instead of shareholder wealth, that value human
dignity over exploitation and that support the flourishing of life rather than its extinguishment.

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Strongly rooted in local, regional and Canadian case
studies and examples, Economics of Social Change
is a team-taught approach involving living case
studies. Going into its fifth year (and fifth cohort), the
program is co-designed and co-led with Momentum, a
change-making organization that takes an economic
approach to poverty reduction, adding a social perspective to economic development initiatives. The
sessions help participants grow their understanding of the connections between the local economy,
community development and social change in areas
such as food security, affordable housing and local job
creation. 27 participants took part this year.
1.

Each session has a required pre-recorded 3040 minute presentation component, a set of
required readings and videos, and a live workshop
component. The five workshops are as follows:
a. THE SOLUTIONS ECONOMY, Jan 13, 2022
(designed and led by James Stauch, Institute
for Community Prosperity)
b. ECONOMIC RECONCILIATION, Jan 27, 202
(designed and led by Latasha Calf Robe, institute for Community Prosperity)
c. THE CHANGING NATURE OF BUSINESS, Feb 10,
2022 (designed and led by Barb Davies, Institute for Community Prosperity)
d. SYSTEMS CHANGE FOR COMMUNITY ECONOMIES, Feb 24, 2022 (designed and led by Jeff
Loomis, Momentum)
e. FINANCING SOCIAL CHANGE, March 10, 2022
(designed and led by Danielle Gibbie, Operation Eyesight Universal)

The workshop portions also include a selection of
‘living case studies’, including Seth Leon of the Alberta
Community and Cooperative Association speaking
about cooperatives, Brittni Kerluke of Trico Foundation speaking about their social enterprise “blender”
approach, and Alex Laidlaw of the Calgary Foundation
speaking about impact investing.

connectFirst Social Entrepreneurs
The Institute’s third signature undergraduate co-curricular program (following on the heels of Map the
System and the Catamount Fellowship) was launched
this past year. The connectFirst Social Entrepreneurship program provides critical skills so that students
at MRU each year begin to understand social issues
through an economic lens. The program, funded by
its namesake credit union and jointly hosted and run
by the Institute for Community Prosperity and the
Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, guides
ten undergraduate students over the winter semester
through a commercial start-up pathway and toolkit,
as well as through an understanding of the social
economy and community-based frameworks. The
program, which is competitive (application-based)
is open to undergraduate students in any program
of study at MRU, so long as they can demonstrate a
connection to a social issue or who are working on an
enterprising initiative to address a social problem.
Following a fall application process, these ten
students, coming from four different faculties and
eight different programs of study across campus, were
selected to take part in the program:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Alessandra Campagnolo (BSW)
Andrea Niemann (BArts, Policy Studies)
Bianca Veltri (BBA, Accounting)
Diego Morales (BComm, Public Relations)
Gerard Reyes (BArts, Psychology)
Nicholas Harper (BSC, Environmental Science)
Sana Khusro (BArts, Sociology)
Sarah Joseph (BComm, Public Relations)
Sydney Harder (BBA, General Management/
Social Innovation)
Veronica Big Plume (BArts, Sociology)

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, some portions of
the program were offered online and some in-person.
Diana Grant-Richmond, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Strategist (Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship) and Barb Davies, Social Impact Lead
(Institute for Community Prosperity) jointly coordinated the program elements.

PAGE 5

The program elements are structured around four
concepts: ENABLE, INSPIRE, MENTOR and LAUNCH:
1.

INSPIRE: Students deepen their understanding of
the social economy and social entrepreneurship
in a 5-part workshop series designed to apply an
economic lens to social issues: the local economy,
enterprise, finance, community development and
social change. Refer to previous section of this
report for more information. We are also grateful
that ConnectFirst CEO Wellington Holbrook was
able to join us at the second workshop, speaking
directly to the students, not simply as a sponsor,
but also because students learn about the credit
union and co-operative models in the course.

2. ENABLE: Innovation Sprint, Part 1 During this 3-hour
workshop in late March, facilitated by Diana
Grant-Richmond, participants learn the tools to
ideate, innovate, and move forward with their
idea. Students gain critical skills used in the
most innovative industries to solve and action
complex problems mindful of complex systems
and impacts. Students are also oriented to The
Problem Solver’s Companion: A Practitioners Guide
to Starting a Social Enterprise, authored by Ashoka
Fellow and renowned Western Canadian social
entrepreneur Shaun Loney, in partnership with the
Institute for Community Prosperity.
3. MENTOR: Innovation Sprint, Part 2, This second halfday workshop was led by Loney, who inspired
students with real-life examples of social
entrepreneurship in action, and who provided
feedback, coaching and mentorship to the 10
students.
4. LAUNCH Launchpad: Hosted and run by MRU’s the
Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship,
Launchpad supports students to roll up their
sleeves and build something - a company, a
project, an idea, a network, a career, a better world.
It culminates each year with one of the largest
and respected entrepreneur showcases/pitch
competitions in the city.
In addition to one-to-one mentorship throughout the
program, and as a mild additional incentive (recognizing that this is a non-credit program), students
receive a $500 cash award upon completion of the
program.

CityXLab
For decades, the so-called “Alberta Advantage” has
been based on the idea that low taxes and growth
fueled by a lucrative oil and gas sector were things
that set this province apart, and ‘above’ the rest of
Canada. But the post-pandemic “Great Resignation”
is also the “Great Migration” to places that people
want to live in, not earn a fast buck in. One need look
no further than the steady diaspora of Canadians
decamping to Atlantic Canada.
The “X” in CityXLab refers to “eXperience”, and is a
sandbox for thinking differently about civic matters.
Led by Institute Senior Research Fellow Dr. David
Finch, the CityXLab is also supported by Dr. AnneMarie
Dorland, who leads the active experience research
stream. The Institute is thrilled to partner on a range
of initiatives that have emerged out of the CityXLab,
also featuring students at MRU as researchers and
co-authors. Many of these initiatives were identified
by Calgary Economic Development as transformative and essential for transitioning Calgary to the
new economy. These programs – under the brands
of ActiveCITY, LearningCITY, CreativeCITY, Experience
Economy and Measuring What Matters (described
following) - contribute significantly to student
learning and community prosperity. A wellbeing
economy is built on thriving communities valuing
rich human-centric experiences.
Dr. Finch’s and Dr. Dorland’s research and writing over
the past year focused on how experiences, place, and
talent matter to a thriving economy, and more than
ever. Part of this shift will require that businesses and
other organizations work together to present experiences that are holistic and citizen-centric rather than
simply stand-alone transactions. Dr. Finch’s publications and many contributions to the news cycle to
tell this story this past year are outlined later in this
report.

PAGE 6

•

Two papers, the first by St. Mary’s University
Liberal Arts student Angela Bear Chief looking
at Indigenous perspectives on thinking about
(and ‘measuring’) community well-being. The
second paper, authored by MRU BBA Honours
student Marshal McCallum compiles three
applied academic papers for a public audience
to provide clearer context as to how community
prosperity is (or can be) measured, why this is
important to Calgary today, and what an optimal
model for measurement might look like. (see list
of publications later in this report).

•

A podcast produced and hosted by McCallum with
interviews with Calgarians covering aspects of
Measuring What Matters. Podcast guests include
Kylie Woods, Jacie Alook, Colin Jackson, Cynthia
Watson, Sarah Bateman, and James Stauch.

•

A website and short video prompting questions
about Measuring What Matters.

Measuring What Matters
Although one recent index (from The Economist) places
Calgary in fourth place globally for liveability, the
picture is of course far more complex and nuanced.
We need tools that will help us think more holistically, intergenerationally, and that provide signals
and signposts for what really matters. Naturally, this
means looking beyond standard economic measures
of prosperity, and asking how are we performing culturally, ecologically and socially, including our ‘performance’ on decolonization, inclusivity, reconciliation,
and creating the conditions for multiple generations
to thrive.
Measuring What Matters, a project of the CityXLab,
serves as an independent community forum for
nurturing dialogue and critical conversations associated with community performance metrics and how
to measure community prosperity. Measuring What
Matters aims to better understand where we Calgary
is headed as a city with respect to well-being, sustainability, quality of life, sense of belonging, cultural
vibrancy and civic vitality. This work has been guided
by a Steering Committee of over twenty passionate,
engaged Calgarians, including people working the
social, civic, and commercial sectors, culminating in
four major outputs:
•

A day-long online summit in November, 2021
with over 140 participants discussing aspects of
measurement of community and societal wellbeing. Speakers included guests from Aotearoa/
New Zealand, New Zealand and elsewhere in
Canada.

Rethinking the Business
of Social Change
While Shaun Loney was in town in early April for the
workshop with the connectFirst Social Enterpreneurs
students, we also featured him as a speaker for an
event entitled Rethinking the Business of Social Change,
the Institute’s first post-pandemic live event. Loney’s
talk focused on how to shift the grants economy to an
outcomes economy, rethink social impact through
outcomes-based purchasing, unleash new capital
through social procurement, and bring an innovation
mindset to nonprofit work. Loney noted in his talk
that the system of how we value, fund and measure
social impact is broken. He urged the audience to
shift mindsets - when it comes to social impact, we
undervalue what we fund, yet we value what we pay
for, an important distinction that will no doubt have
resonance for grant-reliant researchers as well.

PAGE 7

This was a hybrid event; Although 108 people registered in-person and 121 online, actual attendance for
this free event was smaller, at 55 in-person and 50
virtual. In addition to connectFirst, sponsors included
Canada West Foundation (which used the event to
release their own publication on a similar topic, with
Loney as the lead author), Ashoka Canada (as Loney
is an Ashoka Fellow), the Calgary Foundation, MRUs
Faculty of Continuing Education (who generously
provided food for the event, in addition to discounted
space) and AB SEED/ABSI Connect (using the event as
well to announce their impending merger, described
later in this report), and RBC Foundation. The event
was facilitated by the Institute’s Social Impact Lead
Barb Davies, with Research Fellow Dr. Katharine
McGowan facilitating a live fireside chat with Loney
afterward.

The Right to Eat Right
The Institute for Community Prosperity was engaged
by the YYC Food Fund and the Place2Give Foundation
to chronicle the early stages of real-life, real-time development of the YYC Local Food Distribution Hub.
The report – The Right to Eat Right – gathers and distills
relevant knowledge about food security in general,
particularly in a Calgary regional context. The report
provides an overview of key food security insights
relevant to all Canadians (serving as an excellent
introductory resource for students wanting to learn
about food security), the specific dimensions of food
insecurity in Calgary, the array of current and in-development interventions attempting to address food
insecurity, as well as the landscape of other potential
solutions available to organizations, policy-makers
and others in the food ecosystem.
Among the key findings of The Right to Eat Right are
that food hubs run as purely charitable entities are
rarely viable; there is a desire for a deeper connection between producers and food charities; perspectives on the role of food charity are diverse and often
polarized; and time is critical – both timing to sync
with agricultural production and time to allow trust
and buy-in to develop. The report contains a glossary
of commonly encountered food system terms, a list of
food system resources, and appendices on identified
community stakeholders and works consulted.

PAGE 8

Partners

Memberships

PAGE 9

SOCIAL
IMPACT TECH

The Institute’s attention and resources have increasingly been drawn to looking at how the future of
technology intertwines (or, more accurately, fails to) with the future of good. The COVID-19 pandemic
accelerated society’s level of digitization, impacting how we work, learn and interact outside of the
household. Digital technology and internet connectivity became our lifeline to civilization. Technology
has enabled many improvements to how we address questions of community prosperity and social
good. But at the same time, it has brought risks, inequities and trajectories that have profound, and in
some instances deeply corrosive consequences for the future of social good, whether one’s perspective
is equity and inclusion, ecological integrity, democratic discourse, mental health or any other aspect of
community prosperity.

Centre for Social
Impact Technology
The Centre for Social Impact Technology will be a
city-wide knowledge hub for nurturing dialogue,
learning, and action on the convergence of social innovation and digital technology innovation. The Institute
incubated this initiative, an outgrowth of our pre-pandemic publication In Search of the Altruithm: AI and the
Future of Social Good, and will serve as the Managing
Partner for the Centre going forward. The vision of the
Centre, to be based (starting this September) at the
Platform Calgary Innovation Centre downtown, is to
catalyze an innovation ecosystem in Calgary around
technology that is not only socially beneficial but
socially transformative (responsible, open, inclusive,
shared, and regenerative).
The Centre will focus on transforming Calgary into a
hub for technology-enabled social innovation, connecting Calgary’s burgeoning tech sector to the many
people and organizations working on social innovation. Over time it will also help build digital civil
society, including the need for more technologically enabled nonprofit sector, a more advanced social
R&D culture, and helping meet calls from equity-seeking communities to have a greater voice in the

development of technology to address complex social
challenges informed by data, research insights, and
a systems perspective. With additional resources,
the Centre will be able to also help local campuses
(including, but not limited to MRU) develop ‘talent
pipelines’, where students can rapidly gain a shared
set of skills, competencies, and mindsets to enter and
thrive in this ‘tech for social transformation’ space.
The Centre was ‘soft launched’ in late spring, 2022
with a webinar facilitated by summer student Curtis
Wong (BArts – Anthropology) entitled Amplifying Our
Impact: Interlacing Social Innovation and Digital Tech. Over
the summer, a Lead (full-time coordinating) staff
member has been hired to run the project, a social
media presence has been established, and an
11-member Advisory Board has been to struck provide
strategic advice and serve as a sounding board re.
the programming options and choices for the Centre.
It is comprised of those interested in, and passionate about, building connections, knowledge and
capacity in Calgary’s social impact tech community.
The Advisory Board is a blend of people employed in
the tech sector, either focused on building social-impact-connected companies or supporting the broader
ecosystem; those from academic institutions interested in social innovation and social impact tech;
and those from social impact organizations interested in data and tech. Into the fall, the Centre will host
webinars, in-person gatherings and other learning
events, connect Calgarians to national and international learning, as well as produce papers, systems
scans, and other thought pieces around an array of
topics where social meets tech.

PAGE 10

IncluCity Calgary

Tech Stewardship Practice

In Winter of 2021, Dr. Catherine Pearl’s Vivacity course
partnered with the Institute and CivicTechYYC to
explore the issue of how to prioritize the use of technology for public good over private gain. The student
teams focused in on the topic of inclusive user
testing of civic technologies. Out of this a prototype
initiative was birthed, incubated by the Institute as
a summer work experience for one of the students in
the course: IncluCity Calgary, based on similar models
in Toronto and Chicago, was officially launched May
18, 2022, also with a series of workshops on diversity,
equity and inclusion in tech. To date, IncluCity has
conducted pilot useability testing with Buoyancy
Works and Complete Complaints Foundation, facilitated inclusive usability workshops with InceptionU,
has been actively recruiting testers, and has plans
for 4-5 additional test runs through 2022. With the
support of Code for Canada and Data for Good, the
initiative was able to obtain independent nonprofit
status, and with help from the Calgary Foundation was
able to hire its first managing director. The Institute
has provided support through hiring a student
from the original course – Sydney Harder (who just
graduated with a BBA, Concentration in Social Innovation) to help communicate and raise funds for this
initiative.

The Institute is a promotional partner for Tech Stewardship Practice. Tech Stewardship is a set of lessons
and tools developed by the Canada-wide Engineering
Change Lab to integrate ethical and social considerations into the design and development of new technologies. This 12-hour online micro-credential course
is offered free of charge to any undergraduate student
in Canada. The course is paced at over a 5-week
minimum period (though it is frequently integrated
into credit courses), supported by live mentorship
and check-in sessions. Initially targeted to computer
science and engineering students, Tech Stewardship
Practice is now available – and equally as valuable to any student in any program on campus. Institute
summer students Sydney Harder, Curtis Wong and
Megan Davidson went through the program and
James Stauch completed the Professionals version.

Partners

Memberships

PAGE 11

SYSTEMS CHANGE

We believe universities in the 21st century must focus on social impact. This means that systems-focused, transdisciplinary (dare we say anti-disciplinary?) research and learning are critical, and must
be integrated into helping connect a student’s own journey to personal, career and civic success with
opportunities to map, test, train and immerse themselves in complex social challenges.

•

CATAMOUNT
FELLOWSHIP FOR EMERGING CHANGEMAKERS

Gain valuable undergraduate community-engaged
research experience.
Following is a list of last year’s Fellows who completed
the entire eight-month program, their major program
of study, fellowship topic and community partner.
•

Amirah Azmi (Bachelor of Science, Health
Sciences): How do learning ecosystems support
rural communities and the 21st century learner?
LIVINGSTONE RANGE SCHOOL DIVISION

•

Benin Al-Manaihil (Bachelor of Arts, Sociology):
How might we improve and foster a diverse,
inclusive, and safe community within long-term
care that is built on equality for all? BRENDA
STRAFFORD FOUNDATION

•

Chichi Odinma (Bachelor of Nursing): How might
we engage older adults in the community and
on campus to enhance lifelong learning and
intergenerational learning? SILVERA FOR SENIORS

•

Emma Berger (Bachelor of Arts, Psychology): How
might we utilize partnerships and the Sustainable
Development Goals to create transformative
change? INSTITUTE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL
SUSTAINABILITY

•

Kaitlyn Squires (Bachelor of Science, Biology &
Geography): How might we ensure that Alberta’s
public parks are accessible to all? CANADIAN
PARKS & WILDERNESS SOCIETY (CPAWS)

•

Kaylie LaPierre (Bachelor of Arts, Psychology): How
might we support accessible Indigenous women
& family-centred primary health care with a Virtual
Resource Centre (VRC)? WHITEHORSE ABORIGINAL
WOMEN’S CENTRE

Catamount Fellowship for
Emerging Changemakers
The Catamount Fellowship for Emerging Changemakers,
launched three years ago, is a cohort-based learning
experience for senior-level MRU students committed
to building a more just and sustainable future for
all. The fellowship, managed by the Institute’s Social
Impact Lead, Barb Davies, with support from Changemaking and Community Research Strategist Cordelia
Snowdon, combines community-partnered research
with transformational learning. Funded through the
generous support of the Suncor Energy Foundation,
the program challenges students to dive into social innovation frameworks, experiential learning and deep
listening with community. Students explore the root
causes of complex ecological, social, economic, and
cultural issues affecting communities primarily in
Calgary or elsewhere in Treaty 7. Through this program,
the fellows:
•
•
•

Dig into real-world 21st-century communityidentified challenges with community partners
in Southern Alberta.
Develop a changemaker mindset, combined
with an ability to see complex issues through a
systems lens.
Build meaningful connections with a broader
community of changemakers including
community leaders, public officials, activists,
social entrepreneurs and innovators.

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•

Leanne Lucas (Bachelor of Arts, Psychology):
How might Children’s Services and the non-profit
sector better collaborate in order to improve
services for families experiencing homelessness?
TRELLIS

•

Michael Kozhukhar (Bachelor of Arts, Criminal
Justice Studies): How might we continue to build
momentum in our Calgary communities to build
and strengthen natural supports? UNITED WAY OF
CALGARY & AREA

•

Roshni McCartney (Bachelor of Business
Administration, General Management-Social
Innovation): How might community and industry
work together to foster belonging for unhoused
Indigenous families? BROOKFIELD RESIDENTIAL

We have also benefited from ten faculty mentors for
the 2021/2022 cohort: Ines Sametband (Psychology),
Jocelyn Rempel (Nursing), Harpreet Aulakh (Criminal
Justice), Rob Platts (Interior Design), Janet Miller
(Student Counselling), Adam Cave (International
Business and Supply Chain Management), Kathy
Rettie (General Education), Andrea Kennedy (Nursing),
and AnneMarie Dorland (Marketing & Social Innovation).
The final online showcase was held for a public
audience in April, 2022. The Community Showcase
has become a signature event within MRU Research
Week in early April. Community partners and faculty
mentors have been confirmed and student applications are rolling in for the 2022/23 edition of the Fellowship.

PAGE 13

Map the
System
Canada
Map the System
Map the System is an international student challenge,
run globally by the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford, that provides an
opportunity for students in any program on campus
to showcase their research and system mapping
skills related to complex social and environmental
issues. Unlike a pitch competition, design sprint, or
hackathon, students in the competition are evaluated
based not on a ‘solution’ to a problem, but rather
on the breadth and depth of understanding of the
problem, as well as the nature, diversity, efficacy and
relationships of current interventions (whether by
governments, NGOs, social movements or the marketplace). The competition is also open to students
of all levels, programs and disciplines.
The Institute manages the entire Canada-wide edition
of Map the System, under contract with the McConnell
Foundation, and under the leadership of Latasha Calf
Robe (also a BBA alumnus), with support as well from
Bcomm (Info Design) alumnus Amy Rintoul. Eighteen
universities and colleges across Canada took part this
year: Carleton, Concordia, St. Mark’s/Corpus Christie,
ETS, HEC Montreal, Humber, MacEwan, Memorial,
Mount Royal, Royal Roads, Toronto Metropolitan,
Simon Fraser, Laurier, and the Universities of Alberta,
British Columbia, Calgary, Sherbrooke and Waterloo.

Latasha also ran a global workshop on Indigenous
perspectives on systems thinking, and served as a
judge in the global final at Oxford. In addition, Institute
Research Fellow Dr. Katherine McGowan runs an
aligned credit-based curricular support for students
in the Challenge, through the course Social Innovation
3303: Storytelling and Systems. Dr. McGowan’s role in
Map the System will expand this year, to involve three
separate social innovation classes, all General Education-designated (thus available to most students in
any program on campus).
MRU’s campus-wide Map the System program was run
this past year by Social Work graduate and two-time
participant, Mizuki Oshita. This year’s winning campus
student – Kaitlyn Squires, focusing on the difficulty
sex workers have in accessing health care in Canada
- finished among the top four in Canada. This meant
that Kaitlyn subsequently travelled to the University
of Oxford to compete in the global final.
Special congratulations as well this past year to MRU
Alumni Ashley Dion (BBA ’20) and Jillian Mah (BBA
’20) on the release of their documentary Liminal: Is
Charity Designed to Fail? Ashley and Jillian participated in Map the System Canada in 2020 with their
social problem “is charity designed to fail?” This
documentary explores the issues of the charity
system and its origins. Viewers are taken through
some of the crippling challenges and failures the
institution of ‘charity’ faces, showing how we might
radically modernize this system and better address
the changing needs of the people it serves (i.e. all
Canadians and millions of people abroad).

PAGE 14

The scan includes an overview of older Canadians’
demographic, lifestyle, prosperity, living, housing
and care trends. It also focuses on system failures
and vulnerabilities, as well as the interventions in
place, or in various stages of design and experimentation, to address these failures and vulnerabilities.
It also peers into some ideas and opportunities on
the horizon, or that are being implemented in other
countries, with potential for replication, adaptation,
or scaling in Canada.
The genesis of this project came from the ATCO
Transformation Team, who lead ATCO SpaceLab and
are exploring aging issues and dynamics as a topic
of interest to the company, from technological, commercial and social purpose standpoints.

ABSI

connect

Aging and Thriving in
the 21st Century
As Canada’s population ages, our collective attention
will turn, more and more, toward the role, value,
plight, and potential of older Canadians. The COVID-19
pandemic, 95% of its victims in Canada having been
over 60, has revealed much about our attitudes toward
the eldest members of our community, and the public
policy choices that flow from this. Even before the
pandemic hit, issues facing older Canadians were
surfacing as among the most critical – yet also largely
ignored - in Canada.
Aging & Thriving in the 21st Century is a scan of issues,
trends, system dynamics and innovations related
to an ageing population in Canada. It is guided principally by the following question: The scan looks at
what factors are preventing older Canadians from
flourishing, and how might we transform systems
to maximize the choice, dignity, mobility, security,
and trust accompanying an aging population transitioning into less autonomous living circumstances?

Alberta Social Innovation Connect
The Institute serves as the administrative hub for
Alberta Social Innovation Connect (ABSI Connect), ABSI
Connect seeks to find, connect, celebrate, and support
Albertans who are creating and testing new ways of
approaching society’s most pressing problems. ABSI
connect is a collective of organizations and individuals working to get better at solving complex social
and environmental problems in our province. They’ve
recently prototyped a coffee convening project to
test out different ways of convening people across
the sector. Going forward, the work of ABSI Connect is
expected to find a new organizational home, merging
with an Alberta Social Economy Ecosystem Development (AB SEED) into a combined force to accelerate
social innovation in the province.

PAGE 15

Chronicling the Re-Alignment of
Social Impact Organizations
The Institute is interested in big questions about how
society invests in social purpose and the common
good in the 21st century, including the shifting roles
of civil society organizations such as charities, social
enterprises and non-profits. The Institute has started
to chronicling real-world examples that sit at the
nexus of knowledge and action, and also at the nexus
of systems thinking and social problems.

The final report from this process - Merging for Good
(March, 2021) – serves a framework to help other
nonprofit organizations consider if a merger or amalgamation may be the right fit. We intended this report
to have far-reaching value for human-serving organizations who are considering a merger or amalgamation, but also for other social profit organizations, as
well as funders and other capacity builders. Moreover,
it is not just valuable for managers and boards. We
hope that it is useful for front-line staff, as it illuminates the complexities of a merger yet speaks to
some grounded experiences around culture, operations, service delivery and lived HR issues. As such,
it is a hybrid of a real-time case study and a developmental evaluation of a merger in action. The Institute
continues to speak about this work at AGMs, panels,
webinars and other events.

The Dandelion Project: Scaling
Impact through Dissolution?

Merging for Good: A Framework
for Nonprofit Mergers
Part of this shift is this growing interest in (and
external pressure) to collaborate, merge or otherwise
amalgamate operations. As reported last year, the
Institute was privileged to be asked to follow – as it
was unfolding - what is likely the largest nonprofit
merger in Alberta history. This was between Aspen
Family & Community Network (Aspen) and Boys &
Girls Clubs of Calgary (BGCC), which combined into a
brand-new organization called Trellis.

Calgary Reads, a well-recognized nonprofit organization advocating for early childhood literacy over
the past 20 years, is in the process of winding down
its operations and transfering programs, knowledge
and other ‘legacy’ components to a range of other organizations. The aim of this ‘Dandelion’ strategy is
to continue to have impact in the community beyond
the life of Calgary Reads. While there are resources
and literature around dissolution of a nonprofit organization, typically focusing on the legal or financial
aspects of dissolution, there are fewer insights around
programmatic dissolution and still fewer on creating
an impact legacy in conjunction with dissolution. As
such, the Institute’s partnership with Calgary Reads
to chronicle this process, with funding support from
Chevron, represents a unique opportunity to fill a
social R&D knowledge gap. Interviews have been
underway over the summer, with the case study report
to be produced later this coming fall.

PAGE 16

Trico Changemakers Studio

2022 Environmental Scan:
Sh*t’s Getting Real

Created and launched in partnership with the
Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in 2018,
the Trico Changemakers Studio has shifted from an
on-campus co-working space toward a social R&D
laboratory and collective learning space. The Studio
also supports an Artists as Changemakers Program
and the Anitopisi Leadership Program, designed
and run by our colleague Latasha Calf Robe. We
are thrilled to collaborate on many fronts with the
Studio, including shared personnel, and partnering
on community engagement, student work experience and co-curricular learning opportunities. Please
review the Studio’s Annual Report for more information, and stay tuned for an exciting announcement
about a new joint program launch, coming in 2023.

Commissioned annually by the Calgary Foundation,
Institute Director James Stauch co-authored this sixth
such scan, looking at a wide range of contemporary
and emerging issues, locally, provincially, nationally, and beyond. The scan informs the Foundation’s
annual board and staff retreat before being made
public. This year’s scan looked at a range of issues,
including the metaverse, drug decriminalization, gene
editing, the epidemic of loneliness, Canada’s affordable housing crisis, and the ‘Land Back’ movement (this
chapter co-authored by Latasha Calf Robe), among
other topics. The scan is a critical opportunity to
upgrade and, help ensure the contemporary relevance
of our knowledge on key social issues, and to contextualize our work in terms of the converging simultaneous stresses, a.k.a. The Long Emergency.

PAGE 17

Partners

Memberships

PAGE 18

THE TEAM

The Institute’s work and accomplishments were made possible in 2021/22 by an outstanding team of
individuals, including 9 MRU students, 7 recent MRU alumni, and volunteers who bridge their advising
and mentorship role at ICP with their work in the community as respected practitioners and agents of
change. As part of its commitment to supporting work-integrated learning, the Institute hires casual
and summer students, as well as occasional research assistants.

Core Team
•

Barb Davies, Social Impact Lead1

•

Barbara Weber, Interim ABSI Connect Facilitator

•

Cordelia Snowdon, Changemaking and
Community Research Strategist (2020 BArts
Grad)

•

James Stauch, Executive Director

•

Latasha Calf Robe, Map the System Canada
Manager (2017 BBA Grad)2

•

Tracy Pfeifer, Administrative Assistant3

•

Walter Hossli, Changemaker in Residence (1985
Dipl Social Services Grad; volunteer / nonremunerated)

Research Fellows
Many MRU faculty contribute to the work of the
Institute for Community Prosperity, for example
as mentors in the Institute’s Catamount Fellowship and Map the System programs, and as changemaker-educators breaking down the boundaries
between academia and community. In addition, we
have furnished a closer, ongoing multi-pronged relationship with three distinguished faculty members as
Institute fellows. All three of these faculty members
have worked closely with the Institute for a number
of years in a variety of capacities, so we are delighted
to more formally recognize their many valuable contributions to our work, and to MRU’s evolution as a
recognized Changemaker Campus:

•

Dr. David Finch, Professor, Bissett School of
Business, Visiting Fellow - Henley Business
School,University of Reading (UK), Adjunct
Professor, Gordon S. Lang School of Business
and Economics, University of Guelph

•

Dr. Yasmin Dean4, Dean of the Faculty of
Education and Social Work at Thompson Rivers
University

•

Dr. Katharine McGowan, Assistant professor,
Social Innovation, Bissett School of Business

Project-Specific Team Members
The Institute provides career-laddering work experience for students in a variety of roles:
• Amrita Kommular, Information Designer –
Social Impact Tech (BComm Student)
•

Curtis Wong, Projects Assistant – Social Impact
Tech (2022 BArts Grad)

•

Emma Berger, SDG Hub Coordinator (BArts
Student)

•

Kim Gordon, Projects Assistant – CommunityBased Microcredentials (BBA Student)

•

Megan Davidson, Social Innovation Projects
Assistant (BArts Student)

•

Sydney Harder, Civic Tech Coordinator –
IncluCity Calgary (BBA Student)

Cross-appointed with the Trico Changemakers Studio
Cross-appointed with the Trico Changemakers Studio
3
Cross-appointed with the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
4
While Dr. Dean was, until January, 2022, Associate Professor of Social Work, Chair - Department of Child Studies and Social
Work. Dr. Dean maintains her Senior Research Fellow status with the Institute for the time being.
1

2

PAGE 19

UNTIL FALL, 2021

UNTIL WINTER, 2021

•

Angela Bear Chief, Projects Assistant Measuring What Matters (BArts Student, St.
Mary’s University)

•

Danika Dinko, Civic Engagement Projects
Liason (Honours BBA Student, Social Innovation
Concentration)

•

Elise Martinoski, Information Designer - ABSI
Connect (2019 BComm Grad)

•

•

Grace Attala, Project Assistant – Designing You/
Why Alberta Project (Student, Western Canada
High School)

Marshal McCallum, Research Assistant Measuring What Matters (Honours BBA Student,
Social Innovation Concentration)

•

Kennedy Lukey, Project Assistant - Why Alberta
Project (2020 BBA Grad)

•

Robyn MacDonald, Project Assistant - Why
Alberta Project (2020 BBA Grad)

PAGE 20

PUBLIC
ENGAGEMENT &
COMMUNITY
INVOLVEMENT

Institute team members have been involved in either delivering or participating in a wide variety of
community or scholarly events, locally and beyond, in order to communicate our learning to a wider
audience of practitioners, citizens and academics as well as to ground our thinking in feedback, experience and application.

Publications5
•

Amirah Azmi. Learning Ecosystems: Improving
K-12 Education Through Learner-Centered Pedagogy.
Institute for Community Prosperity, April, 2022.

•

Dr. David Finch (with Janet Lane and Stephany
Laverty). Work to Live: Alberta youth mobility.
Canada West Foundation, April, 2022.

•

Angela Bear Chief. Measuring What Matters:
Indigenous Perspectives from Treaty 7 &
Moh’kinsstsis (Calgary). Institute for Community
Prosperity, November, 2021.

•

Dr. David Finch (with Janet Lane). “WHAT NOW?
| Bridging Alberta’s Reputation-Reality Divide”
(policy brief). Canada West Foundation, July,
2022.

•

Benin Al-Manaihil. Understanding and Enhancing
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion within Continuing
Care Organizations. Institute for Community
Prosperity, April, 2022.

•

Dr. David Finch (with Janet Lane). “WHAT NOW? |
The New Alberta Talent Advantage” (policy brief).
Canada West Foundation, July, 2022.

•

Chichi Odinma. Enhancing Lifelong Learning and
Intergenerational Learning Among Older Adults.
Institute for Community Prosperity, April, 2022.

•

Emma Berger. Sharing the Vision: Partnerships
for the Sustainable Development Goals in PostSecondary Institutions. Institute for Community
Prosperity, April, 2022.

•

Dr. David Finch. “Alberta’s economy is
diversifying, but it still has some challenges to
overcome” (op-ed), Globe and Mail, July 1, 2022.

•

•

Dr. David Finch (with Janet Lane). “Study sheds
light on why young adults are leaving Alberta –
and how to bring them back” (op-ed), Globe and
Mail, April 4, 2022.

James Stauch (with Latasha Calf Robe). Sh*t’s
Getting Real: 2022 Environmental Scan. Institute for
Community Prosperity and Calgary Foundation,
January, 2022.

5

Not including academic works by Research Fellows produced outside their Institute affiliation.

PAGE 21

•

James Stauch. Aging and Thriving in the 21st
Century: A Scan and Selective Systems Analysis of
Trends and Issues Facing Older Canadians. Institute
for Community Prosperity and ATCO SpaceLab.
2021.

•

James Stauch and Cordelia Snowdon. The Right
to Eat Right: Connecting Upstream and Downstream
Food Security in Calgary. Institute for Community
Prosperity, YYC Food Security Fund at the
Place2Give Foundation. December, 2021.

•

Kaitlyn Squires. Paying More for Less: Accessibility
and Alberta’s Natural Spaces. Institute for
Community Prosperity, April, 2022.

•

Dr. Katharine McGowan and Latasha Calf Robe
(with Paul Heidebrecht, Michelle Jackett, Jessica
Machado, Susan Grossman, Laura Allan, Elinor
Bray-Collins, Sara Hassan, Nicole Helwig, Sarah
Marie Croft, Antonio Daling, Mathieu Couture,
Amy Farahbakhsh, Annette Santos, Caitlin
Stiles) “Transformational Spaces: Educators
discuss Map the System and supporting
Canada’s emerging generation of systems
thinkers.” Social Enterprise Journal, 18:1, 2022.

•

Kaylie LaPierre. Indigenous Wellbeing: A StrengthsBased Approach with Virtual Supports. Institute for
Community Prosperity, March, 2022.

•

Latasha Calf Robe & Becky Best-Bertwistle. “The
potential for open-pit coal mining in Alberta’s
eastern slopes ignites a fire to protect the
land” (article). Indigenous Perspectives on Land
and Climate Change. Urban Society for Aboriginal
Youth (USAY) New Tribe Magazine, May, 2022.

•

Leanne Lucas. Improving Services to Families
Experiencing Homelessness: Understanding how
Children’s Services and the Non-Profit Sector can
Improve Collaboration. Institute for Community
Prosperity, April, 2022.

•

Marshal McCallum (with contributions from
James Stauch and Dr. David Finch). Measuring
What Matters: Understanding the Context for
Community Prosperity Metrics in Calgary. Institute
for Community Prosperity, March, 2022.

•

Michael Kozhukhar. The Value and Potential of
Natural Supports in Calgary Communities. Institute
for Community Prosperity, April, 2022.

•

Roshni McCartney. When a House is Not a Home:
Investigating Spiritual Homelessness in Indigenous
Populations of Calgary. Institute for Community
Prosperity, April, 2022.

PAGE 22

Speeches, Workshops, Webinars &
Presentations
The Institute designed, delivered or co-delivered the
following workshops and learning sessions over the
past year. Note that this list does not include core/
regular/ongoing institute events, such as Map the
System, Catamount Fellowship or Economics of Social
Change, or events presented or hosted through ABSI
Connect.
•

•

ATCO Transformation Team - Mapping Systems
Workshop (James Stauch and Cordelia
Snowdon)
Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations
Connections Conference – “Building Community
Prosperity”- Beyond Incrementalism: From MissionDriven to Massive Change, (James Stauch, session
host and designer, with Vinod Rajasekeran, Lucy
Bernholz, Daniela Papi-Thornton, and Gemma
Dunn)

•

Calgary Climate Hub – AGM (Latasha Calf Robe,
keynote speaker)

•

Canadian Wilderness Stewardship Summit Youth Organizing and Climate Action (Latasha Calf
Robe)

•

Centre for Social Impact Technology - Amplifying
Our Impact: Interlacing Social Innovation and Digital
Tech (Curtis Wong, also featuring Uriel Karerwa,
Terry Rock, Alina Turner, and Michelle Baldwin)

•

Congress 2022, ANSER-ARES 2022 Conference
- Getting Past the Gatekeepers: Accessibility
in Nonprofit Governance (Cordelia Snowdon,
presenter)

•

Going Further Together, Ashoka Canada &
Suncor Energy Foundation virtual gathering Exploring Pathways to Activating Social Innovation in
Your Campus (Latasha Calf Robe, facilitator)

•

Healthy Aging Alberta – Aging and Thriving in the
21st Century (James Stauch, presenter)

•

Information Design 2680 Course, Mount
Royal University. Storytelling for Information
Designers. (Cordelia Snowdon, presenter)

•

Inventures Unbound, In Search of the Altruithm:
Connecting Social Innovation and Tech Innovation
(James Stauch, with Dr. Alina Turner)

•

Social Innovation 2201 Course – End of Semester
Student Showcase (James Stauch, presenter)

•

Social Work 633 Course, University of Calgary,
Personal Systems Mapping (Cordelia Snowdon)

•

Transitions Innovations Group, Environmental
Scanning (James Stauch, presenter)

•

University of the Fraser Valley - Learning from
the Land 2022 Symposium (Latasha Calf Robe,
presenter)

•

Wood Buffalo Social Profit Summit - Merging for
Good: Thinking about Non-profit Amalgamations
(James Stauch & Cordelia Snowdon, presenters)

Institute Communications
Over the last year, the Institute for Community
Prosperity has utilized a variety of communication channels. Our Catalyze newsletter continues to
reach 2,000 stakeholders each month and engages
students, staff and community members on Institute
and studio happenings. With a 32.6% average open
rate (the average overall open rate for Mailchimp is
21%), Catalyze continues to be an effective engagement tool. In January 2022, the Institute launched on
LinkedIn and has grown to just under 500 followers in
the first 7 months. The Institute has also seen healthy
engagement on Twitter this past year. It reaches over
1,500 followers with an average engagement rate of
2.15% over the past year with numbers fluctuating
between 1.9 and 2.6%. In addition to our own communication channels, the Institute continues to work
closely with the MRU marketing and communications
team. This includes sharing news in the faculty and
staff newsletter, Our Community, the ORSCE newsletter,
and targeted emails to students.
Institute Executive Director James Stauch and Senior
Research Fellow Dr. David Finch each conducted nine
interviews with media outlets over the past year. Dr.
Finch is also a regular on the Calgary EyeOpener on
CBC Radio, Wednesdays through the coming year. He
has also authored a number of op-eds in the Globe and
Mail and Calgary Herald/ PostMedia.

PAGE 23

Awards and Honours

•

Canada Bridges, Board Member (Latasha Calf
Robe)

•

•

Canadian Community Economic Development
Network (CCEDNet), Board Member (Barb
Davies)

•

City of Calgary, Benefits Procurement Advisory
Task Force (Barb Davies)

•

Kainai Environmental Protection Association
(KEPA), Member/volunteer (Latasha Calf Robe)

•

Local Investing YYC, Board Chair (Barb Davies)

•

MRU Human Resources Classification
Committee, MRSA (Tracy Pfeifer)

•

Niitsitapi Water Protectors, Co-Lead (Latasha
Calf Robe)

•

The Philanthropist, Editorial Committee (James
Stauch)

•

Social Innovation Canada, Regional Partner/
Advisor (Barbara Weber)

Latasha Calf Robe was nominated and accepted
into the 2022/2023 cohort of the NDN Collective
Changemaker Fellowship, recognizing emerging
Indigenous changemakers across North
America; Latasha, as founder and co-lead of the
Niitsítapi Water Protectors, was also honoured
with the Yellowstone to Yukon Ted Smith Award
for Conservation Collaboration

•

Dr. David Finch was appointed to the Minister of
Advanced Learning Advisory Council on Higher
Education & Skills

•

James Stauch was nominated and appointed as
a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts

Service
Institute personnel6 also volunteer or serve on many
other boards and committees, and are encouraged to
find synergies between these involvements and their
work at the Institute:
•

Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW)
Nominations and Recruitment Committee
(Cordelia Snowdon)

•

Alberta Ecotrust Foundation, Board Member
(James Stauch)

•

Alberta Social Enterprise Ecosystem
Development Project, Steering Committee
(Barbara Weber)

•

Calgary On Purpose, Advisory Board (James
Stauch)

6

This list does not include community service activities of Research Fellows, which are reported in their respective annual faculty reports.

PAGE 24

FINANCING THE
INSTITUTE
The Institute is independently financed; It receives
no funds from the university, and operates entirely
on funds gifted or earned from philanthropic foundations, individuals, or companies outside of MRU. Some
of these gifts in the distant past have helped build the
Institute’s two endowments, which collectively are
valued at just over $4.9 million. The Institute spends
at a level necessary to preserve the capital of these
endowments.
Despite our independence we cannot do much in
isolation. Our lifeblood is our connections and partnerships with funders, community groups, civil
society networks, teaching and research collaborators, faculty, other institutes at MRU, colleges and
universities, and especially with students and alumni
wanting to change the status quo. This past fiscal
year, we are particularly grateful to have received program-related funding from the Suncor Energy Foundation, McConnell Foundation, Social Innovation Canada
and an Anonymous Donor. This past year also saw the
largest growth in earned revenue.

Revenue Source Mix - Institute for
Community Prosperity
(July 1, 2021 - March 31, 2022)
Philanthropic
Grants & Donations
Investment Income
(ICP Endowment)
Earned Revenue
Sponsorships
Federal government
revenue (summer
jobs program)

This past year’s Institute revenue and expense totals
were both $471,728. Note that this was a 9-month
fiscal year, so monthly revenue and expenses averaged
$52,414. Following is an illustration of the mix of
revenue sources (by type) and a depiction of how
Institute resources were allocated (by program). Note
that, other than accessing a grant through Employment and Social Development Canada’s Summer Jobs
Program, and the new Civil Society Fund grant (which
will figure into next year’s summary), the Institute did
not receive funds from government.
Note also that all Institutes’ financial year-end
summaries are rolled up into the reporting of the
Office of Research, Scholarship and Community Engagement.

Program Expense Allocation - Institute for
Community Prosperity
(July 1, 2021 - March 31, 2022)
Community-Partnered
Publications
Catamount Fellowship
for Emerging
Changemakers
Map the System Canada
Alberta Social
Innovation Connect
Economics of
Social Change
Measuring What Matters
Other Initiatives
Administration and
Development

PAGE 25

Driven by MRU’s mandate to provide extraordinary opportunities for undergraduates,
the Institute fxor Community Prosperity provides students and other citizens access
to high-impact, immersive, and uncompromisingly current learning to improve and
transform communities; unlocking student potential, and helping them flourish as
learners, changemakers, and human beings. We build on MRU’s high-quality in-class
reputation with an extraordinary suite of co-curricular and undergraduate research,
scholarship and community co-led learning opportunities.