Participatory Canada Roadmap
6. CANADAPARTICIPATORYROADMAP PARTICIPATORY CANADA Y1 SOCIAL R&D REPORT208
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This is the culmination of the three strategic sessions held during December 2020 and January 2021, combined with additional interviews and discussions with potential partners and groups, and secondary research. work was a effort between Discovery District, the Maison de l’innovation (MIS), Coop, and the exception of the which with means: must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the and indicate if changes were made. not use the material for commercial purposes. remix, transform, or build upon the material, must distribute contributions under the same licence.
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Acknowledgements
the following collaborating organizations: MaRS
Participatory Canada RoadmapAuthorsReport Team Alex SueSashaPatrickMélanieChrisRyanMakrisBissonDubéSudTalusan Design by Paul Messer Don WithMcNairsupport from: Participatory Canada McConnell Foundation Jayne Engle Keren Tang Participatory City Foundation Tessy Britton Nat ThisDefriendworkis shared by Participatory Canada under a Creative Commons Licence, with
one year of research, the vision is still compelling and viable, even with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Information gathered from participants in the strategic sessions, through interviews, and from supporting research was used to develop this Participatory Canada Roadmap, which outlines potential pathways to help grow the vision for a scaled initiative in Canada.
To culminate a year of experiential learning and research, Participatory Canada wanted to understand demand and conditions for scaling the Participatory City approach in Canada. As part of this exploration, Participatory Canada commissioned a series of three strategy sessions in late 2020 and early 2021, to align around scaling demand and possibilities, learning architecture, and The 10 year vision for Participatory Canada was developed at Wasan Island in 2019. Participatory City Foundation, working in partnership with the McConnell Foundation, began seeding an intention and creating a plan to develop, learn and explore feasibility of prototypes during a social research & development phase in three Canadian cities, Halifax, Montreal, and Toronto. The live prototypes were designed to maximise learning opportunities and share knowledge and practices between the three cities. This was completed with an aim to test local responses to participation culture and to assess the emerging opportunities for building participatory social infrastructure in these neighborhoods long Afterterm.
Executive Summary
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Context Local conditions, including political, social and economic factors, ecosystems. Financial implications take effect on a per city basis in costs for social infrastructure and core assets needed to establish the spaces for Participatory Canada, such as community storefronts, warehouse, and learning campuses. Additionally, social factors can vary across communities which impact the types of programs that should be activated at the forefront to validate the Participatory City approach; teams should aim for high impact and low risk projects.
Learning Architecture Participatory Canada should focus on developing and making available curriculum and learning programs to educate partners and interested groups in the Participatory City approach. In later phases, focus should be on developing expertise and capabilities for individuals to create programs and facilitate systems change. Experiential learning and immersive experiences are preferred and believed to give the greatest impact to develop skills and knowledge of the Participatory City approach. However, with the continuing pandemic and considering geographic scaling across Canada, Participatory Canada should facilitate online and digital learning to support the growth of the program as travel and inperson interactions may be hindered in the short to medium term.
Vision Each city has its own vision and ambition manifesting into programs and activities within their communities. The vision for Participatory Canada must be co-developed with the Participatory City Foundation, and the participating Canadian cities to articulate the adapted vision for the Canadian expansion of the Participatory embodies reconciliation and anti-racism approaches will advance local agendas while building on participatory approaches.
The school creates an essential hub for the Participatory City approach. It is a place to connect the growing set of deep learning campuses, share learnings and adaptations of the approach, and create skills for city teams and communities. The initial deep city implementation should act as the main Canadian learning campus of the Here&Now school to be a hub and entry point for other Canadian cities to connect into and explore the Participatory City approach. Additionally, the school should be utilized as a core piece of the measurement functions to support data collection and impact measurement. Creating supporting evidence will be Canada and its cities. Resources a robust team to quickly establish local social infrastructure, resources will need to be supported by the national team as well as local governments and organizations. Over time, people and phases of Participatory Canada. Evidence
Essential Components for Scale
The three supporting functions of coordination, relationships and communication contribute to the effective development of the six essential components of scaling. Strong organization and coordination of resources and communication across teams, cities, and global programming will support the growth and evolution of the Participatory City approach. Moreover, Participatory Canada and cities will need to develop relationships with community organizations, local governments and funders to build long term sustainability and trust in practical participation ecosystems and social infrastructures. Evidence, shared experiences and learning curriculum will formulate the basis of communication assets to support the case for the Participatory City approach. Effective development of relationships, communication assets, and coordination across the six essential components for scaling resources, and deeper relationships with advocates, funders and communities.
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The Roadmap utilizes a systemic and futures based approach to growing and scaling, to manage decision making and balance risks around uncertainties and externalities that might emerge over the next ten years. To ensure success, Participatory Canada should grow within each local community across the six essential components for scaling participatory systems in new places, including vision, context, learning architecture, school, resources and evidence. Three additional factors should also be considered that apply to each component and could amplify the success or failure of the approach in Canada. They include coordination, relationships and partnerships, and communication and storytelling. These factors will contribute to building practical participation ecosystems and also in sharing the learnings across the Participatory Canada network of cities.
Each city that joins Participatory Canada will contribute evidence and data to collectively better understand the impacts the programs create in each community and in Canada. Measurement and collection of data and stories will be crucial in developing participation ecosystems within cities.
Coordination, Relationships & Communication
School
Figure - Ten year roadmap for Participatory Canada PARTICIPATORY CANADA ROADMAP 213
Scaling over Time
Within the short term, a focus on building the necessary teams to effectively establish the social infrastructure, learning cohort of cities. Engaging the community and key stakeholders (city and funders) to build momentum around the program and its ambitions will be crucial in priming Participatory Canada for success. The focus on people was viewed as critical to build the capacity and expertise necessary to mobilize the community through events, Participatory City programs (eg. Every One Every Day, Tomorrow Today Street kits) and to create measurement and outcomes frameworks.
As Participatory Canada builds its foundation of the essential components for growing and scaling, a phased approach is recommended to develop additional elements around growing people capabilities, identifying and mobilizing sustainable using a strong network and relationship approach. Although each time period showcases a particular area of focus, each element should be continually developed over the next ten years to successfully scale practical participation ecosystems in Canada.
Constraints and Future Considerations
During the convening sessions, ambitious goals were conveyed to embed and establish the Participatory City approach in at least 50 cities or communities across Canada by 2030. Clear demand and the appropriate conditions of deep networks, strong evidence and validation, and the built expertise and capacity across mature cities to support the Participatory Canada platform into new cities will be needed to achieve the ambition. Supporting the initial cohorts of cities will prime Participatory Canada to leverage their capacity to support other regional cities to adopt participatory practices, akin to a ripple, radiating outwards to new cities. Through the development of evidence, demonstration of impact, and rich storytelling, Participatory Canada should aim to be a leader in establishing, embedding, and financing participatory social infrastructure in Canada over the next decade, andAssumptions,beyond.
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Near Term (0-3 years): People
Medium Term (3-5 years): Sustainable FInancing sharing of key learnings, frameworks and approaches to support subsequent cohorts. With their deployment of Participatory to support ongoing city funding and additional cities to onboard into Participatory Canada. Cities can leverage the stories and data emerging from each city implementation to support the case for public funding and/or additional private or philanthropic outcomes impact.
Long Term (5-10 years): Building Networks
Participatory Canada should use a futures lens and systemic solutions to consider possible externalities and uncertainties. This will ensure that the growth of Participatory Canada remains ten years to effectively grow and scale the Participatory City Cityapproach.andnational implementation teams will need to consider other aspects of scaling besides the size and depth of a city implementation, such as building depth of practitioner knowledge. Adding the Participatory City approach to existing community participatory practices could amplify effects, leading to faster and stronger creation of social and systemic infrastructure for long term systems change and community resilience, while partnerships could drive towards collective impact. New city implementations should leap-frog each previous implementation to make use of learning and infrastructure, while existing cities should leverage new learning to keep ideas fresh and momentum moving forward. Mechanisms to transition from short term to long term partnerships and funding should be developed and tested, balanced with the increasing reality of limited funding availability in cities to build infrastructure. The ongoing pandemic may require a shift in the type of participatory programs and accompanying infrastructure that is needed in communities and they should be developed and evaluated over time, shifting as the needs in communities change. Through the development of evidence, demonstration of impact, and rich storytelling, Participatory Canada should aim to be a social infrastructure in Canada over the next decade, and beyond.
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Table of Contents 218 Introduction 218 History of Participatory City 222 Ambition and Vision for the Participatory City Approach 224 Purpose of the Scaling Scenarios Roadmap 225 Framing the Roadmap 226 Scaling Approaches 227 Components for Scaling Participatory Systems 228 Funding Approaches 231 Systemic Approaches for an Uncertain Future 234 Navigating the Pathways of Growth and Scale 235 Growing the Essential Elements 236 Vision 236 Context 237 Learning Architecture 240 School 241 Resources 244 Evidence 246 Coordination, Relationships, and Communications 247 Scaling over Three Time Horizons 247 The Near Term (0-3 years): People 249 The Medium Term (3-5 years): Sustainable Financing 250 The Long Term (5-10 years): Building Networks 251 Assumptions, Constraints and Future Considerations 252 Understanding Emerging Demand 253 Conclusion 255 Appendices 255 Appendix A: Summary of Strategic Sessions 255 Convening Session 1: Scaling 255 Convening Session 2: Learning 255 Convening Session 3: Financing 256 Appendix B: Financial Considerations PARTICIPATORY CANADA ROADMAP216
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Participatory City
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After evaluating the outcomes from year two of Every One Every Day, it was found that practical participation cultivates individual agency. The collective effects of many smaller actions and participation are needed to generate collective impact.
During 2019 and 2020, Participatory City became international by establishing social research and development (Social R&D) sandboxes in Montreal, Halifax, and Toronto with Participatory Canada. This work was supported by the J.W. McConnell and Participatory City Foundations, with support from the Government of Canada (Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) Investment Readiness Program6) and with coalitions of local partners.1EuropeanCommission
The Participatory City approach brings residents of Barking and Dagenham, a borough in London, together to build practical everyday projects that create friendships, and healthy, sustainable, thriving communities. By making better use of spaces, resources, skills and knowledge, the Participatory City approach enables connected and supported collections of activities to effect participatory ecosystem.
History Participatoryof City
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Introduction
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Canada is no exception. In its fall 2020 economic statement2, it committed to spend up to $100 billion over the next three years, including on investments that will serve as a down payment for “transformative initiatives”3. There is a unique opportunity at this moment in time to explore how a national Participatory Canada scaling strategy could be one of those transformative initiatives. Participatory social infrastructure empowers people to be co-producers of transitions in their communities. Federal programs such as the Canada Healthy Communities Initiative4 signal a recognition of the need to invest in participatory social infrastructure as part of the COVID-19 recovery. Creating this new form of infrastructure will be crucial to building forward better from COVID-19, bridging social capital and cohesion, and strengthening civic legitimacy, collective agency, and resilience. Similarly, this work could be linked to transformative platforms and narratives like the EmergencE Room5, a collaborative environment for emergent initiatives that nurture deep, structural transition. This could enable participatory social infrastructure to foster a culture of participation and provide the necessary foundation to grow radically inclusive, cohesive, resilient, and vibrant communities.
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(September 9, 2020) “Strategic Foresight Report - Charting the Course towards a more resilient Europe” https://www.budget.gc.ca/fes-eea/2020/themes/building-back-better-rebatir-mieux-en.html32foresight/2020-strategic-foresight-report_enhttps://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/strategic-planning/strategic-DepartmentofFinanceCanada(2020)“FallEconomicStatement2020,SupportingCanadianandFightingCOVID-19,”https://www.budget.gc.ca/fes-eea/2020/home-accueil-en.htmlDepartmentofFinanceCanada(2020)“FallEconomicStatement2020,BuildingBackBetter”4GovernmentofCanadathroughInfrastructureCanadawithCommunityFoundationsofCanada(2021)“CanadianHealthyCommunitiesInitiative”https://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/chci-iccs/index-eng.html5Tolearnmore,pleasevisithttps://emergenceroom.net/6EmploymentandSocialDevelopmentCanada(2019),“InvestmentReadinessProgram”https://investment-readiness.html
The year 2 learnings7 from Participatory City, UK also demonstrate that if some or all of the following conditions can be met in a place, the Participatory City approach can drive towards positive and sustained community impact: High evidence of need, network effects, and politicians, Possible experience of having tried other approaches without success, A local champion or team willing to make the local case and co-ordinate decision-making, and • of participatory culture.
There is a rich history to the Participatory City movementoriginating in the UK, led by the Participatory City Foundation.
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Many cities around the globe are faced with systemic challenges, such as growing inequality, unemployment, poverty, homelessness, inadequate healthcare, domestic violence, and racism, where individuals are often quite isolated from each other. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing systemic challenges in ways that have not been experienced before1. A number of progressive governments and like-minded organizations are viewing this as an opportunity for a reset – to build forward better.
7 Participatory City Foundation, (2019), “Tools to Act” http://www.participatorycity.org/tools-to-act
The Participatory City approach relies on a support platform as a collection of coordinated and shared infrastructure and a participatory ecosystem that is a collection of many and varied practical projects and businesses (see Figure 1).
UK Participatory City has completed its fourth year of the ‘Every One Every Day’ initiative which is grounded in eleven years of research and deep engagement with ‘participation culture’ from new types of peer-to-peer initiatives that are inspired from around the world.
Figure 1 - Participatory City Two System Model PARTICIPATORY CANADA ROADMAP 219
The positive possibilities of the program have driven interest to test the approach, to build a global, connected learning architecture and school, and start by scaling impact in Canada.
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PRACTICAL PARTICIPATORY ECOSYSTEM
EVERY ONE EVERY DAY between Participatory City and Barking and Dagenham Council, and it is the largest participatory project of its kind in the country. Enabling the community to work together in tackling disadvantage, inequality, loneliness and isolation in the London borough of Barking and Dagenham.
The McConnell Foundation and others in Canada started to take notice of the success of the UK Participatory City experiments.
In 2019, Participatory City UK, working in partnership with the McConnell Foundation, began conversations with partners in three Canadian cities, Halifax, Montreal, and Toronto, seeding an intention and creating a plan to develop, learn and explore feasibility of prototypes during a Social R&D phase. Throughout 2020 and early 2021, challenges emerged in implementation and learning due to the global COVID-19 pandemic resulting in Firstly, the opportunity to visit Barking and Dagenham to learn through an arranged Study Trip became impossible. Secondly, COVID-19 encouraged the teams to consider designing and developing small live prototypes instead of larger, in-person activities. This made the feasibility testing more real, with the potential to start creating impact in these neighbourhoods during this phase of development.
Figure 2 demonstrates the current global interest in establishing different cities as part of the Here&Now School of Participatory Systems and Design.
Participatory Canada
These underlying community conditions could extend to implementing the Participatory City approach in other cities.
HERE&NOW SCHOOL Is the new school of participatory systems and designs established by Participatory City Foundation bringing together all the research, knowledge and learning.
SOCIAL (OR CIVIC) INFRASTRUCTURE
The publicly-accessible amenities, systems, physical places, spaces, platforms, services and organizations that shape how people interact, and which can support collective life.
The live prototypes were designed to maximise learning opportunities and to share knowledge and practices between the three cities. This was completed with an aim to test local responses to participation culture and to assess the emerging opportunities for building this type of participatory social infrastructure in these neighborhoods long term. The city teams worked closely through digital means to create these prototypes during this exploration phase in the three Participatory Canada cities, with a longer term goal of building each city into a learning hub to effectively scale the Participatory City approach in EachCanada.city has brought a unique structure and perspective to the Participatory Canada initiative. Halifax is leveraging the platform to conduct meaningful reconciliation through participation, Montreal is building strong relationships with local governments and alignment with the Participatory City approach, and Toronto is using their deep networks and physical space for community experiments.
A Practical participatory ecosystem develops organically, is unpredictable in form, and is rooted in the shifting of interrelationships of many diverse and distinct parts (multiple residents joining and leaving, and projects emerging, thriving, replicating and stopping at a constant basis). Residents work on practical, everyday projects that are useful for them. This is often referred to as the “Participatory City approach.”
Figure 2 - Potential global learning campuses for the Participatory City approach at the Here&Now School of Participation Systems and Design PARTICIPATORY CANADA ROADMAP 221
Figure 3 - Cascading and scaffolding the development, learning, knowledge and infrastructure of the Participatory City approach
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Ambition and Vision for the Participatory City Approach
Participatory City is continually growing and evolving its ethos. It is a system that is organic and deeply collaborative, creating something greater than the sum of the individual parts. Relationships of participants and organizations are higher order and go beyond partnership agreements. Each city iteration helps the Participatory City approach cascade its development and learning, scaffolding knowledge and infrastructure. Essentially, it gets better and can grow faster each time; new implementations can leapfrog ahead as more infrastructure elements are Thedeveloped.pathforward for the Participatory City approach is very different from traditional models of scaling that only focus on replication and adaptation. This approach is intrinsically adaptive in the way it has been designed. It is building a transdisciplinary of thinking and working together. The complex nature of these new projects and systems that co-create and grow participation making this work highly additive in nature. The elements of the Participatory City approach have been and will continue to be co-created by all, making them accessible and available through open source sharing through Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International. Everyone becomes custodians of the Participatory City approach. Its work and learning, helping it to be bigger, better, richer, and more knowledge infused each time it gets developed in a new place (see Figure 3). When a new city embarks on their Participatory City journey, they join a network of other cities who are building and layering on the existing progress of the Participatory City approach. This includes the structures, methods, models and strategies needed to co-create the support infrastructures and participatory ecosystems. The richness of each city’s local culture, ideas and experiences combine with them in a completely new and adaptive way. Ultimately, Participatory City aims to work with partner cities to develop a growing portfolio of participatory approaches and knowledge (see Figure 7 below for the Top Six Essential Components for Scaling Systems in New Places). Cities will be able to spend time on projects in deep collaboration, developing systems of support, curriculum and architectures of learning.
CO-DESIGN A method of collectively surfacing initial ideas and applying shared knowledge in design thinking, whether it is a project, a session, a task, or a solution to a problem.
Figure 4 - Convening Session 1, discussing the 10 year vision of the Participatory City approach in Canada
At a neighbourhood level, developing in-person, participatory culture and experiences will create the opportunity for Canadian communities to recover from COVID-19 while focusing on the essential aspects of life that will help to build resilience to future crises. The potential pathways to achieve this ambition are explored in this roadmap.
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Working with Participatory City Foundation in the UK, the emerging global School Here&Now, and the Social R&D phase in Canada, Participatory Canada will co-create a strategy and implementation pathway that focuses on developing a learning, knowledge and capacity building model, and fosters deep working and learning partnerships needed to make this ambition aim possible. Two models that were considered and rejected because down organisation to deliver formulaic and imported participation systems across multiple cities’’, and a “franchise model with tight controls and limited adaptation capabilities’’. Due to the adaptive design nature of the Participatory City approach, it will continue to build forward with local Canadian communities in ways that are context appropriate. It is currently envisaged that each city could build local partnerships, such as for funding and investment, and Participatory Canada would support achieving the desired impacts through a connected network of cities in Canada to ensure a high level of quality and integrity to the approach. Participatory Canada will be central to knowledge building and codifying emerging testing and insights across the Learning Campuses in each city. They will support residents, neighborhoods, communities and cities to connect and fuse these with their local networks, and deep community knowledge and understanding, through the ongoing co-design, embedding, and developmental evaluation processes.
The 10 year vision in Canada, developed at Wasan Island in 2019, is still compelling and viable, even more so following the experiences and learning over the last year through COVID-19 (see Figure 4). Participatory Canada infrastructure could respond to the needs of communities by providing a platform to amplify efforts and remove barriers to practical collaboration and by deeply embedding learning and evaluation.
Figure 5 - How the Participatory Canada Roadmap connects to other Participatory Canada outputs
Purpose of the Scaling Scenarios Roadmap
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As part of the Social R&D process, Participatory Canada for scaling the Participatory City approach in Canada. As part of this exploration, Participatory Canada commissioned a series of strategy sessions in late 2020 and early 2021, to align around scaling demand and possibilities (Dec. 10, (Jan. 28, 2021). (Refer to Appendix A for materials from those sessions, including a list of session participants). The outputs from the sessions were used to develop a Participatory Canada Roadmap and related scenarios. This report is the culmination of those sessions, accompanied by the initial of potential future strategy and building of a scaled initiative in TheCanada.Participatory Canada Roadmap is meant to be used as a key data point in decision making and next steps by the Participatory Canada Team, along with current and potential partners. It is meant to provide context and support around sequencing and strategic decisions on resources, such as when and how to deliver programs and onboard support model for the future development and implementation direction for further development and implementation of the Participatory City approach in Canada and incorporates multiple perspectives, factors and suggestions from the wider partnership, city leads, and interested groups from the key themes, gaps, constraints, assumptions, implications, and opportunities that will need to be considered over the 1, 5 and 10 year path of scaling implementation. The Participatory Canada Roadmap puts forward choices to help frame the path and direction of Participatory Canada.
The Participatory Canada Roadmap connects to other streams of work being completed, such as the Developmental Evaluation on the experiences of the three city experiments and the core Participatory Canada Team. These inputs culminate in the larger Participatory Canada foundational document, the Social R&D Report (see Figure 5). In a connected way, these other documents and learning elements (such as the Theory of Change and learning sprints) will form the broader picture of strategic recommendations and operational planning to be undertaken by the Participatory Canada Team through discussion, and insights.
While the current prototypes in Halifax, Montreal, and Toronto in Canada have some programming that is operational, they will need to fully launch their programs to understand more deeply how this approach works and to envisage the potential impact and outcomes of local participation. These include building the relationships to people living in those neighbourhoods, and how these relate to organizations and governments, as well as the learning platforms. Through these prototypes the aim has been to create the initial evidence base and support for developing long term practical participation ecosystems.
• Sourcing and utilizing funding that is stage appropriate to support growth and scaling from early stage startup and evidence gathering, to longer term growth and impact development,
• challenging assumptions so the roadmap followed is non linear and supports systemic ecosystem development.
• Adjusting to the uncertainties and externalities presented by an ever changing, uncertain future, as the Participatory City approach grows and scales to reach its vision, and
The Participatory Canada Roadmap must consider different elements of scaffolding the pathway from the present to reach the ten year vision that address assumptions, risks and opportunities in growing and scaling the Participatory City approach. These elements include:
• Considering common approaches to scaling social innovation and how they need to adapt for the Participatory City approach in Canada,
• Leveraging the essential components of large scale held as the core in Canada,
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The Participatory Canada Roadmap puts forward choices to help frame the possible path and direction of Participatory Canada. It is meant to provide context and support around sequencing and strategic decisions on resources, such as considerations for when and methods, and how to support cities.
Framing the Roadmap
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Since the Participatory City approach is highly adaptive in nature and focuses on developing a learning, knowledge and capacity building model through fostering deep working and learning partnerships, how to grow and scale the approach needed to be considered carefully. Through the three strategy sessions, the Participatory Canada core team, city leads, and current and potential partners considered the strategic choices around common social innovation scaling approaches (see Figure 6), framed around opportunities to best Participatory City approach. They explored aspects of how far to:8
• Scale out by adapting the Participatory City approach in additional communities and cities, and growing the deep learning relationships and networks between cities, not through replication,
Scaling Approaches
8 J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, (October, 2015), “Scaling Out, Scaling Up, Scaling Deep: Advanced Systemic Social Innovation and the Learning Processes to Support It” Figure 6 - Common social innovation scaling approaches
• Scale deep by deeply embedding the Participatory City approach in places and local culture, growing the deep learning relationships with people and communities, relevant contexts and circumstances.
Overall, contributors were explicit about wanting to avoid a cookie cutter, franchised model that felt imposed on communities and was perceived as ‘top down’ decision making.
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Growing and scaling the Participatory City approach in Canada in a sensitive and responsive way will depend on many factors, including being conscious of when it is appropriate to scale deep, up or out. Building networks and partnerships systemically models, will support effective growth, balanced through the ongoing commitment to deep learning and research with communities.
• Scale up by changing larger systems and policies infrastructure for our times, and communicating to shift the broader cultural landscape for practical participation ecosystems, and
1. Vision: Each city has a vision of its future. These are often visibly led and communicated by government and institutions, but they are also expressed by people on how they would like to live, work, and play together. A strong and cohesive vision is needed at all levels to develop bold initiatives through this approach.
5. Resources for ensuring the right levels of expertise and teams are in place to co-create the Participatory City approach and develop the practical participation ecosystems within each city. These also form the platform of social infrastructures needed, including networks, spaces and projects.
4. School: The Here&Now School of Participatory Systems and Design has a national learning and development focus. It includes Learning Campuses that are the deep Participatory City implementations that act as demonstration sites for building the large scale practical participation ecosystems. Both the global, national and city level elements of the school support the learning infrastructure for building these systems and change capacity in any city. The more locally this knowledge is embedded and accessed, the stronger and quicker the approach will be established. The Here&Now School helps diffuse the knowledge and practices of the Participatory City approach through the network of Learning Campuses and strong partnerships developed with each city. The network contributes and creates spaces for new communities, partners, and individuals to build capacity and knowledge
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To effectively scale large practical participation ecosystems through the Participatory City approach, six essential components need to be in place (see Figure 7). They include vision, context, learning architecture, school, resources, and evidence. These elements cover the components of local conditions and dynamics, and the necessary infrastructure at the city and national levels. Additionally, three cross cutting dynamics growth and development. These include building strong relationships and networks of learning and support, coordination and pulling together of all the components, and building the Participatory City narrative through communication and storytelling.
6. Evidence: Every city that joins the Participatory City network contributes evidence and research towards the feasibility, inclusivity, value creation, systemic integration and adaptability of the Participatory City approach. Measurement, and the collection of evidence to demonstrate impact, is vital for growing the approach in Canada. Strong evaluation results will encourage public and private investment to create Participatory City.
Figure 7 - Top six essential components for scaling the Participatory City approach
3. Learning Architecture: Materials in different formats and curriculum enable the development and implementation of local participation ecosystems. Learning resources are designed to support the progression towards an in-depth understanding of the Participatory City approach. From frameworks to practical skills, over time they build the necessary capacity for co-creating these new systems directly with the people living in the neighbourhoods of cities. The curriculum enables the progression of learning by starting with awareness of the Participatory City approach, growing and deepening the understanding, and ultimately gathering the necessary support, networks and resources to implement the initiatives. The learning architecture currently spans from online workshop courses for city leaders, to immersive experiential courses for practitioners, to resident peer-to-peer learning academies, and to masters courses.
Components for Scaling Participatory Systems
2. Context possibility of developing practical participation ecosystems in cities. Political will and leadership, including underlying dynamics, the social, economic and environmental imperatives and needs of a city, and cultural and social factors all combine systemic innovation of this scale will develop in a local context.
Funding Approaches
C. Communication and Storytelling: Spreading the word and bringing the Participatory City approach to life through creative and enticing stories is essential to building a large network of contributing partners and growing the elements of the ecosystem. It is a vital function that enables co-creation of the approach (where people see themselves in the stories) the Here&Now School. Balancing the pace and scale of integration and development of each essential component in a city will support the successful growth of practical participation ecosystems through the Participatory City approach.
Tomorrow Today Streets
B. Relationships and Partnerships: Establishing relationships and partnerships creates opportunities and deep collaboration within the practical participatory ecosystem. Across the six essential components, this enables the Participatory City approach to bring together the right people and organizations to form the capacity and support that a city implementation requires.
Funding for the Social R&D pilots in Canada was primarily provided by the J.W. McConnell Foundation and support from the Government of Canada (ESDC Investment Readiness Program9), with $100K grants given to each city to establish Social R&D projects on embedding participation within their communities. secured by local pilot partnerships. The initial Social R&D pilots have led to substantive conversations and interest in each city in continuing or expanding the participatory systems moving Toforward.support the demand for growth and scaling of the Participatory cross-sectoral and hybrid partnerships with governments (e.g. federal, provincial, municipal, and Indigenous), foundations, private sector partners, and other investors at different scales (such as neighborhood, community, region, country, and internationally) where collaboration is required to help deliver change from the ground up, and connect in with a global network. available that could be used to fund the Participatory City approach, helping to shift Canada towards a more inclusive and participatory society. Financing tools can be understood through a spectrum. Refer to Figure 8 for this visualization: start on the left 9 Employment and Social Development Canada (2019), “Investment Readiness Program” https:// investment-readiness.html
Systems change
It’s collaborative planning, designing in success and failure and space to co-design lots of little projects as well as work on larger ones. This is an opportunity to create a circular economy. Coexisting together and connecting with other ecosystems while putting residents at the center of the system allows for self directed involvement through a diverse range of project ideas and participation opportunities.
A. Coordination: Acting as the organising function for this model, coordination activities pull all six essential components together into strong and cohesive initiatives and infrastructures. A high level of coordination needs to be strongly established to effectively execute on the city initiatives; this builds on the existence of the six, deeply interdependent essential components.
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The cross cutting activities and dynamics that are needed to support each essential component include:
A project from Every One Every Day and IKEA’s Live Lagom Programme. Tomorrow Today Streets gives local neighbours, families and friends the opportunity to start exciting projects right on their own streets. It offers 24 Kits to help residents start projects that are practical and help stay connected.
To identify the appropriate funding to support the growth and scaling of the Participatory City approach in Canada and its essential components, there is a need to consider the strategic choices around two dimensions of Participatory Canada: the systemic and transformational nature of the Participatory Canada vision, and the direction for initiative leadership. For example, the overall projected costs will need to consider which strategies, tactics and learning architectures of the Participatory City approach will be built and to what degree, (such as Tomorrow Today Streets, Every One Every Day, a learning campus), and who will be responsible for driving and sustaining the effort (such as a nationally-led core team for overall strategy, partnership building, research and learning, systems development, and for city-led teams who develop the work according to local context and build local partnerships, systems change visions, data collection and outcomes measurement, research and learning that connects with other nodes, etc.).
• Grants: Provide critical initial capital to fund initiatives without a strong record of revenues and proven outcomes.
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CSI Community Bond18, Social Enterprise Fund19, and Nesta’s Arts & Culture Impact Fund20
with smaller catalytic funding and move to the right with larger,
Examples of grants and organizations providing funding include the Federation of Canadian Municipalities10, Community Foundations of Canada11, and other foundations.
16 Heart & Stroke, “Innovative program tackles blood pressure risk”, https://www.heartandstroke. 17ca/activate/chpiInnovationSaskatchewan, (September 3, 2019) “The Sweet Dreams Initiative”, https:// 18innovationsask.ca/news/the-sweet-dreams-initiativeCentreforSocialInnovation,“Investinyourcommunity”, https://communitybonds.ca/invest-in19your-communitySocialEnterprise Fund, https://socialenterprisefund.ca/ 20 Nesta, “Arts & Culture Impact Fund”, https://www.nesta.org.uk/project/arts-culture-impact-fund/
outcomes are achieved. Examples of Social Impact Bonds include the Heart and Stroke CHPI SIB16 and Saskatchewan’s Sweet Dreams SIB 17
Additionally, grants are typically dispersed in smaller denominations and aim to provide catalytic funding for exploratory work, or particular initiatives.
• Community Bonds & Loan Funds, and Private Debt/Equity: Community bonds are similar to traditional bonds, except they always generate a social or environmental return in accredited investors. Community loan funds lend to local offer more generous repayment terms than conventional lenders. Finally, there are impact-focused private debt or equity funds that function similarly to community loan topic while often operating across a broader geographical footprint. As these tools require the lenders to be repaid (either by the lendee or via a resale of equity), they require reliable, growing revenue streams.
• Social Impact Bonds (SIB): Designed as an outcomes based these bonds earn repayment of capital and, often, a return (paid by an outcomes funder like the government) if
10 Federation of Canadian Municipalities, “Funding Opportunities” https://fcm.ca/en/funding 11 Community Foundations of Canada, “Current Initiatives”, https://communityfoundations.ca/ 12current-initiatives/Bill&MelindaGates Foundation, “Strategic Investments”, https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ 13about/how-we-work/strategic-investmentsDraperRichardsKaplanFoundation,“Our Model”, https://www.drkfoundation.org/about/ourmodel/14PRIME Coalition “What is Prime”, https://primecoalition.org/what-is-prime/ 15 JDRF TID Fund “Investment Strategy”, https://t1dfund.org/investment-strategy/
• philanthropic capital to mobilize additional private sector investment towards a social or environmental objective. typically sees public or philanthropic capital absorb risk through guarantees or grants to improve the risk/return capital towards high-impact ventures, alongside strategic Examples of organizations and foundations utilizing Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation12, Omidyar Network, and Shell Foundation. Major venture philanthropy funds include the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation,13 PRIME Coalition14, and JDRF T1D Fund15
21 First, Second, and Third blog article published by Dark Matter Labs, December 31, 2020 PARTICIPATORY CANADA ROADMAP230
The capital, policy and infrastructure solutions needed both for COVID-19 recovery and to make progress on the larger issues of growing inequality, unemployment, poverty, homelessness, inadequate healthcare, domestic violence, and racism, can be financed through a portfolio of long-wealth assets instead of isolated, medium term infrastructure projects.
The Need for Transition Financing Cities, communities and residents looking to transition their neighborhoods to a just, sustainable, and participatory future view to successfully scale the Participatory City approachFundingin theApproachesParticipatory City approach, to have meaningful, scaled from Transition Financing21 capital holders and investors to redirect very large amounts of capital towards novel portfolios of assets with accompanying infrastructure around people capacity, data and innovation at macro and micro levels. This is a new way to scale transformation through systems change while identifying and aligning with case relating to Participatory Social Infrastructure.
Transition Financing can balance the high pace of government spending as a result of COVID-19, both in managing the pandemic response and jump-starting the economy. The capital, policy and infrastructure solutions needed both for COVID-19 recovery and to make progress on the larger issues of growing inequality, unemployment, poverty, homelessness, inadequate healthcare, portfolio of long-wealth assets instead of isolated, medium term infrastructure projects. A new class of public-private capital can be further leveraged through co-investments by residents using community wealth mechanisms. This could lead to the creation of co-funded, participatory social infrastructure crucial to building forward better from COVID-19, bridging social capital and cohesion, and strengthening civic legitimacy and resilience.
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Participatory Canada can understand the possible futures of cities and communities, and implications for the Participatory City approach, by leveraging the work completed by organizations that practice strategic foresight globally and in Canada. For example, Future Cities Canada explores ways to build the capacity of cities, aiming to make them future-focused, equitable, regenerative, and prosperous for the next 50 years24. Partnering with this type of organization can help surface insights about the future while also contributing to its creation25 Globally, as we move towards 2030, many cities and regions are struggling with how to adapt to megatrends around individuals, the physical environment, and the global economy while improving the quality of life and moving towards more inclusive and just societies. For example, how does a Canadian city adjust to a population with higher life expectancies, while the youth population needs access to jobs. This connects to the rising use and between communities, shifting the type of work people can do, the learning and training people need, and how people can participate in government and public decision making. Different social and physical infrastructure will be needed as part of delivering public services, building climate resilient natural and built environments, while reducing stress on natural resources from population and economic growth26. Since many people will reside in cities by 2030, the Participatory City approach could be one way to facilitate the path to sustainable living. 22 Jacobsen, B., Hirvensalo, I. (May 7, 2019), “What is Strategic Foresight?”, https://www. 23futuresplatform.com/blog/what-strategic-foresightPrescient,“IntroductiontoStrategicForesight”(retrieved May 5, 2021), https://prescient2050. com/strategic-foresight-tools/24JessicaThornton,J.FutureCities Canada (January 16, 2020), “Planning for the Cities We Want: Strategic Foresight to create our preferred futures”, https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/pdf/2014/02/future-state-2030-v3.pdffor-the-cities-we-want-the-case-for-strategic-foresight-in-cities/https://futurecitiescanada.ca/stories/planning-25TolearnmoreaboutFutureCitiesprogramming,seehttps://futurecitiescanada.ca/programs/26KPMGInternational(2014)“FutureState2030:TheGLobalMegatrendsShapingGovernments”,
Systemic for an
Uncertain Future
Approaches
• Economy - If people remain affected by unemployment, and asset and job loss, the Participatory City approach might be able to offer a way to share community wealth, and provide opportunities for working, learning and training that wouldn’t exist in the traditional job market. The need for a new approach is highly necessary as inequalities and cross-generational tensions continue. For example, considerations should balance the needs of people with no or low incomes, single parents with need of child care, isolated and vulnerable individuals who need a connection, and youth who need to develop a livelihood.
• Digitization - The demand for and participation in online alongside mandated physical distancing and lockdown orders by the government. While the Participatory City approach thrives on in-person activities and experiential learning, it will need to shift and adapt to leverage effective practices for community building and participatory engagement to help ensure the safety, inclusivity, and accessibility of programming. Disparities in access to resilient technology should be considered as potential limiters to achieving key social outcomes, for example for health, education, and access to employment. Horizons Canada (March 5, 2021) “Foresight on COVID-19: Possible Shifts and https://horizons.gc.ca/en/2021/03/05/foresight-on-covid-19-possible-shifts-and-implications/Implications”,
While developing the six essential components of the Participatory City approach and identifying appropriate funding over a ten year time horizon can help build towards success in growing and scaling practical participation ecosystems in Canada, the future is unwritten and constantly evolving. Strategic foresight can help us understand the potential future environments in new trends and developments emerge across society, they can the creation of participatory social infrastructure. While our understanding of the potential impact of those changes might be more clear in a near term time frame of a few years, it is less clear as the time horizon is lengthened. More possibilities for different futures emerge22. In considering a ten year time horizon for scaling Participatory Canada, combined with a strong vision and ambition for scaling held by the team for the Participatory City developments that increase the chances of the desired future coming true. Balancing the monitoring of weak signals to identify possible changes at an early stage23 the emergence of different futures, will help ensure the success and sustainability of Participatory Canada.
Considering the Pandemic
In addition to adapting to and planning for key trends, Canadian cities interested in the Participatory City approach will also need to pay special attention to the continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic while considering its long-term implications to Participatory programming and governance. Canadians have of health, economy, society, the environment, and governance, areas which are all connected at the impact level as outcomes of practical participation ecosystems. Some key areas of consideration that might directly affect the Participatory City approach and drive adaptations to it include27:
• Pandemic persistence - Without a clear timeline for how long it will take to ‘go back to normal’, such as developing virus immunity, managing mutations, deploying vaccines and providing treatment, the ways Canadians interact safely indoors and outside will dramatically need to change. The Participatory City approach will need to adapt to deliver meaningful interactions and impact while maintaining safety for participants. With a high likelihood of future pandemics, a resilient and effective Participatory City approach is necessary.
• Long-term physical distancing and mental health - Core to the Participatory City approach is fostering in-person interactions to build community resilience and connections, including alleviating loneliness and trauma. Programming teams and participants will need to assess the level of receive by attending in-person programs balanced against the different types of connections and experiences possible through online programming.
27 Policy
Figure 9 - Systemic versus linear roadmaps PARTICIPATORY CANADA ROADMAP232
30 Fourth Quadrant Partners, “A whole Greater Than Its Parts: Exploring the Role of Emergence in Complex Social Change”, http://www.4qpartners.com/emergence.html - Ten year roadmap for Participatory Canada
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The Participatory City approach aims to develop practical participation ecosystems in communities and cities. By its nature it is inherently designed to create systems change in complex environments. This means that a linear roadmap would not be appropriate to grow and scale the systemic approach in Canada, since systemic change requires systemic solutions28 (see Figure With9). the many possible alternative futures that exist, Participatory Canada should consider using a futures thinking and systemic approach to implementing and following the Roadmap over time. Using a futures wheel29 is one approach to making decisions and considering possible paths forward that could help Participatory to enable it to get to its desired outcomes. Similarly, a systemic roadmap could enable Participatory Canada to manage the future becomes more clear. For planning how a Participatory roadmap could help the team adjust to a future with ongoing and continued acceleration of negative economic, social, and environmental issues, or to a future that looks very different and becomes the new normal.
Figure 10
28 Dominic Hofstetter, “Innovating in Complexity” Part 1 (July 7, 2019), Part 2 (July 26, 2019), and Part 3 (August 23, 2019). 29 MindTools, “The Futures Wheel: Identifying Consequences of Change” https://www.mindtools. com/pages/article/futures-wheel.htm
Systemic Planning
This work is also emergent and connects to other key areas of of the Participatory City approach, including a clear, shared vision, the foundation of experimentation to learn and adapt in each place, coupled with learning architecture to return learning to the system make it likely that Participatory Canada could achieve emergent results at scale. Other successful emergent initiatives have also used approaches that leverage community engagement, participatory practices, and highly developed network and relationship strategies30. Participatory Canada should leverage emergence strategies to amplify the transformational effect of empowering citizens to be co-producers of transitions in their communities through the creation and adoption of participatory social infrastructure.
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Participatory City is an inspiring initiative with the great promise of impact through creating more inclusive and participatory communities and culture within cities. The pathway to scaling and growing the Participatory City approach in Canada will need to both grow the essential components, and scale towards its ambition over the next ten years (see Figure 10). The direction of growth and scaling of Participatory Canada will be dependent on balancing the approaches to scaling social innovations, determining the appropriate funding strategies and partners, possibilities that emerge as implementation occurs across ThroughCanada.
Navigating the
the three convening sessions, there were many points of alignment between the participants and the principles of Participatory City. These elements of consensus serve as initial design principles to help guide the development of the and in subsequent cities. Over time, the essential elements will grow with the approach. Additionally, three factors will also scale building Navigatingnetworks.thegrowing and scaling pathway means making key choices about the context and support for sequencing and strategic decisions on resources, such as considerations for when and methods, and how to support cities. Working through the roadmap also means considering the different elements for scaffolding the pathway from the present to reach the ten year vision by addressing assumptions, gaps, risks and opportunities in growing and scaling the Participatory City approach within Thecommunities.Participatory Canada Roadmap puts forward choices to help frame the path and direction of Participatory Canada that need to be considered for growing and scaling over 1, 5 and 10 years of implementation.
Pathways of Growth and Scale
Establishing a national platform that connects Canada directly to Participatory City UK and to grassroots city programs will aid in building the foundational Participatory City principles and infrastructures within Canada. A key scenario being considered one to three years to successfully build a learning campus in an initial city, and build capabilities and provide support in up to an additional nine cities. All would be part of the learning and research community of the Participatory City global network, through the ‘Here&Now’ school. This scenario was informed by participants in the three strategy sessions who collectively expressed the need for Participatory Canada to go deep within a city to demonstrate the impact, learning capacities and resources required for growing and scaling the program here in Canada.
Within the key scenario, the essential components (see Figure 7) signify the critical elements that need to be established for a functioning practical participatory ecosystem. They create the foundation to build the infrastructures for the Participatory City approach that lead to impact and social innovation in communities.
While Participatory Canada builds the deep demonstration learning campus in partnership with one city initially, in the key scenario, the team would also support and build inter-city relationships, research, and evaluation. This would provide a national view with continuous learning and adaptation of the work as well as compound the outcomes being generated.
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Over the next decade, the six essential components and their three cross cutting activities and dynamics will need to grow and scale as the base for Participatory Canada. Starting with initial ‘national’ support needed from the city teams, over time, support from the more mature cities using the Participatory City approach may transition as communities build capacity for the approach within cities across Canada. Establishing formalized structures and nurturing relationships with the main learning campus will enable new cities and communities to join and utilize the Participatory City approach to create more cities with practical participatory ecosystems.
Growing the COMPONENTSEssential
“Each community begins with R&D in one neighbourhood, and sequential scaling across a city, town, or community”
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Furthering the discussions from Wasan Island in 2019, the three strategic convening sessions validated the major themes for the past year of experimentation. The vision for Participatory Canada should include the following elements:
• Provide training and reciprocal learning from the community to inform the Participatory City approach. Create new models for cities to interact and learn from one another.
Strategic Considerations
• Demand for the approach exists from coalitions of community organizations, political leaders, and public servants. This manifests from an awareness of core challenges within communities with an innovative mindset to leverage new tools and models to address these challenges.
Strategic Considerations
The Participatory Canada team will need to make strategic choices around the implementation of the vision in Canada, since every the program design, learning and measurement methods to allow for the exploration of new models, such as developing Indigenousled or co-led approaches that center reconciliation, and address systemic racism. Also consider embracing the unique challenges in each community as a means to advancing and developing the current set of Participatory City approaches.
Context Through the three strategic session discussions, participants emerging from many cities and communities in Canada. Further development and adaptation of the Participatory City approach is critical to establish a proven use case in Canada which will help unlock sustainable funding. Initially for the deep city implementation, Participatory Canada should carefully consider the conditions needed for success in order to have the proper support, achieve the desired impacts, and gain leadership and buy-in from various levels of government and community. This would help create the initial agency and clearing of “red-tape” for the community to build participatory practices. Additionally, local leadership (eg. public servants, community organizations) and experienced project designers will help catalyze the initiative to activate and engage the community. Participants in the convening sessions and in other discussions the Participatory City approach in a local context.
Vision For Participatory Canada, the vision and ambition of the program is being co-developed with the current three prototype communities in Halifax, Montreal, and Toronto, to understand the
• Connect with passionate community organizations, individuals, and accompanying talent pools to source multidisciplinary teams with designers, project, and program managers.
Additional considerations need to be assessed while the Participatory Canada team strives for validation and success in the deep implementation as a means to promote and accelerate the adoption of the Participatory City approach in other places in Canada. The team will need to consider factors around local economics, global visibility of the program, and the immediacy quality to consider in each local context that stems from different economic factors in each region of Canada. For example, the growing inequity and affordability challenges within a city forward in this Roadmap versus smaller municipalities. Inversely, Toronto could provide opportunities to drive immediate impact and learning opportunities for communities facing challenges, because of high quality local talent, and the well connected global presence and network of a city of its size. These factors provide additional pressures, challenges and opportunities to consider when implementing the Participatory City approach in any community in Canada.
• Underlying challenges and city motivations to address social challenges, like reconciliation and racism, should be considered a priority. For example, this could manifest in collaborating with city partners and amplifying programs in existing Neighborhoods Improvement Areas.31
• Create the use cases and evidence to help shape policy and advocate for systemic and policy change that is more responsive to the needs of communities and cities.
• Local infrastructure exists to support the physical spaces necessary for deployment of programs like the Warehouse (Maker Space), Every One Every Day storefronts, and Tomorrow Today Streets starter kits.
• Respond to the needs of communities, and provide residents with the agency, ability, tools and network to jumpstart their own ideas and ventures.
• Change the ways communities and cities function to enable a systemic culture of participation that residents and visitors recognize, and that builds social capital and community resilience.
• Provide the means for communities to thrive and create resilience by fostering inclusive and meaningful interactions within communities and remove barriers to practical collaboration.
“A strong bottom up Canadian wide narrative and shared strategy around equitable socio-ecological transition in urban settings” The ambition and vision of Participatory Canada needs to manifest from a bottom-up approach, that is enabled through the national team and the supporting network of global practitioners. In the early stages, in-person learning modes are preferred and welcomed to provide foundational principles to the designers and local practitioners. The initial, deep city implementation in Canada will require a substantial amount of time and training with the London-based team to immerse themselves in these principles and skills.
• Prioritize immersive and distributed, peer-to-peer, human interaction focused learning mechanisms in the learning architecture. Preferred even in the early learning stages of the Participatory City approach, these methods were perceived as more valuable for building trust and relationships that are seen as critical for a successful kick-off, as opposed to using more data-driven learning mechanisms. Prioritizing in-person learning mechanisms will impact the resourcing and learning infrastructure required at both the city and national level, such as the school.
Through the spectrum of learning architectures developed through the Participatory City approach, the following fundamental principles must be considered in the Canadian context to help build the necessary capacity for learning over the next
Learning Architecture
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Gaining knowledge through practical experience creates opportunities to build deep empathy for the Participatory City approach and values while enabling teams and communities to adapt the tools and services to their local contexts.
•decade.Compliment
• Make reciprocal learning experiences as essential between teams, communities, and cities. While a deep and thorough understanding of the Participatory City approach is needed from all involved to ensure alignment and added value of the model, there is also a need to deeply understand each clear understanding held by Participatory Canada and all participants ensures the legitimacy of Participatory Canada for all. For example, this enables sharing and embracement of local participatory culture and experiences, including Indigenous culture and experience; existing initiatives and partnerships that could support and amplify the Participatory City approach; etc.
The Participatory City learning architecture is a foundational element for communities and cities to embody and proliferate the values of the approach. Participants in the three convening learning.
11
Figure - Participatory Canada Learning Architecture
“If you can walk around in it, it makes a huge di Fundamentalerence”Principles
inter-city learning architecture with intraParticipatory City practitioners. This inter-city learning minimum viable system for Participatory Canada by distinguishing what is unique to each city versus what is universal across all cities.
Learning Architecture Phases
• Embed Indigenous practices within Participatory City for the Canadian adaptation
Participatory City learning architecture (see Figure 11) takes a laddered approach to building knowledge and gaining the necessary skills and experiences that lead to the creation of practical participatory ecosystems. There are three phases of learning architecture development.
• Building initiatives capacity: Mature phase activities, such as online workshops and learning networks, project kits, domain knowledge development, learning frameworks (system components), playbooks and webinars (system components), tutoring and development design, immersive core training in live projects, and live projects networks, further develop skills and expertise in the Participatory City Participantsapproach.inthe three convening sessions expressed that trust needs to be established at the forefront to enable the Participatory City approach to take hold within our communities and give agency for the program. Creating and building trust is needed at the community level through the design of programs and impacts. It is also important to build legitimacy around the impacts and purpose, allowing for the development of the necessary relationships that drive funding opportunities, and social and economic license to operate within a city. Building trust can be enabled through the Participatory City learning architecture and by a focus on thoughtful communication and relationships between the participants and the layers of government engaged in the work. Additionally, even though participants preferred experiential learning, building trust through digital means needs a renewed focus given the effects of COVID-19 over the past year.
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• Develop and utilize tools from local experiments in other Participatory Canada implementations
Enhancing the digital offerings within the learning architecture by focusing on the quality of interactions, digital mediums and tools used, and the community of learning surrounding the learning modules can bridge the divide between in-person preferences and the constraints towards digital.
• Better engage residents in shops with maximum inclusivity in Participatory Canada communities
Role of Physical Infrastructure Core to the Participatory City approach is the prevalence of physical assets and spaces for the community to congregate and create value within their communities. The deployment and experimentation of Participatory City within early adopter cities will rely on the development of and access to these spaces in the heart of communities in which people live. Spaces, like the warehouse and shopfronts in Barking and Dagenham, provide the necessary opportunities for practical participatory ecosystems to take hold. Having these core pieces of infrastructure supported and made available by cities and governments creates sustainability for the Participatory City approach and provides anchor locations within the community. These investments into the community serve and support the social infrastructures that this approach is looking to cultivate. Strong relationships with spaces.
The Participatory Canada team will need to consider how to best promote and develop the learning architecture in Canada so that it can support many different types and densities of communities. Communication and ecosystem activation will need a common language. Consider how to leverage the school, learning approaches, and external communication tools to bridge the language gaps that exist. This will allow Participatory Canada to build strong and consistent narratives to bring others along in this space. There is also a market challenge of developing new metrics and non-economic indicators that measure the impacts that a practical participatory ecosystem looks to achieve. Consider how to build the capacity and expertise for measurement through the learning architecture in Canada to enable new forms of outcomes This would help Participatory Canada to build stronger business cases for communities and cities.
• Development knowledge: Activities, such as city government webinars, discovery days, workshops, study trips and camps, and development workshops build knowledge and experiences in the ways the Participatory City approach can impact communities.
• Share and evolve the business case for creating social infrastructure, like public makerspaces Strategic Considerations
Reciprocal Learning Topics the three convening sessions that should be developed to add knowledge, capacity, and new perspectives to the Participatory City approach in Canada. They include how to:
• Share best practices for the set-up and management of community storefronts
• Early Interest and discovery: Tangible elements and communication pieces, such as websites, articles, reports, and in-person and online events, create awareness and an entry point into the Participatory City approach.
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As a skills and knowledge ‘educator’
As an aggregator of outcomes and impact measurement practices
At the onset of growing the deep learning city implementation, strong relationships and dedicated resources will need to be established to ensure in-person learning occurs and relationships form. This will require the creation of collaborative partnerships between Participatory Canada and local governments to design and engage key individuals, building trust and localizing the Participatory City approach based on the current Canadian prototypes. The Participatory Canada team should consider how to engage with post-secondary institutions, academics, and experts (designers) since they will be necessary in building local capacity and establishing the Canadian Campus. Over time, engagement with these organizations and individuals will need to scale across Canada to support and connect to other learning campuses. Funding relationships with philanthropic and public sector partners will need to be established to catalyze early investments into the school and deep learning implementation.
•
•
Strategic Considerations
“A full scale participation model serving as a school for communities across Canada” The initial deep learning campus in Canada should provide a local connection into the global Participatory City learning platform. The connection to the Here&Now school could help facilitate new learnings and opportunities to co-build new initiatives with local teams and partners. Connecting into a larger network of global community to adopt emerging practices. Testing would need to be conducted to better understand how the Canadian deep learning campus can leverage the Participatory City learning architecture while identifying how to best share the learnings back to the global platform and other participating cities in Canada. The initial three city prototypes in Halifax, Montreal, and Toronto can serve as the testing grounds for the potential variations of the adapted learning infrastructure and their connection to the school.
•
School
There are many considerations for how the school can be most effective in building the necessary skills and knowledge base within Canada. The Participatory Canada team should consider and adapt over time the optimal structure and functions of the school within Canada so that it is of value to communities and is in harmony with the efforts of the global Here&Now school. These functions require varying skills sets and resources to implement, and also require management and coordination of relationships with Participatory City UK, other global learning campuses, and at the community level. Participatory Canada should consider how to implement, grow, and scale the following functions of the school: new communities
•
•
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As an ongoing learning and training place for cities and communities
Partnerships and Relationships
•
As a way to coordinate learnings across cities and teams
The school creates an essential hub for the Participatory City approach. It is a place to connect the growing set of deep learning campuses, share learnings and adaptations of the approach, and create skills for city teams and communities. The initial deep city implementation should act as the main Canadian learning campus of the Here&Now school to be a hub and entry point for other Canadian cities to connect into and discover the Participatory City approach. Cities would be able to leverage the resources and expertise from the campus as they become more mature Participatory Canada cities. The school forms a core piece of the learning architecture of Participatory Canada to create a space for new cities and communities to leverage knowledge and apply it to their local context - building capacity for systems change.
Resources
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People Capital
Support from the national team in the early stages of the deep implementation city should help amplify relationship building, for the prototypes. Overall, the national team should be responsible needed for the development and implementation of the approach as the network of partner cities and neighbourhoods grows over Eachtime. city would require a local team to help steward the learnings of the Participatory City approach and to adapt the approach to their local context and communities. City teams should initially focus on building practical participatory ecosystems through on the ground programs and connections to the Participatory Canada city network. City teams in the early stages should be composed delivery, and design, to be able to support and execute complex initiatives. After approximately two years of successfully growing the participation systems locally, a city should become a Deep Learning Campus, with the expertise and programming to develop and implement immersive experiential courses that could be used and experienced by new city teams. Overall, the city teams should leverage the skills of designers, project and program managers, storytellers, and collaborators to establish and build towards the local vision, establish and nurture relationships, and support community initiatives that develop the practical participation ecosystems within their local communities.
Adequate resources are needed to create the conditions necessary for successfully growing Participatory Canada for developing learning campuses (initially a deep demonstration in one place) and for supporting broader growth and scaling in resources are required to provide the support for the on-theground efforts to create, measure, and demonstrate sustained impact of practical participatory ecosystems (see Figure 12).
The roles and responsibilities of city teams and a national team depend on the purpose and function of each entity. In the key scenario surfaced by participants in the three strategic sessions, the national team would function as the School to support the deep demonstration city implementation. The national team should be established at the onset to provide support and leadership to all participating cities and communities. Roles and responsibilities should be focused on several key areas to embed the current learnings of the Participatory City approach and to communicate the initiative to build relationships across the country. Participatory Canada would offer partnerships and collaboration, national level developmental evaluation, take the lead in coordinating the construction of learning formats, curriculum and materials, and disseminating and diffusing the expertise, research, and know-how to other Canadian cities that adopt the Participatory City approach.
Figure 12 - Supporting the growth of Participatory Canada
Participatory Canada should develop financial estimates and assumptions for initially supporting one deep and four medium city implementations with the intention of supporting a further 5 small implementation cities by year 3. As they mature, cities might run a full deep demonstration Every One Every Day program at scale within a city, reaching a population of 220,000.
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Figure 13 - Estimated costs associated with an example of one cohort of cities at different levels
Strategic Considerations and scaling Participatory Canada, the team should consider the degree of funding and operational support provided national support and resources to develop a robust team and programming to increase the chances of success for the deep implementation city and overall validation of the Participatory City approach in Canada. The team should consider how much funding and support is required and can be provided as new cities join the Participatory Canada network. This consideration will need to balance the nurturing of the overall program in Canada through growth and scaling, while creating capacity within and between cities and with decreasing reliance on the National team for ongoing sustainability over time. This could be achieved through building capacity in cohorts of new cities and enabling knowledge and skills transfers to future cohorts from established partner cities.
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Participants of the three strategic sessions stressed that and embedded long-term into municipal balance sheets, similar to how library systems are funded as free, community resources. Outcomes and impact measurement will be critical in demonstrating the viability and effectiveness of at the city level, aligning with desired neighborhood and city impact objectives, and at the national level, aligning with large community infrastructure impact objectives.
Figure 13 describes the estimated costs associated with an example set of cities at different levels of implementation depth of the Participatory City approach in one cohort of cities that join Participatory Canada at the same time - one deep implementation city; four medium scale costs from other cohorts of cities joining each subsequent year.
Financial Estimates assumptions for initially supporting one deep and four medium city implementations with the intention of supporting a further 5 small implementation cities by year 3. Early stage prototype implementations for a city, lasting from three to twelve months, could have cost ranges of $125,000 to $650,000 for a team, projections accompanying this section reference the Barking and due to a mature social and participatory infrastructure built to this point. In years 0-3, Participatory Canada may scale up or down the number of shopfronts and maker spaces as well as the size of the learning campus support for each of the deep, medium and small implementations. Early portfolios of prototypes across neighbourhoods, or even cities, should be explored to test system components and how they interact with inter and intra-city learning and global knowledge sharing and mobilization. As cities mature in embedding the Participatory City approach, costs could increase to around $2.6 million per year to run a full deep demonstration Every One Every Day program at scale within a city, reaching a population of 220,000. This estimate accounts for 5 shop fronts at maturity, with the system proliferating across various neighborhoods within the city. Small to Medium sized implementations would target to have 2 and 3 shop fronts at maturity to engage up to 120,000 individuals. Each city implementation would have funding to support learning architecture in their local contexts.
Financial Capital Early stage funding of Participatory Canada could target public granting opportunities for city prototype development and for establishing the learning and system components that would create the foundations for the deep learning campus. Near term options for funding explored through the strategic sessions gravitated towards traditional funding and granting opportunities through public and philanthropic funds. The team should also focus on raising funds from provincial and federal governments, starting in the early stages, in particular drawing on social and civic infrastructure, and COVID-19 recovery budgets. Participatory Canada is also a good candidate for continued funding through the Investment Readiness Program32, to help build on the early city prototype work. As evaluation and measurement is in demonstrate impact, more complex methods related to outcomes other private capital, would not yet be appropriate.
The ambition from Participatory Canada, combined with perspectives shared by participants in the strategic sessions, indicated a preference to have municipal support and budget allocation geared towards practical participatory ecosystems, likeinvesting in Participatory Canada. Later stages of methods to supplement city funds, which would be based on outcomes achieved in early stages, with the anticipation of demonstrating deeper and more impactful outcomes after ten years. Medium to long term options should be more measurement to build business cases with predictable returns on investment. Additionally, funding from social impact bonds, infrastructure for growing and scaling Participatory Canada.
See Appendix B
32 Employment and Social Development Canada (2019), “Investment Readiness Program”, https:// investment-readiness.html
“Need to build UNDERSTANDING of the system – how is it di erent?”
Evidence Developing evidence of impact through evaluation is highly important for Participatory Canada to consider both in the early stages of implementation and ongoing over time. Demonstrating impact in the broad context of Canadian cities will be essential to prove the viability and effectiveness of systems change through practical participatory ecosystems. At a local level this will be architecture and how the Participatory City approach is deployed and adapted in each local context. To date, a developmental evaluation approach has been used to continuously learn and iterate through the three city prototypes in Halifax, Montreal, and Toronto. This has helped develop an understanding of the Participatory City processes, activities, and early impacts.
Participants in the three strategic sessions indicated that this method of evaluation should continue to be relied upon in the deep implementation cities and when onboarding new cities in Canada.
“Not the sum of the work but amplified outcomes of impact” over time and that improve the wellbeing of individuals, families and neighbourhoods, were focused on during the strategic convening session discussions. Each factor should be tracked and reported on over time. For some factors it may be challenging to attribute for funding programs or used as cost avoidance accounting for cities. The following factors are informed outcomes aggregated from the Participatory City UK Y2 Report and supplemented by conversations in the convening sessions.
Compound Outcomes
• Education: Provide spaces for collaboration, interaction and the necessary skills to participate in the community and local economy. This can manifest into higher literacy rates, completion of secondary and post-secondary education, greater skills development, and the opportunity to assume into a reduction of costs for unemployment.
• Development of micro and local economies that foster resilience in communities
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Participatory Canada should use the Participatory City Outcomes Framework as a model to employ within Canada to compound outcomes. It also supports the measurement of the overall impacts achieved via engagement and proliferation of participatory projects within communities33
Participants in the three strategic sessions strongly emphasized the need for reliable evidence and impact to be demonstrated initially through the deep implementation city to form the trust and agency needed to embed the Participatory City approach into our cities in Canada. Cities should use this approach in the short term to document the direct and immediate effects (e.g. participation and projects) while capturing the compound outcomes over the long term (e.g. mental wellbeing, and growing it will also provide much needed evidence to funders to provide funding support for sustainable implementation.
• Health and wellbeing: Create the necessary programs and connections into the community to generate positive experiences such as feeling welcomed, included and accepted within a community. Additionally, the promotion of growing, preparing, and eating healthy, home-cooked food, while pursuing active lifestyles, provides outlets to have fun and focus on self and family health. These factors may contribute to the reduction and use of health services.
• Work: Develop spaces and opportunities for individuals and neighbours to come together to create products and services for the local community. This provides income and a sense of belonging within the community. This directly translates into a reduction of costs for unemployment.
Participatory City programs and systems are the driver and value generation for communities and cities. Early indicators, such as participation and programs within a community, create deep impact and shifts in the way our communities function and how resilient they are long term to socioeconomic shocks.
Evaluation will continue to generate information that leads to at the local community and city level through developing and documenting learnings for new cities to consider when initializing the Participatory City approach in their own communities.
33 Participatory City Foundation, (2020), “Tools to Act”, Page 30, http://www.participatorycity.org/ tools-to-act
• Crime: Create purpose and connection in the community to help reduce criminal and mischief activities. This can lead to city, and justice system costs for the province and country.
• Caring: Ease the burden on families and provide meaningful work and a sense of belonging within the community by participating in programs that foster co-caring opportunities for children and elderly community members. This leads to and time burden for families around care. At a higher level, this reduces the need for child and elderly care services.
Evidence of System and Social Change
Through the strategic session consultations, proof of systems change and achievement of the ambitions of Participatory Canada within participating communities:
• Reduction in racial tensions, Indigenous reconciliation realized from greater participation and inclusive programs through co-creation within communities.
Team and Relationships
Participatory Canada will need to decide on the degree of centralization and embeddedness with respect to the national team supporting evaluation and measurement of city implementations in both the near and long term. A preference towards city led capture of data, with support from Participatory Canada, should be tested across the city implementations to assess its viability. Consistent frameworks and tools need to be available to local teams to help standardize the practice of measurement for both the development of the Participatory City approach in Canada as well as demonstrating the outcomes and impacts from the local activities. The degree of development of these tools by the national team or at the city level should also be considered and tested. Once outcomes are captured, they can be shared by the cities to the global platform to support collaboration and building of expertise across the full global community of Participatory City practitioners.
Strategic Considerations
Developmental evaluators and measurement leads need to be established at the national level and within the city teams to support learning and iteration cycles, and create and adhere to the evaluation frameworks set out by Participatory Canada. These individuals should be in two-way communication with the global learning platform to facilitate knowledge transfer and oversight of the collective impacts across Participatory City. Within the early phases of the deep implementation city, Participatory Canada should provide guidance in teaching the frameworks developed the local context. Creating and developing these communication channels will help support the business cases of Participatory Canada to grow deeply within and across cities. Developing clear communication channels and transparency of data will create trust within the system, across the global learning platform, city leaders, local organizations, and community members.
• communities, community engagement, and thriving local economics. • resulting in buy-in from municipalities and investment from various levels of government.
Figure 14 - Participatory City Outcomes Framework PARTICIPATORY CANADA ROADMAP 245
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The six essential components are all underpinned by three common elements of coordination, communication and relationships that will support the growth and scaling of practical participatory ecosystems and ultimately Participatory Canada. Learnings from the Canadian experiments as well as the deep knowledge of Barking and Dagenham will be crucial in identifying how these elements can be effectively utilized and organized at the onset of the deep implementation city and subsequent light, medium, and deep implementations. Most prominently, these elements form the foundations to assist the Participatory Canada implementations to succeed and grow through shared learnings and effective management of relationships and alignment of the six essential components for scaling participatory systems. These elements will also be key factors in the development of sustainable and viable local programming and economic conditions for Participatory Canada. Communications and relationships are critical for the growth of Participatory Canada to effectively tell the story of potential and realized impact generated within communities and to build interest, demand, and collaborative support for the approach across cities. Having sound management and talent to bring these elements together will also affect successful growth. Ultimately, the Participatory Canada team should consider how coordination, communication, and relationships will be affected and how they can support the growth and scaling of the Participatory City approach as they grow and scale across the six elements over the next ten years.
Coordination, Relationships, and Communications
Of high importance is the development of the initial deep demonstration city and the accompanying Here&Now campus. This demonstration site will form a strong validation case for the Participatory City program in Canada. Critical to its success will be the team that is assembled to develop the participatory infrastructure, bring expertise and program knowledge, design and execute the programs, and lastly, to engage the community.
The Near Term (0-3 years): People
Scaling over Three Time
Horizons
The immediate and near term time horizon should focus on bringing together the right people, infrastructures and spaces for the initial cohort of cities. It is imperative to continue to leap-frog the learnings from the UK and Canadian experiments, focusing on the development of the outcomes measurement frameworks Participatory Canada across the nation.
Additionally, four cities with medium support from the national build capacity in their local contexts, preferably in diverse regions across Canada to increase Participatory Canada’s exposure across the nation. These cities will then provide the support and continue to build momentum for participatory systems in our Canadian cities.
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Establishing the first cohort of cities
In addition to considering the six essential components and the three supporting elements of coordination, communication and relationships, Participatory Canada will also need to build and networks over the next ten years (see Figure 15). Through the next decade, the initial ‘national’ support needed from the city teams may transition to a different type of support for more mature cities as the model builds capacity within cities across Canada over time. Formalized structures and nurtured relationships with the global campus will allow new cities and communities to join and utilize the Participatory City approach to create more practical participatory ecosystems.
•Considerations:Defineeective ways to onboard new colleagues into the Participatory City ecosystem that leverage digital tools and media due to the ongoing pandemic.
2. Develop the people resource capacity and expertise to facilitate the execution of the Participatory City approach in the local contexts of the ten cities.
Goals of this Phase 1. deep demonstration city and four medium implementation supported through a light exploration into Participatory Canada.
Establishing a national team with necessary expertise and vision to lead the development of Participatory Canada will be foundational to start developing the resources and bandwidth to focus on supporting city teams. Coalescing additional roles and responsibilities, such as program managers, coordinators, and evaluators, will help to develop core infrastructure and future focused capabilities. Developing capabilities like impact measurement, reporting standards, communication, and learning, will create the conditions necessary to start leap-frogging current participatory practices, while priming Participatory Canada for
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identify a potential deep implementation city. Understanding required of local vision, context and expertise within each potential city to choose a deep implementation city site and additional smaller implementation cities.
Furthermore, through strong narratives and partnerships, key Participatory Canada will need to be brought along the journey to have visibility into the impacts and evolution of the program. Interested groups will be engaged by building trust and being educated on the importance of transitioning towards practical participatory ecosystems.
Engagement A strong focus should be placed directly on the communities communicate, establish local leadership, and develop capacity for the Participatory City approach. Looking to best-practices from city experiments in the UK and Canada will help support the narratives and methods to effectively do so.
•Considerations:Exploreand
Onboarding teams, potential partners and interested groups
Although experiential learning and in-person activities were the preferred methods noted by participants in the convening sessions and subsequent discussions, the realities of interacting with one another may be Communitylimited.
• Identify the minimum viable system to drive local impact, while contributing nationally and globally to the Participatory City approach.
Developing Outcomes Frameworks be established at the onset to capture necessary data to be used in general communication and in building business cases for additional funding. The data collected will allow the Participatory Canada team to better understand and attribute the impacts of the program to develop the case for future cost savings or returns on investment to engage potential funders. Whether philanthropists, or municipal budgets, the data collected will be an integral input to rally the support of these potential partners and funders.
3. Develop and test initial outcomes architecture to begin demonstrating the values and impacts of the Participatory City approach.
test the types of funding methods and approaches used to best leverage the available resources, relationships, and factors within the local context. For example, a city implementation with strong political support may be able to leverage public funds to support ongoing sustainability of the Participatory City approach. While another city, without strong political support, may utilize the deep outcomes measurement framework to utilize outcomes based methods or community bond issuances.
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As a lead city, the deep implementation site will be relied upon to provide strong evidence and data that establishes a strong business case for the Participatory City approach. Two municipal support by way of budgetary spending on the programs.
Solidifying the deep demonstration site
3. Offer guidance and expertise at the Canadian Here&Now campus to help other cities develop the capacity for social systems change.
The Medium Term (3-5 years):
Sustainable Financing methods should be emphasised to promote the scaling of practical participatory ecosystems in Canada. In this phase
• Understand the motivations of funders to better align or position Participatory Canada as a useful tool for cities to employ. Consider that pandemic response and economic recovery e orts in the medium term may pose opportunities or challenges when targeting public funding.
Goals of this Phase
•Considerations:Validateand
1. lessons learned, expertise and guidance to leap-frog the cities into using the Participatory City approach.
Participatory Canada should grow from the initial cohorts of cities, Outcomes measurement, data, and strong narratives from the city implementations will be critical inputs for the success of Sustainable Financing
In this time frame, the Canadian Here&Now campus should be fully operational and sustainable, providing a hub of expertise for cities across Canada. This campus should be the main domestic point of interaction for all communities and cities currently utilizing, or keen to develop, practical participatory ecosystems.
2. Utilize the accessible outcomes architecture and demonstrate the values and impacts of the Participatory City approach to funders and potential partners.
attribution of the desired outcomes that would be purchased by an outcomes funder. The infrastructure and methods for capturing and reporting on the impacts generated through the Participatory City approach will need to be quickly established produce and collect the required data. Municipal budget spending would also require demonstration of impacts from the program to justify either a spend or a reallocation of funds to produce the City approach. Additionally, continuing to create and share the stories and narratives produced from the local initiatives could support the business cases and development of relationships with potential funders who need to see the impacts demonstrated through evidence.
Establishing second cohort of Cities This phase will look to support an additional four Canadian cities in using the Participatory City approach. Critical to their cities, through immersive experiences, learning and capacity building, and guidance. The Participatory Canada team should provide coordination support for the new cohort of cities. It the capacity for and embedding the Participatory City approach, programs, and learning architectures locally in their cities.
Supporting Lead Cities
With a mature Participatory Canada by 2030, various funding methods should be tested to see which best support cities and their networks across the phases of implementation, leading to
Networks
There may be resources (people capacity and funding) needed to further support the coordination for deeper collaboration and learning opportunities during this expansionary phase of Participatory Canada.
In this phase, Participatory Canada should also focus on sustaining support for new cities. The national team can help facilitate and support the building of relationships, education for key potential partners and interested groups, and sharing program data to develop new business cases for support.
Embed Participatory Canada across Five Regions in Canada
As more cities are supported by the Participatory Canada platform beyond the initial two cohorts of cities, Participatory Canada should focus on exploring a geographic network structure as an option to provide more localized support for cities. This structure could help scale to additional cities by developing relationships and building capacity in new cities in a region while supporting the coordination and dissemination of learnings from other cities, regions or global experiments. Each region could focus on building lead cities to create a regional support network and demonstration of the Participatory City approach that could be adopted by neighbouring communities and cities.
Deep demonstration cities and more mature implementations should be supported by Participatory Canada in developing learning experiences for other cities. The local learning campuses and stories developed from their implementations of the Participatory City approach should be accessible for shared learning by Participatory Canada and the global learning platform.
The Long Term years): Building
Long term financing and sustainability
By the ten year time frame, Participatory Canada should look to deepen relationships and networks that enable long term growth and scaling of the Participatory City approach. The ambition conveyed in the strategic convening sessions suggested that Participatory Canada should aim to support the Participatory City approach where there is clear demand and appropriate conditions in at least 50 Canadian cities or communities by 2030, all of which would support one another to develop the necessary programs, assets, and systems to achieve positive social outcomes. In the ten year time frame, impacts should be felt within the cities that have developed the practical participatory ecosystems, demonstrating clear community value and continuing to propel the growth of Participatory Canada.
(5-10
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E. What does sunsetting look like for partners and organizations?
While there is an ambition to have funding for the Participatory City approach embedded into each city budget as part of ongoing support costs for social infrastructure, there is no clear pathway for how to shift it there. Participatory Canada will need to manage emerging tensions along this pathway from funding and early-stage partners on how their engagement in Participatory Canada sunsets and transitions to longer term partners and funders as the program builds capacity and grows in local communities over time.
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Participants in the strategic sessions advised to create one deep city implementation to provide a successful use case in scaling the Participatory City approach to other eager cities. However, this pathway omits the potential to leverage a blossoming social sector that is emerging across Canada. A focus of Participatory Canada could be on supporting communities with existing participatory practices in place. Adding the Participatory City approach to existing practices could amplify the effects of existing programming, leading to faster and stronger creation of social and systemic infrastructure for long term systems change and community resilience. There are many organizations and large public agencies that can provide the connections, resources, and programs to scale quite rapidly across municipalities while enabling adaptation to each local context. Leveraging community networks could create opportunities for scaling the adoption of ‘products’ like the Tomorrow Today Street kits in 190+ municipalities across Canada. Participatory Canada should explore partnerships in cities with ongoing social R&D and practical participation infrastructure to see how, collectively, impact can be accelerated in those communities.
D. Maintaining momentum for learning and collaboration across time
C. Leap-frogging (additive practices)
A. Scale of Implementation: Deep (large) to small implementations
Assumptions, Constraints and Future Considerations
Participatory Canada should ‘leap-frog’ support as much as possible for every new city implementation to build off existing learnings, architecture, and infrastructure rather than starting from scratch each time. This would enable quicker and more successful deployment and development of impacts for people, place, and planet compared to each previous city implementation. Building off other experiments and use cases predicates a high degree of learning and immersive experiences to fully understand the conditions for success and how they may apply to new contexts. This will have implications to how cities construct and educate their teams prior to, and during implementation, creating the necessary capacity to effectively implement these practical participatory ecosystems within their communities in highly adaptive ways.
Most of the Participatory Canada Roadmap describes the scale, or depth of implementation, as the quantity of programs within a given city. This includes the number of shopfronts, learning architecture elements in the school, and participation from cities across the programs. Participatory Canada should work to identify and measure other factors across the essential components for scaling (see Figure 7) that currently play a role in successfully embedding the core principles, expertise, and momentum towards practical participation ecosystems. For example, other essential components of deep scaling could include how deep the knowledge and experience of practitioners may be in a community and in a city overall.
As a relatively new initiative in Canada, the momentum and ‘stickiness’ of the sharing of new learnings and collaboration across teams will need to be proven over time. As the model matures, Participatory Canada and the city teams should consider how to redistribute the effort needed to continue to increase the approach’s effectiveness, draw on new learnings, and create best practices that can be used for leapfrogging. For example, types of learning architecture that favour in person engagement or intimate learning can keep energy high, but require dedicated resources and potentially higher costs to sustain. Programs for practitioners, such as communities of practice, utilize the interest and energy from participants and can bridge distance through digital mediums, but also require effort and coordination to curate and sustain relevant topics. Over time, these types of initiatives may succumb to lack of inertia and relevancy for participants and should be recognized as a potential risk to decreasing effectiveness of the approach in later phases of Participatory Canada growth and scaling.
B. City scaling through existing participatory practices
Through the three strategic convening sessions, other discussions, and secondary research, many assumptions, constraints and future considerations surfaced that should be addressed by Participatory Canada over the next ten years to effectively grow and scale the Participatory City approach. Using a futures lens and systemic solutions to consider possible externalities and uncertainties will ensure that the growth of Participatory Canada Participatory Canada Roadmap might take during this decade.
Participatory Canada should consider what growth and scaling might look like with less reliance on city funding and embedding into city budgets. Sustainable funding with other long term funding partners should be explored, to create and embed participatory social infrastructure into communities over the next decade.
Understanding Emerging Demand
G. Limited financial resources in cities
Communities and organizations in other parts of Canada have also shown interest and reached out. This increase in interest and moving toward action deserves to be explored and analyzed further. Some questions that Participatory Canada should consider further as they work on growing and scaling the initiative include:
• Why is there a burst of interest now?
The potential persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the potential for emerging future pandemics could cause ongoing socio-economic challenges that might impact how Participatory Canada grows and scales. In the near term, the team should focus on how to safely hold in-person and immersive experiences, as well as experiential learning, while making and testing alterations for programming using how practitioners and new teams learn and experience leading examples in London, UK and at the Canadian deep demonstration campus. Furthermore, the socio-economic challenges emerging in communities may require a shift in the type of participatory programs and accompanying infrastructure that is needed in communities. This could transpire by shifting from persistent community challenges (eg. accessing and growing healthy food) to emergent challenges experienced through the pandemic (eg. creating an open making society to cultivate the local economy). These changes should be developed and evaluated over time, shifting as the needs in communities change.
Participatory Canada ultimately will need to consider how to create and demonstrate and measure impact across communities and cities in the Canadian context as a key step to wide-spread growth and scaling in Canada. Measurement frameworks should be developed and tested with existing and potential partners and funders over time. These tools should ensure that intangible outcomes, like happiness and quality of friendships, can translate into large measurable impacts, like reduced use and spending in the healthcare and justice systems, that can be supported and funded in long term and sustainable ways. Demonstrating impact will be the key factor in successfully growing and scaling the Participatory City approach.
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• What elements of the Participatory City approach are the most appealing to interested actors and potential partners?
F. Pandemics
• What in the Participatory City approach is of most interest for potential funders? How can this help structure a Canadian narrative and ensure sustainable funding for Participatory UnderstandingCanada? this emerging demand more accurately could help strategically inform the building of Participatory Canada over the next ten years as it grows in different cities across Canada. Using a futures lens and systemic solutions to consider possible externalities and uncertainties will ensure that the growth of Participatory Canada remains flexible and adaptable to any possible pathway the Participatory Canada Roadmap might take during this decade.
H. Demonstrating impact
Participatory Canada has been demand-driven since its inception. It is not a ‘push model’ that is implemented in communities from a top-down perspective. Instead, it was created based on the demand from a number of municipalities and communities in the City approach. It sparked interest for several years in many places in Canada, including Quebec. Over the past couple of years, with the emergence of Participatory Canada, a number of community leaders and organizations have been turning towards la MIS to explore the possibility of implementing this approach in their community to bring participatory work to the next level. In addition to the work that Solon has been developing and supporting in Ahuntsic-Cartierville in Montreal, a number of other communities and jurisdictions in the Greater Montreal region and elsewhere in Quebec have taken steps to build the Participatory City approach.
• Are these actors already involved in some of the numerous participatory initiatives in their community? If yes, how can the Participatory City approach be hybridized with these existing participatory initiatives to generate more impact?
In recent years, and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, municipalities are facing increasing pressure to deliver more services with small budgets. They are constrained by tight high breadth and costs to deliver services within the city, and a looming gap in infrastructure spending from other levels of government. This reality may become more severe in the future given the challenges, and resulting spending from Canadian governments for recovery efforts related to COVID-19.
The pathway for growing and scaling the Participatory City approach will hopefully be both exciting and systemic. Through the development and utilization of new impact measurement frameworks, Participatory Canada could become a leader in how to establish, embed, and finance participatory social infrastructure in Canada over the next decade, and beyond.
The Participatory Canada Roadmap advises on the direction of potential future strategy through growth and scaling of the Participatory City approach in Canada. The Participatory Canada Team, along with current and potential partners, will use the information captured in the strategic convening sessions, key data points to inform sequencing and implementation for strategic planning that will occur in early 2021. The goal will be to use the Roadmap for the long term planning by the core team to inform the possible future directions for further development and implementation of the Participatory City approach in Canada. assumptions, implications, and opportunities that will need to be considered by the Participatory Canada team over the 1, 5 and 10 year path of growing and scaling implementation. They will need to consider how to ensure balanced growth over the next decade of the six essential components of vision, context, learning architecture, school, resources, and evidence in scaling practical participatory ecosystems while ensuring coordination, communication and relationships also grow proportionally and Canada. Similarly, focusing on people in the near term, sustainable support scaffolding in the growth and scaling pathway. Through the three strategic convening sessions, many points experiment teams, and the existing principles of the Participatory City approach to also support systemic growth and scaling. These elements of consensus should serve as initial design principles for Participatory Canada to be observed by the city and national teams while designing and supporting the deep implementation city and subsequent smaller and medium sized city implementations. In-person learning, balanced by digital alternatives, will be foundational to the development of Participatory Canada. In the early phases, the focus and attention to the capabilities and capacity for local experts to adapt the Participatory City approach for Canadian city implementations will be critical. While immersive experiences will allow individuals and teams at the forefront of practical participation ecosystems, they will need to be balanced against the constraints of safety, to be overcome through establish similar experiential learnings. The deep demonstration campus will be necessary for validation of the approach for potential partners, funders, and interested groups. Creating and proving success locally, combined with demonstrating the large impact of the approach (e.g. through poverty reduction, job creation, and decreased spending in health care) will help prove the long term.
While the Roadmap puts forward choices to help frame the path and direction of Participatory Canada, to support the vision and ambition of the approach and to respond to the growing interest from cities, the national and city implementation teams will need to effectively leverage the thought leadership and knowledge from the experiences in Barking and Dagenham, and the early learning from the Participatory Canada city prototypes. Additionally, the efforts to grow and scale the approach will need to center evaluation, learning and continuous improvement while factoring in the unique challenges and vision for Participatory Canada. Over the near, medium and long term, the considerations and choices suggested for growing and scaling the essential components a domestic pathway for growing and scaling the Participatory City approach in Canada. Underlining these considerations are assumptions and gaps where the national and city teams will need to further explore and assess how they may impact the inclusion of the Participatory City approach within communities.
Conclusion
The pathway for growing and scaling the Participatory City approach will hopefully be both exciting and systemic. Through the development and utilization of new impact measurement frameworks, Participatory Canada could become a leader in how in Canada over the next decade, and beyond.
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MélanieLouiseKiaKerenJenniferJayneGregDeniseDelyseRyanSylvesterSoueidan-O’LearyWoolnerEngleAngelTangKavoosiEllawayBisson
Adam Jagelewski
1. How could a Participatory Canada learning architecture help accelerate the design, experimentation and application of best possible Participatory City practices at the local level to generate impact in Canadian cities?
Nat
3. How could a Participatory Canada learning architecture help create the conditions to sustainably scale the Participatory City in Canadian cities, beyond the three prototype cities in Canada? Session Harvest - http://shorturl.at/tzAT5
The second session looked to build a common understanding of the case for a national learning architecture for Participatory Canada. This would catalyze the work of Canadian cities interested in experimenting with the Participatory City approach architecture to help cities achieve their goals and impact over the next 3–5 years. This was framed through three learning dimensions:
Convening Session 1: Scaling of three strategic sessions that were used to develop the shared understanding about what Participatory Canada aims to scale. Through the session, participants gained consensus on the desired ambition for Participatory Canada in a 10 year vision. Working backwards through time, key milestones surfaced for the 5 year and 1 year visions and their associated implementation components.
Convening Session 2: Learning
Attendees Aggie IndyGregEnniyeahDeniseDelyseDaleChloéAndreaAlexAimeePaulauskaiteGasparettoRyanNemtinDodinotMcFeeSylvesterSoueidan-O’LearyOkereWoolnerJohar Jayne Engle Keren YaniqueWissamSueShonaPaulPamNatMaudeMarie-JoséeLouiseTangEllawayParentLapointeDefriendGlodeMesserFulcherTalusanYassineBird Links •• http://shorturl.at/lmwT6 •
Convening Session 3: Financing
TracyTessySophiaShannonPaulPatrickDefriendDubéMesserLutzHorwitzBrittonRobertson PARTICIPATORY CANADA ROADMAP 255
Michelle Baldwin
Through
2. How could a Participatory Canada learning architecture help build legitimacy of the Participatory City approach, and accelerate and maximize the commitment of key potential community organizations, citizen collectives)?
•
The purpose of the Financing Scenarios Session was to help identify the last set of information required to design the Participatory Canada Roadmap. Overall, the session aimed to Participatory Canada, including: Participatory Canada Discussing how funders could get interested and commit to funding, and implementation of Participatory Canada based on the outcomes, time horizons and scale of funding required. the session, participants worked with two Participatory Canada Scenarios around nationally led or city led implementation leadership over 1, 3-5 and 10 year time horizons to explore the
Attendees
•
Links •• Financing Pre-read Slides - http:// shorturl.at/itN37 • Session Summary - http:// shorturl.at/dwyKO Attendees Aggie Paulauskaite Alex MélanieKiaKerenJimJayneGregDelyseRyanSylvesterWoolnerEngleAndersonTangKavoosiBisson Nat YaniqueVirginieTraceyTessySophiaShannonPaulPatrickDefriendDubéMesserLutzHortwitzBrittonRobertsonZingraffBird Links •• http://shorturl.at/wxPSZ • Session Harvest - http://shorturl.at/hjAHS
•
Micheal Lukowitz
Alex
Mike Davis
AppendicesAppendixA:Summary of Strategic Sessions
3.
5. Approximate non-staff costs for elements of the deep implementation (from Barking and Dagenham use case); shopfronts 11%, warehouse 5%, Tomorrow Today Streets 5%, communications 5%.
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4. National team costs estimated at $1.2M as per Participatory Canada forecasting and historical spend, phased in over 3 years.
Appendix B: Financial Considerations Participatory Canada Financial Projections Notes: 1. These are examples for illustrative purposes, describing the deep (large), medium and small implementations reaching approximately 75,000 to 220,000 people in a mature state with social and participatory infrastructure in place. Cost estimates are based on historical spends from Barking and Dagenham, UK and Participatory Canada, extrapolated to a total of 10 cities. • 1 Deep City Implementation: 5 shopfronts reaching 220,000 people • 4 Medium City Implementations: 3 shopfronts reaching 120,000 people • 5 Small City Implementations: 2 shopfronts reaching 75,000 people
2. Deep implementation city includes additional National Learning campus costs, while medium and small implementation take proportional costs for local learning architecture. implementation. Costs are realized by 33% in year 1, 67% by year 2, and 100% by year 3.
Deep Implementation City Team (at onset, minimum 6 full time staff with additional contract support as needed)
Participatory Canada Core Team (at onset, minimum 4 full time staff with additional contract support) This team should be established at the onset to provide support and leadership to the participating cities and communities. The roles and responsibilities focus on several key areas to embed the learnings of the Participatory City approach, and communicate the initiative to build relationships across the country.
The following details represent the estimates prepared for and details surfaced during the three strategic convening sessions. The details of suggested personnel and team structures validates early thinking from the Participatory Canada team.
• Evaluator across cities. The evaluator creates a national scale evaluation framework and helps embed new evaluation methods and learning while supporting local processes to capture relevant data.
• Coordinator. The Coordinator manages the administrative, programming, communications, and reporting obligations for the national team.
• Fully trained designers per shop. It was noted in the Barking & Dagenham experiments that three designers are needed per shop to facilitate and create the programs. They are the ’do-ers’ and on-the-ground experts of Participatory City practices and tools to help build capacity within a community.
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The number of designers will scale alongside program development and within a city to ensure effectiveness. There will be approximately 13 designers in one fully developed deep demonstration city site based on live experiments in Canada and the UK.
• Operational team consisting of a program director and evaluator. This team is responsible for overall management and holds the various relationships with community members, organizations, the national support team, and the global platform. The program director manages the program within their communities. They closely communicate with various partners and develop deep relationships within a city to establish trust and agency for the programs being developed and implemented.
• Communications. The communications lead is responsible for the storytelling, design, and creative assets for the deep city implementation and programs. They serve a dual role of co-creating assets with residents to drive engagement at the community level while communicating and reporting upwards on the outcomes to Participatory Canada and the global learning platform.
6. and is scaled based on the amount of shopfronts (3 designers 7. Overhead costs at ~10% as per historical spend
• Supporting local partnerships and fundraising initiatives. This role helps connect and build cases for funding across municipalities and communities. They can be regionally based, and activate community partners and connect cities to relevant funding opportunities.
The evaluator and learning specialist supports the learnings and documents outcomes from the programs. They have a close relationship with the domestic school, other evaluators, and global teams to continue to Participatory City approach.
People Resource Considerations
Each city requires a local team to help steward and adapt the Participatory City approach to their local context in an effort to create more participatory and inclusive communities. Project teams, consisting of designers, storytellers, collaboration development, and program leaders, manage the local vision, establish relationships and support community initiatives. The include in the initial deep implementation city team.
• Lead Director. The lead director for the national team builds and strengthens relationships with the global school, city and community teams, and strategic and funding partners. They play a lead role in creating content, strategy, communications, research and learning.