Compassionate Communities Sustainability Guide

Expanding and sustaining the impact of your Compassionate Community

The Compassionate Communities Sustainability Guide builds on the Compassionate Communities Startup Toolkit by supporting initiatives through their next phase of development — scale and spread.

This guide will act as a road map to help you increase the sustainability and impact of your Compassionate Community initiative. The guide is a collection of best practices, case studies and tools for current Compassionate Communities to become more sustainable and help them grow and deliver the desired community impact for years to come.

To ensure the guide focuses on what is essential, we consulted with Canadian Compassionate Communities, international Compassionate Communities, and researchers in community development.

This guide is available in English and in French.

Why should you focus on sustainability?

Your Compassionate Community initiative drives social change in your community, which often takes years or even decades. To achieve your goals, your initiative must remain active over an extended period of time. There are important things that you can do and plan for to maximize the long-term sustainability of your initiative.

What is a sustainable initiative?

A sustainable initiative remains active and impactful to achieve the desired goals and outcomes for the community. Sustainability isn’t just about funding—it also focuses on strong leadership, clear communication, community engagement, and more.

How will this guide benefit you?

By accessing this guide, you will gain practical insights and tools to help build and sustain compassionate communities initiatives within your community, including:

Understanding what makes an initiative sustainable.
Strengthening the leadership team within your initiative.
Participating in and strengthening community engagement practices.
Implementing best practices for long-lasting Compassionate Community initiatives.
Adjusting your language for different stakeholders.
Leveraging adaptable tools and resources tailored for community growth.
Applying innovative models for social change and community engagement.
And more.

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Funding acknowledgement

The Compassionate Communities Sustainability Guide is supported by a financial contribution from Health Canada. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of Health Canada