It’s one thing to put in effort. It’s quite another thing to see results.
One of the biggest challenges organizations like our own face is to do with how we define success. How do we know that our programs and resources are having their desired effect? By carefully analysing and reporting.
Keeping You Informed
We have a responsibility to our funders and partners; this is our way of making sure that promise is fulfilled.
By giving you access to our reports, we’re also giving you the chance to let your voice be heard. Please contact us if you have any questions or comments.
Reports
2021
Summary
2021 was a year like no other in the growth of this organization. We are grateful to our amazing board of directors, new and talented personnel, willing collaborators, and outstanding volunteers for helping us get there. By December 2021, despite living through a second year of pandemic restrictions, the Collective had sourced a new path. It was now managing five projects and wrapping up a sixth. Indeed, our operations budget increased by 500% and HR projections had grown exponentially.
2020
Summary
2020 was marked by turmoil and tragedy with much uncertainty and anxiety about how we could move through the health, economic, and social upheavals to resolution and safety. WEC’s immediate concerns were for our directors, collective members, volunteers, participants, partner organizations and their families. We resolved to meet the gaps in services (as a result of the pandemic) and ensured that our work reached vulnerable women in precarious family, work, and housing situations.
2019
Summary
2019 has been another amazing year for the Women’s Economic Council with the implementation of two exciting multi-year projects that have significant implications for women and women’s organizations in many parts of Canada.
2018
Summary
2018 was a year of completion, planning and transition for the Women’s Economic Council. The launch of our national Weconomie website in 2018 created excitement and engagement across the country.WEC partnered with key organizations across the country in four provinces on our Status of Women Canada funded project. We connected with nonprofit organizations and women exploring business in Metro Vancouver, BC; Calgary, AB; Thunder Bay, ON and northern ON communities; Ottawa, ON and St. John’s metro area in NL. The project explored the use of online technology to engage a community across the country that can use our portal to share business development resources that will benefit women and organizations.
2017
Summary
2017 was a great year for the Women’s Economic Council. We continued to partner on national initiatives while supporting partners to undertake regional work. Our national Weconomie.ca project created lots of excitement and engagement across the country. Our work focused on building partnerships and alliances so existing structures and service delivery models could be strengthened or augmented while providing new opportunities for women to be better supported towards their socio-economic goals.
2016
Summary
In 2015, WEC secured funding for the Jigsaw Puzzle Project (JPP). The JPP focuses on creating an online space for women exploring work outside of the traditional paid employment model or involved in some type of enterprise or income-generating activity and organizations that resource women in their communities. The project is a comprehensive national portal that can be easily accessed by anyone interested in women-centred CED and women-led social enterprises.
Our focus for 2016 was to engage voices across Canada and specify the needs of our target audience.
2015
Summary
2013
Summary
In 2013, we saw excellent progress across our programs, especially with regard to the Cluster Project . We helped organizations across four provinces: Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador, and we saw growth and improvement across many of the businesses we worked with as each began to benefit from our oversight.
Over the year, we worked to achieve our goals in policy and advocacy. We met with many party leaders, and presented at conferences, such as CCEDNet in Winnipeg. In addition, we held networking and sharing sessions with our networks and stakeholders.
2012
Summary
In 2012, we saw the beginning of our Cluster Project , an ambitious undertaking that was created to help organizations that focus on women-centred CED flourish. We wanted to allow these organizations to “cluster” together and create opportunities for dialogue and collaboration. At this point, the program was in its early stages, but we expected to see results soon.
Additionally, WEC pursued change at the policy level by participating in such gatherings as the Canadian Women’s Foundation’s Economic Development Committee and played a key role in the organization’s growth and progress.
2011
In 2011, we completed the Aboriginal Women’s Cluster Model Feasibility Study , which encouraged better networking and community support for Aboriginal women-led CED initiatives. We determined that this model would be beneficial both in Aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities.
This work led us to the initiation of the Cluster Project , a project that would stretch over the next few years and would be a primary focus for our organization.
Also this year, we completed the Leadership and Women’s Economic Security Project, which saw the the engagement of over 70 organizations and almost 900 women across the country. The project facilitated leadership and economic literacy training, which were evaluated by a third party consultant.
2010
2010 marked the midpoint of the Leadership and Women’s Economic Security Project, which ran from 2009-2011. At this stage of the program we continued to develop strides we made towards increasing the financial competency of the participating women.
We asked for some feedback from our members working in the leadership component of the program, and we received favourable responses. They cited many examples of how the program helped them develop leadership skills and flourish.
In the areas of policy and advocacy, we produced the report If Women Mattered in which we made the case for federally funded women-centred CED .
2009
In 2009, our main focus was the expansion of the Train-the-Trainer program. In August, we worked with 15 mentees to help improve their leadership skills. They were instrumental in helping us develop a leadership toolkit that continued to evolve over the coming years.
We built relationships with Aboriginal women’s organizations and organizations that help newcomers to Canada. We did this in order to learn more about the needs of women under these programs. We also prepared a paper on Finance and Investment for the 2010 National Summit on a People-Centred Economy.
