Since 2010, the Women’s Economic Council has seen a move from the traditional not-for-profit structure of operation to a more collaborative and co-operative model of service to the women in its communities.
Many non-profit organizations have no choice but to use their volunteer time “off the side of their desks” to build organizational capacity. The Federal Department of Women and Gender Equality clearly recognized that women’s organizations were struggling to strengthen their organizations and their work without some dedicated resources to help build this capacity. Building an organization in a piecemeal fashion when you have a bit of time is not ideal.
We are delighted that WEC has embarked on a dedicated four-year journey to consider its future and strengthen its foundation moving forward. So far, we have documented our current situation; the good, the bad and the ugly. We have called upon external resources who have confirmed our internal evaluation and we have gained some new ideas to consider. With a strong sense of what our current capacity building situation is, we are now in the process of engaging expertise that can help us with various capacity building goals. We are looking for partners who can challenge our paradigm and how we see fitting into the Canadian women’s community economic development (CED) context, help streamline our processes, propose new ways of working so we stay abreast of emerging trends and the future socio-economic challenges for women.
