Our in-depth 2023 reports on vital topics like urban loneliness, housing affordability, and community wellbeing have made waves, securing extensive coverage in prominent outlets such as The Star, Global TV, CharityVillage, and Future of Good and CBC News. This wide-ranging recognition underscores our commitment to addressing pressing societal issues and sparking meaningful conversations. While this only captures our public work, it reflects some of the great things we did this year!

This report examines the perceptions of workers in the nonprofit sector and how these differ from workers in other sectors. Workers in the nonprofit sector have lower job satisfaction than workers in either the public or private sectors. Nonprofit sector jobs are also quite precarious, with high rates of temporary and parttime employment, including many workers who are involuntarily parttime.

The findings are drawn from four waves of the Survey on Employment and Skills. The report was written by Steven Ayer.

Trust&Impact, written by Steven Ayer, named one of the top reports on the nonprofit sector by PANL Perspective.

Many foundations and corporate funders across Canada have adapted their funding models during the pandemic to be more responsive, equitable, relevant, and effective. What are the lessons they’ve learned? Will this emerging trend lead to long-term permanent changes in grantmaking models? Our new report on the state of unrestricted funding in Canada explores why and how more funders are evolving their practices and funding models and offers insights into the rise of trust-based philanthropy.

Discover the perspectives of the community foundations, private foundations and corporate funders interviewed for this study by downloading the report today.

This report, written by Steven Ayer, was named one of the top reports on the nonprofit sector.

Our study—drawing from emerging data and engaging with leaders of Canada’s top companies—identifies the most pressing and long-term shifts in corporate social investment in Canada.
 
Exploring these shifts reveals how companies have responded, and what our communities need and expect from businesses in order to build back better.

For the full details, read our report!

The consequences of handling evictions poorly are almost incomprehensible. Even if only a small portion of the 130,000 to 260,000 who missed rent payments in April are evicted, that represents a potentially huge increase in the homeless population. If just one in 20 ended up homeless, that would equate to 6500 to 13,000 more people without a home. The entire homeless shelter system Toronto has a capacity of 7,000 to 8,000 people and typically operates at 98-99% capacity

surging demand: Kids Help Phone (+350% contacts vs pre covid), WoodGreen Community Services's Toronto Senior's Helpline (10x the calls), Gerstein Crisis Centre (3x calls), and Progress Place's Warmline (2x demand). Organizations working on mental health are facing incredibly complex new challenges they are doing amazing work to address.

Fascinating insights on trends in corporate giving and volunteering, authored by Good Strategy, coming in November.

Vital Signs has long been regarded as the “city’s report card” - very proud that Good Strategy was a part of this project!