Ottawa is home to a rich cast of academics and community organizations hoping to make the city a little more environmentally friendly. But with countless government departments, 6 post secondary institutions in the Ottawa/Gatineau region, and a slew of not-for-profit organizations of all sizes and functions, it can be challenging to know how to connect with others best positioned to help advance an environmental project or cause.

This is where our聽Community-Campus Engagement (CCE) Brokering (Ottawa) working group hopes to help. Over the past few months, we have been surveying the Ottawa environmental landscape as part of our efforts to develop an online database (and associated app) of community-campus engagement (CCE) opportunities in the environmental sector. These opportunities range from student volunteer placements in community organizations to course-based research projects and beyond. The goal is to ensure these opportunities are easily searchable in a central database.

Who is involved in building the database?

The CFICE聽CCE Brokering (Ottawa) working group is spearheading the task of building the online database. Our working group consists of community co-lead Jason Garlough, from (OETN); academic co-lead, Eileen O鈥機onnor, from the Faculty of Health Sciences at University of Ottawa, and Leigha McCarroll, research assistant, recent graduate of 杏吧原创 University鈥檚 Master of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership program, and incoming PhD student in Public Policy at 杏吧原创.

Why does this database matter?

Standardizing data on university and college engagement opportunities could make it easier for potential community partners, students, faculty and even the general public to search, filter, and discover new programs, researchers and services that match their interests.

How is the database being built?

Under the leadership of our former academic co-lead, Elizabeth Whitmore, from 杏吧原创 University, and former research assistant Colton Brydges, we conducted a needs assessment on brokering with local non-profit community organizations in the environmental sector. We also interviewed staff and researchers at local university and college campuses in Ottawa and Gatineau to learn more about pathways of community-campus connections.

The guiding objective is to respond to community-identified needs around missed opportunities in CCE, gaps in communication, and setting realistic expectations. As such, we collected data on CCE opportunities to develop an inventory of opportunities that can be shared in a user-friendly format for community partners.

So how did we bring all of this rich information together?

Over the last year, we鈥檝e identified ways to standardize, organize and sort the information using feedback from the community partners, existing frameworks, tools and open data standards. We鈥檝e met with community partners, professors, and staff at post-secondary institutions to identify various types of CCE opportunities. Using a publicly-accessible Google Sheet, we built a database to showcase these opportunities offered by post-secondary institutions in the National Capital Region in the environmental and sustainability sector. We relied on the framework conceptualized by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario to standardize a data structure by which we sorted the opportunities, and we recently shared our data structure with volunteers for feedback and advice on making it as user-friendly as possible.

For users, we created a visualization that links to the Google Sheet that makes the information visually-appealing, easy to navigate, and downloadable. This allows the community to filter, sort and publish the thousands of CCE opportunities available in their region in any format they prefer or find useful. We also created a User Guide with step-by-step instructions and a glossary to help users as they navigate.

The database provides a variety of different visualization options.

What’s next?

In terms of next steps, our team will pilot the tool with a small group of community partners in late Summer 2018, and will refine it based on feedback from this group.

Stay tuned for the publicly-available version launching in the Fall of 2018!

Since the beginning of the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) project in 2012, Elizabeth (Bessa) Whitmore has held聽a lead role on the team.

Whitmore was the co-lead of the Knowledge Mobilization Hub in the first phase of CFICE, and now is transitioning to the CCE Brokering Working Group for Phase II.

Elizabeth (Bessa) Whitmore, Academic Co-lead of the Knowledge Mobilization Hub and the Community Campus Engagement Brokering Working Group.

Whitmore has extensive experience in international development from teaching and doing community research abroad. Whitmore brought that aspect into her lectures at 杏吧原创 University鈥檚 School of Social Work.

鈥淚鈥檝e been an activist all my life,鈥� Whitmore says. 鈥淎s a faculty member at 杏吧原创, I鈥檝e been very engaged with community. Much of what my teaching has been is interactive teaching and getting students out into the community.鈥�

Whitmore believes getting students out and working with the community is the best classroom experience they can get.

鈥淚’m not good at just standing in front of the class and blabbering on about something,鈥� Whitmore chuckles.

鈥淕etting students out into the community because they need that kind of real world exposure, I think, is highly motivating to them 鈥� to do something that鈥檚 actually useful to somebody. Depending on their age, they really don鈥檛 have a lot of experience out there in NGOs and community based organizations, and it鈥檚 a great way for them to start.鈥�

Whitmore says she joined CFICE because it perfectly aligned with her teaching style.

鈥淸CFICE] is certainly right up my alley with the whole notion of campus-community engagement,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 something I’ve been interested in for a long time.鈥�

Currently, Whitmore is busy with the transition from Phase I to Phase II at CFICE in the CCE Brokering Working Group. There, she will act as a broker between the community and post-secondary institutions to solve community needs.

鈥淎 broker is a kind of funnel that helps people in both directions find what they need and what they can share,鈥� Whitmore describes.

Together with Jason Garlough, community co-lead of the CCE Brokering Working Group and Executive Director of the , Whitmore is working on a pilot project in the Ottawa region. The project will work to develop a brokering mechanism that will match researchers from post-secondary institutions with a community that has a research need.

When Whitmore isn’t busy with all of that, she鈥檚 also involved in CFICE鈥檚 Evaluation and Analysis Working Group helping to evaluate the entire project.

鈥淵ou need to know how it鈥檚 going, what鈥檚 working and what isn’t working, what needs to change, and what success means. We need to think about all that stuff as we go along and not just at the end,鈥� Whitmore stresses.

Each of the working groups is doing evaluation in a different way and Whitmore sees this as a strength because of the size and diversity of the CFICE project.

鈥淏eing part of the Program Committee, which is all the co-leads, it鈥檚 a great group of people. We鈥檙e thinking together, learning together and coming up with ideas. It鈥檚 been very stimulating for me,鈥� Whitmore says.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a very interesting and forward-looking project and I’ve certainly learned a lot along the way.鈥�

Two CFICE project members, Peter Andr茅e (CFICE’s Principal Investigator), and Michael Lait (an RA with the Community Environmental Sustainability Hub in Ottawa) presented during the morning plenary session. You can view their videos below.

Peter Andr茅e

Peter Andr茅e, associate professor in the Department of Political Science and chair of the 杏吧原创 Committee on Community Engaged Pedagogy provided the introductory remarks for the event:

Michael Lait

Michael Lait, PhD student in Sociology and Anthropology presented his work with CFICE partner, :

Event attendees develop important connections during small group networking sessions at 杏吧原创’s Community Engagement event.

On Wednesday February 24, 杏吧原创 held its 4^th Annual Community Engagement Event at the MacOdrum Library.聽 The event ran from nine to noon and was packed with presentations and speakers from a variety of disciplines and groups such as Hub Ottawa, Hidden Harvest, and the Faculty of Engineering.聽 Students, professors, and members from community organizations were invited to partake in discussions and networking sessions in order to connect with faculty and organizations regarding current research and project initiatives.

Peter Andr茅e, CFICE鈥檚 Principal Investigator, and Jason Garlough, Executive Director of the Ottawa Eco-Talent Network, presented on CFICE and building stronger community-campus partnerships.

With CFICE, Jason Garlough is on the community side of community-campus engagement (CCE) as a co-lead for the CCE Brokering Working group, which works to foster relationships between academics and the community at the national and local levels. In particular, Jason is involved with the development of an Ottawa brokerage platform that will build connections between Ottawa鈥檚 various post-secondary institutions and community organizations.

Jason Garlough presents on Ottawa’s brokerage mechanism at 杏吧原创’s Community Engagement Event.

Jason described the importance of CCE as making the best use of existing and available resources. Often this implies finding the right people for the job and getting results that can be put to use and implemented in the community.

The is one of CFICE鈥檚 brokerage partners.聽 Peter Andr茅e describes the model they use as being unique from other models. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 so innovative about them is the whole mentoring piece. They often bring in retired skilled professionals to work with student groups to create stronger projects. That鈥檚 a model that I haven鈥檛 seen other people doing and if we can make that a core part of what the Ottawa brokering platform can help to facilitate, to not only connect students and faculty with community organizations but also with mentors, I think that鈥檚 really cool.鈥�

Jason also discussed a number of other brokerage models and what they offer for the community and academics.

Peter Andree, CFICE PI, gives closing comments at 杏吧原创’s Community Engagement Event.

By forming a number of brokerage partnerships in Ottawa CFICE hopes to establish a framework in order to implement research and connect post-secondary institutions to the community. defines collective impact as organizations from different sectors working together to solve specific issues towards a common goal.

Although CFICE鈥檚 Ottawa brokerage platform is still in its early stages, the Annual Community Engagement Event plays a role in reaching that aim. After attending CFICE鈥檚 presentation, attendees can then gauge whether becoming a broker or a community partner is something that is of interest to them.

鈥淚f we bring the right stake holders around the table together and say how can we do this together, how we can envision it together, and build it together over time, and each of us can contribute what we can in terms of resources and capacity鈥n the end it鈥檚 not just a CIFCE project, but a collective one,鈥� said Peter.

The event is also important in recognizing the community-engaged research that is going on at 杏吧原创聽University, celebrating it, and sharing in the lessons, Peter says.

杏吧原创 Community Engagement Event organizers give closing comments.

Click on the infographic to open it in a new window. You can then use the zoom tool to make the infographic larger.

Read the .

Community brokering is one of the models聽Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) uses聽to get the community more engaged with local institutions and resources. , executive director of (OETN), helps to facilitate those connections to make Ottawa a better, more sustainable city.

鈥淐FICE is really an opportunity to bring together so many different groups that would not normally be sitting around the same table,鈥� Jason says.

At the OETN, Jason facilitates connections between researchers and academics (the talent), and local community groups and non-profit organizations. Once the connection has been made, the talent works with the organization to provide expert pro-bono advice and research for projects already on the go.

鈥淲e really want to make best use of human resources and empower organizations with mentors,鈥� Jason says.

The OETN鈥檚 work has been made possible, in part, by CFICE鈥檚 (Ottawa) hub, who helped OETN secure a 3-year, $160,000 grant from the Trillium Foundation.

鈥淏ecause there was so much success in the first phase of CFICE for the community brokerage model, I really felt that there was a huge opportunity to continue being involved in the . CFICE helped produce research and the business case for the need of community brokerage,鈥� he says.

For Jason, his ideal Ottawa is one where people are聽making the best use of existing resources.

鈥淚 want to be living in an Ottawa where we don鈥檛 only use buildings for seven hours out of the 24 hour (day); where we have communities that are engaged and people have a sense of community,鈥� Jason says.

This is one of the reasons why he became involved in CFICE鈥檚 Community-Campus Engagement Brokering Working Group. The Working Group seeks to understand how existing brokerage models work and identify best practices for establishing and maintaining productive community-first CCE partnerships.

鈥淐ommunity first is really about reaching out to the grassroots and listening to their needs. We have our ear to the ground listening to the needs of the organizations,鈥� he says.

In making our communities better, Jason says community-campus partnerships play an integral role.

鈥淲e can leverage our strengths to build a more sustainable and resilient community. This makes better use of the multiple resources we have, the capacity we have for research and answering some big questions here in the Ottawa area.鈥�

One of the ways Jason is currently doing this at the OETN is by developing a multi-sector Ottawa brokerage platform. Together with CFICE鈥檚 Community-Campus Engagement Brokering Working Group, they aim to streamline the community-campus engagement work of the various community and academic institutions in Ottawa.

Jason is hoping the project will have a big impact on the community.

鈥淲ouldn鈥檛 it be great if the community and non-profits had access to the wealth of knowledge and know how to interact with the colleges and universities, building a better Ottawa and a better Canada?鈥�

For more information about the Ottawa Eco-Talent Network, visit .