FAQ
A. What is the Community Knowledge Centre?
The Community Knowledge Centre is at the core of what we’re about at the Toronto Community Foundation: connecting philanthropy with community needs. Our Community Knowledge Centre showcases solutions to some of our city’s most pressing issues, as reflected in Toronto’s Vital Signs® Report. It is a place where you can be inspired to imagine transformational change in our city - and where you can come to understand the community responses underway that are working towards making Toronto the best place to live, work, learn and grow.
For Toronto Community Foundation Fundholders, the Community Knowledge Centre is a tool to help you consider your philanthropy, providing you with innovative giving opportunities that help make our city a better place. If you would like to become a donor, or are thinking about beginning a relationship with the Toronto Community Foundation, the Community Knowledge Centre can help you to understand how your investment will make a difference in our community.
For members of the media, it is a resource to help you gain ideas for stories that speak about the issues in our city and the community organizations that are transforming people’s lives.
For members of the public, it is a place to help you gain an understanding of the great work being done to help build our city, and to help you connect with and learn about organizations that are working in an issue area, neighbourhood, or age group that matters to you. You may choose to use this site as a resource to help guide your giving. More than anything, it is a place to help you become inspired by the many opportunities to make a difference in the quality of life of Torontonians.
For community organizations, it is a place to help you tell your stories of change, impact, and community vitality. It is also a place where you can gain an understanding of the great work being done by other community organizations, and where you can identify and leverage opportunities for collaboration and partnership.
B. What is Toronto’s Vital Signs®?
Each year, the Toronto Community Foundation publishes the Toronto's Vital Signs® Report - a consolidated snapshot examining 11 issue areas that are critical to the well-being of our city and its residents. Through the combined efforts of our research, community and media partners, it reaches over a million people in Toronto. The Report is the result of a collaboration of more than 100 individuals and organizations including research partners from government, community and research-based institutions.
C. Why does the Community Knowledge Centre profile community organizations?
Just as our Toronto’s Vital Signs® Report consolidates data and research in 11 different issue areas, the Community Knowledge Centre is a consolidation of the solutions to issues identified in the Report. We want to showcase how vitally important it is to invest in the most innovative and effective solutions to some of our city’s most pressing issues. The Community Knowledge Centre helps Toronto tell good-news-stories by creating a central place where members of the public, our partner organizations, donors and potential donors, and members of the media can come to get a holistic sense of some of the great work that’s being done to build our city.
D. How do I learn more about what’s being done to address the issues I care about the most?
You can search the organization profiles on Community Knowledge Centre website by the 11 issue areas that we report in Toronto’s Vital Signs®, which together, paint a holistic picture of the heath of our city. To search by issue area, click here. The website also features a general search function at the top of the page to help you find organizations or programs that are working on the particular issue you care about most.
E. What’s happening in my neighbourhood?
This site hosts information about community organizations that are working in the City of Toronto. For the purposes of this site, we have chosen to divide the city into quadrants. If organizations work across the city, they are listed in each quadrant. The Google map allows you to zoom in on a neighbourhood that interests you, and view the organizations that have programming in that quadrant of the city.
F. I’m excited about the great programs I’ve been reading about in the Community Knowledge Centre! How can I support one or more of the organizations that have been profiled?
If you are a Fundholder at the Toronto Community Foundation, simply contact a member of our Donor Services Team, and they’d be more than happy to provide you with more in-depth information on the organization and to facilitate a contribution in the form of a grant from your Fund.
If you’d like to learn more about setting up a foundation at the Toronto Community Foundation to facilitate your philanthropic giving, please contact our Development and Professional Advisory Services Team.
If you are a member of the public, and are interested in making a charitable donation to the Vital Toronto Fund to support the kinds of organizations you have read about on the Community Knowledge Centre website, please contact us.
If you are an individual who would like to make a direct donation to the organizations you see profiled on the website, want to know more about how you can get involved with them, or have further questions about the work of the organizations profiled (but are not a Fundholder at the Community Foundation) please contact the organization directly. They would welcome your call. Contact information is provided at the top right-hand corner of each profile page.
G. Does the Toronto Community Foundation do any review and assessments on the organizations that are profiled on the site?
Each profile that has the Vital Toronto Fund insignia is a Vital Toronto Fund grantee that was reviewed by Toronto Community Foundation in the year the award was granted. At the time of the award, these organizations underwent a rigorous review and assessment by Community Foundation staff including the organization’s mission and activities, impact of its programming, governance and financial health. For more information on the review and assessment conducted on these organizations, click here.
Please note that most community organization profiles identify additional funding/grants received from other sources.
H. Does having a profile on the Community Knowledge Centre guarantee that a community organization will receive grants or donations?
No, but wouldn’t it be nice if it did? The organizations currently profiled on this site have received funds from the Toronto Community Foundation’s Vital Toronto Fund and our Fundholders.
We created the Community Knowledge Centre in order to provide free and open access to all our Fundholders, members of the media, and the general public who can support our community assets to sustain and grow. Our hope is that our Fundholders and other philanthropists will use this site as a tool for their community investments.
I. How do I get my community organization featured on the Community Knowledge Centre?
The Community Knowledge Centre is a new project, launched in June of 2010. At this stage, we are highlighting innovative and effective community organizations that the Toronto Community Foundation has invested in through our Vital Toronto Fund. The site also profiles organizations Toronto Community Foundation Fundholders have supported.
Over time, we will partner with organizations from across the city to showcase their work. If you’d like to have your organization considered for profiling in the future, please contact our Community Knowledge Coordinator.
J. I’m from a community organization and we have new information about our programs to share. How can I update my organization’s Community Knowledge Centre profile?
The more current the information you keep on the site, the better! Please contact our Community Knowledge Coordinator to learn how.
