Collective impact and collaboration
A cohesive response to food insecurity in Calgary and beyond
We are inspiring and cultivating strategic collaboration across various sectors to establish a highly efficient, coordinated, and dignified approach to support food-insecure households.
We are highly committed to collaborate with other agencies across multiple sectors who share our mission to alleviate food insecurity among low-income and equity-seeking populations.
More and more organizations are recognizing the considerable advantages of grocery gift cards over traditional food programs. We would like to inspire and cultivate strategic collaboration across all sectors to ensure we establish a highly efficient, coordinated, and dignified approach to empower food-insecure populations.
Based on the recommendations outlined in Examining Calgary’s Emergency Food Assistance System and The Right to Eat Right, the local charitable sector needs to form a centralized and cohesive response to food insecurity if we wish to truly move the dial on this serious public health concern.
A unified effort would result in multiple benefits that would enable the system to:
- enhance client awareness and understanding of available supports
- maximize the efficiency and coordination of service delivery
- optimize equitable access to targeted supports
- share resources, knowledge, data, and expertise
- establish standardized and streamlined processes
- prevent unnecessary duplication of efforts
- reduce workload across all agencies
- expand fundraising opportunities and success
- attract more donors, sponsors, and funders
- strengthen multi-sector networks and connections
I Can for Kids maintains the dignity and self-worth of our clients by offering grocery gift cards. Families are able to select the food and ingredients they need for dishes that they are comfortable making for their kids, as opposed to receiving items that they don’t know how to use. The grocery gift card program encourages families to work with our agency to address any issues they might have, and improves our collaboration with them on their current life struggles.
It’s essential for the charitable sector to collectively show major funders and donors that we can optimize the social impact of their generous contributions through:
shared vision and resources
high-performing partnerships
coordinated and streamlined services
reduced administrative burden
more equitable support for food-insecure populations
I Can for Kids welcomes and encourages all players in the charitable sector to collaborate with us.
We can provide support in several ways, such as:
- sharing our learning, experience, and expertise
- investing dedicated funds from other agencies to procure grocery gift cards that they can then use to support their food-insecure clients
- engaging in conversations to improve the grocery gift card model and expand the reach to other food-insecure populations
I fell in love with everything about I Can for Kids! When I reached out to see if they might offer some assistance in launching our own grocery gift card, I was mostly hoping they would’t be upset that I was going to steal their idea. What a shock to discover how thrilled they were to help, and they offered more time and resources than I ever would have imagined. Drumheller faces the same challenges as larger centres, but without the same infrastructure to alleviate the issue. The I Can for Kids grocery gift card model is so genius. It’s scalable, targeted, and evidence based. Which made it so perfect for us to adopt and adapt to our local context. We couldn’t have done it without I Can for Kids!
Our innovative program is the first of its kind to tackle the root cause of food insecurity: inadequate income.
And innovation only thrives through the support of generous donors like you.