Give Amplify Connect

Bow Valley Non-Profits: Innovation, Collaboration, and Community

• Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation • Episode 19

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The episode examines the evolving landscape of nonprofit collaboration in the Bow Valley, sharing insights from community leaders on how they are working together to address local needs. It highlights the importance of connection, resource-sharing, and the role of funding in supporting their initiatives.

Key Messages
• Exploring the impact of the pandemic on nonprofit organizations
• Overview of the Bow Valley Non-Profits and its web platform
• Insights from recent surveys addressing nonprofit challenges
• Initiatives for collaborative funding discussions among local funders
• Importance of collective events and asset mapping for nonprofits
• Details about the successful Bow Valley Non-Profit Summit and attendee feedback
• Focus on fostering trust and authentic relationships within the community

About the Bow Valley Non-Profits

Bow Valley Non-Profits is a platform that is intended to serve as a central hub for Bow Valley non-profit organizations to access relevant resources, such as funding opportunities and training resources.

This includes a functional website designed to help local non-profits quickly and easily find relevant resources. This website content and design are based on feedback from local non-profit organizations. Seed funding to develop this website was provided by the Town of Canmore, with ongoing funding and support provided by the Town of Banff and the Town of Canmore.  This website was created for the benefit of local non-profits, with the intention of having non-profit members help to populate and contribute to the quality of the website content.  The Municipalities of Banff and Canmore also pool human resources for the advancement of community development work that hosts 2 Non-Profit Collective events annually that offer opportunities for connection, collaboration and learning in a variety of ways.  In 2024, Bow Valley Non-Profits teamed up with the Wim and Nancy Pauw Foundation and Banff Canmore Foundation to host the very first Bow Valley Non-Profits Summit- an evening keynote speaker and day long PD and workshop event intended to amplify collaboration and learning needs that were identified in the 2023 Bow Valley Non-Profits Survey. 

Connect with Laura Wellmann or Jessica LaBonte



What is Give Amplify Connect?

There’s a story behind every action. Give Amplify Connect is a podcast from the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation that gives a voice to the Alberta-based charitable organizations creating community impact, changing lives, and making a difference. Driven by honest conversations with host Kristy Wolfe, it’s a chance for passionate changemakers to share their story.

Learn more at wolfepackwarriors.com

Podcast music used with artist permission
"Okay" by Ellen Braun


Jessica Labonte:

folks came away with a ton of value from the summit, which was amazing to hear, and also a craving just to continue to push us to say, okay, well, what's next though? What is the next thing and how can we bring it closer to our work?

Intro:

Welcome to Give Amplify Connect, the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation podcast that dives deeper into the stories of the charitable organizations in Alberta that are making a difference. Host and producer Kristy Wolf sits down with the leaders of the nonprofit world to learn more about their purpose, hopes and dreams. Settle in for an honest conversation with Kristy about the impact people are making in their communities and how they keep moving forward.

Kristy Wolfe:

With me today is Laura Wellman, family and community worker with the Town of Canmore, and Jessica Labonte, community development coordinator with the Town of Banff, and we are going to be talking about the Bow Valley Nonprofits that they are doing work on together. Laura, will you start by introducing us to the Bow Valley Nonprofits they are doing work on together? Laura, will you start by introducing us to the Bow Valley nonprofits? Absolutely.

Laura Wellman:

Kristy, thanks so much for having us here today. It's interesting when Jess and I talk to the sector around kind of the history piece, we find like it's hard to encapsulate it all, because there's a really deep, rich history with family and community support Services, otherwise known as FCSS, and that's the portfolio that Jess and I operate from, and so it's a decades-long history between Banff and Canmore and the FCSS program is actually a provincial program that municipalities are able to access funding for, and the beautiful thing about this particular grant funding is that it aligns itself with local needs, and so FCSS has looked very different across the province and even between Banff and Canmore a ton of similarities, but we also have some differences that are unique to our individual communities. Jess and I took this portfolio over in 2023 from our predecessors, ruth Pryor with the town of Banff and Tara Gilchrist from the town of Canmore. They had done some significant work during COVID around how COVID was impacting nonprofits and they sent out a survey. It was specific to recovery and asking nonprofits what's changed for you, what's needed, what are some of the next steps to help you recover, of the next steps to help you recover, and that survey and the results from that survey informed an ask to Canmore Town Council. Canmore Town Council was putting dollars toward community-based recovery efforts and so a portion of that funding was provided to nonprofits and it was decided, based on the results of that survey, that what was really needed was kind of a collective space that nonprofits could go to, that kind of a repository where they could go to access resources that were pertinent to the work that they did, that there was some kind of forum where they could access one another Because, as we recall, covid was a really time of breaking those attachments and those relationships.

Laura Wellman:

That funding was put towards a web-based platform and so Bow Valley Marketing was contracted to do that work. The lovely Moselle Dipton, many of you may know her, a wonderful human, and Moselle continues to this day to support the Bow Valley Nonprofit website. So, essentially, bow Valley Nonprofits started as a web-based support, as a COVID response, started as a web-based support as a COVID response. Thankfully, our predecessors had the foresight to brand Bow Valley Nonprofits as an entity in and of itself. Yes, it is supported by the municipalities. There's currently an agreement between both the Town of Kilmore and Town of Banff, fcsss to support ongoingly the cost of that website, to support ongoingly the cost of that website.

Laura Wellman:

However, that foresight gave Jess and I the opportunity to have Bow Valley Nonprofits evolve, and so I would argue that it is now become more than just a website platform. It really is a platform of connection and collaboration, and so when Jess and I came on board in 2023, we decided, okay, you know what, it's time to get our finger back on the pulse of nonprofits. It's been about three years since the previous survey. We did another survey 58% response rate, which was fantastic. About 85 responses came back from the sector, and we came to understand that there was a real desire for some key pieces that Jess and I have now been able to action under the Bow Valley Nonprofits umbrella, and so one of the key pieces that came back was taking a look at the challenges in funding, and so a lot of nonprofits were indicating operational funds are crucial, and yet there's such limited access to those funds. And so Jess and I have convened a group of folks local funders, municipalities to start talking a bit differently around what that could look like.

Laura Wellman:

We have locus, control and ability to shift some things around how we might be able to offer funding in the ways that nonprofits need it, taking a look at a shared opportunity, perhaps around a joint portal, so that nonprofits aren't making four or five separate applications for local dollars, so those sorts of things.

Laura Wellman:

So that came from that piece of work. The other thing that nonprofits were indicating is we really need and appreciate time to connect and collaborate on some of these collective challenges and problems, that we see the ability to learn together, to come together and have collective learning and growing, and so from that, jess and I created these collective events, so twice a year we bring the sector together, the first of which that we had done was taking a look, diving deeper into some of the survey results and having some tabletop conversations. And then the second collective event that we did in the fall of last year was asset mapping and so taking a look at what do we currently have and how might we take a look at a shared platform, which is another piece that the nonprofit sector has indicated would be really helpful, and so we currently have a feasibility study underway. Moselle is helping us out with that. It's landed on our desks, jess and I are currently reviewing it, and then we will be trying to source some funding to support some kind of shared platform.

Kristy Wolfe:

I have so many things to say. Okay, so we got a really good walkthrough of everything that's been happening so far and not everything, because we're going to dive into the nonprofit summit that happened as well but I just want to say that I was looking up the speaker series. That originally happened it was back in 2021. And that was when the Wolfpack Warriors Foundation was just getting charitable status. We were just figuring everything out and I watched every one of those speaker series and have been following what Bow Valley Nonprofits has been doing since then, because that was what I needed. I needed to know other people. It actually introduced me to people in the Bow Valley that I hadn't met yet.

Kristy Wolfe:

So I'm looking at the speaker series, which is still up on your website, and we'll put the link to that in the show notes. But I mean you had Carolyn Campbell on from Norquest College. We now have scholarships with Norquest College and partially based on some of this work that happened a few years ago Kathy Irvine, kristen Pontnolin, like all of these people that are doing this work in the Bow Valley, it was so great to have them highlighted. That just ties to what you've continued to do of bringing voices together, highlighting some of the different foundations, but also business supports, in set up these events to include everyone and to then start conversations that you don't necessarily need to be a part of, but it's about starting that conversation and seeing where it goes. Jessica, as you were listening to all of that from me and from Laura, were there things that were cropping up for you?

Jessica Labonte:

A bit. Thank you, thanks for having us, christy, and thanks, laura, for doing such a good job of summarizing the work that we've been happily doing this past little bit. But I think one of the pieces that you spoke to Christy a bit too, is that kind of local connection. We're aware, and we've talked about this when we speak about the Bow Valley Nonprofits website there are so many resources and tools and relationships and opportunities that lie for nonprofits to access to help build capacity and support their work, and one of the special things I think about Bow Valley Nonprofits is really bringing that closer to home. So whether it's the website and we have a grant you know a grant writing speaker series on the website and that's available other places too and there are events that people can go to and conferences and things other places as well.

Jessica Labonte:

But there's something special to be going to a spot that feels a little bit closer to home and a little bit more accessible, where you might see someone on the website or featured on social media, and then you go to an event and they're there, or you meet someone at an event and then they're a presenter, or there's someone at your table and you can say, hey, are you around next week, let's do coffee? Because they're locally based and so really trying to leverage and build on those local relationships and the local assets that we have that are supporting the sector and connect people in that way, because I think that there's something different about relationship and accessibility that Bow Valley Nonprofits tries to hone in on. That's really location specific. So that's, I think, one of the things that just popped up for me when you were speaking there, christine.

Kristy Wolfe:

I am so excited every time something new comes up that I'm like, oh, I can't wait. So tell us about the summit that happened, because that was the first summit. I'm hoping it was first annual summit, but tell us more about what's happening with that, as Laura spoke to, we kind of had that survey go out.

Jessica Labonte:

We did some asset mapping last year in the spring and then we're considering how do we? How do we further this? What would our fall collective event be? And I don't actually know. Maybe, Laura, you always have a better memory of these things than I do. I don't actually know the moment. We're like why don't we do a summit? No, it was in front of everyone at the collective event.

Laura Wellman:

We had been percolating and we looked at each other and just goes, we're gonna. We're thinking about a summit. No, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do a summit. What did we just commit to that? We just committed we're doing a summit.

Jessica Labonte:

I think in the moment I even said it's like we announced we're having a baby and now everybody knows we're having a baby and we can't unhear that piece. But I think we just wanted to bulk out that collective event and so typically what the collective events have looked like are kind of two and a half to three hour time frame. There's food and drink there to keep people going, but offers offers, some opportunity to network, but also is designed to have some specific outcomes. So we had the one that was sharing about survey results. We had the one that was some asset mapping to understand further and deeper, beyond the survey, challenges and opportunities and commonalities. We're hearing directly from people in the Bow Valley who are working in the nonprofit sector and so coming out of that, I think we were just kind of percolating on what we've heard and what might the next need be that we could help to support really helping to support from the back end and blow some wind into some sales and we thought, oh, you know, it would be great if we had some professional development opportunities, it would be great if we had some presentations around people telling their story, which is where you came in, which was amazing, you know.

Jessica Labonte:

So pulling those themes out of that asset mapping piece and saying, oh, we should have this, a designer actually put together the information from the asset map and produce a usable tool that the nonprofit sector could say, hey, you know, here's a tool, whether you're applying for a grant or speaking to funder and building that relationship to have an actual thing maybe overuse the word thing sometimes, but to have a physical something that shines light and reflects on our specific needs, our strengths, the opportunities that the sector here in the Bow Valley sees.

Jessica Labonte:

So we thought, oh, you know the asset map and PD and some speakers, and maybe we need more than two and a half three hours. Maybe we should do not a conference, not a conference. But I think that's why we chose the word summit, because it's kind of a more, it's more than a collective and less than a conference and also reflects our environment, which is great. And so we brought it together with the help of the Banff Canmore Foundation and the Women Nancy Powell Foundation and support from all the speakers who came, including you, which was wonderful. And we are talking about the future of a summit and what that might be. We're hot off the heels of those conversations.

Kristy Wolfe:

So OK. So I want to touch on a couple of things. So the asset mapping PDF is actually available on the homepage of your website. So, bowvalleynonprofitsca, I definitely recommend you take a look at it.

Kristy Wolfe:

I have been to a number of those sessions so I've kind of watched the processes it's gone along, and I just want to compliment both of you on the continuity that happens, because each time I come I learn the next piece, and that's been really helpful. The asset mapping was actually on the tables and sent out to everybody that came to the summit. So just that again continuity of communication of where to find things, of where to go, look back at what you were talking about and addressing, and then you went through it a bit in the summit as well, which I think is also important, because I don't know about you, but I got an awful lot of emails that I skimmed through and think I'm going to come back to. I unread them, so I'll come back and read them again later, and it doesn't always happen, but I find when I'm in person and we're all talking about the same thing, that's when it really lands and I start to think about what's next.

Kristy Wolfe:

I do want you to walk through a little bit of what the Nonprofit Summit looked like, because I think that it's nice to highlight some of the work that's been done in the Bow Valley. I'm glad you brought up the Women Nancy Powell Foundation, the Banff Camor Foundation. It's that idea that this isn't done like in solo. The towns can't just do this by themselves. It is a collaboration of funding as well that goes into creating some of these opportunities. So will you walk us through a bit of what the summit looked like yeah, 100%, christy.

Laura Wellman:

You know this work is relationship, relationship, relationship.

Laura Wellman:

It really is.

Laura Wellman:

And I think one of the pieces that I really, when I think about what I love about this work and about community development work, is that piece of the excitement that happens when you take kind of these pockets of conversations that are happening and you bring them all together, and so that convening work is just so exciting for me from a community development lens.

Laura Wellman:

And that's exactly how the summit came to be. There were so many pockets of disjointed conversation that were happening at multiple tables and it takes kind of that human resource and this is with nonprofits as well that's kind of tasked with convening and getting people to the table and having those ongoing conversations. And what do you have to bring an offer to amplify this particular cause and what do you have? And so the summit was the percolation of having not only funding conversations with Women Nancy Powell Foundation and the BAM Camera Foundation but co-planning conversations. So talking about, okay, from your lens and the work that you are doing in community, what are you seeing, what might be helpful, and that culminating into who else are some key players that we might want to bring into this conversation. And so I think that is the beauty and the work behind how this summit culminated was having those ongoing conversations and having various diverse voices at the table.

Kristy Wolfe:

And how did you decide on kind of the framework? I mean, you had Kathy Arne talking about both storytelling as well as managing volunteers. You had Mike Grogan from Integral Org on talking about collaboration and almost like mergers. I really enjoyed that session and actually I have to tell you that we had Mike Grogan come and speak to our board after that and he's coming on the podcast next, so we'll get to hear from him as well and what their organization is doing. And then you also had Michaela and Jenna from Scale, naturally, talking about DEI and the nonprofit landscape. So there was like a variety.

Kristy Wolfe:

I find always when you go to any professional development and there's different sessions happening at the same time, that I'm like, oh no, which one do I go to? I want to hear them all. Right, the challenge. So that's a good thing. In your planning you had a different things that people were struggling to decide, which makes more sense, and I think that's again a shout out to the work that you did to set this up, because you had really strong speakers there talking about topics of interest, and that comes from all the work that you've done. What did you hear after?

Laura Wellman:

We heard loud and clear like we did not want to choose, and so that we are taking back is a nugget moving forward.

Laura Wellman:

And I think too that speaks to this call and return nature of this work.

Laura Wellman:

And so, jess and I, hearing what the sector is saying they need and formulating that into the topics, but also this deep recognition of the richness and the diversity in our Bow Valley nonprofit sector, and so Jess and I have really grappled, and it has been a struggle at the same time, because it is a multi-pronged approach.

Laura Wellman:

So anything that we action strategically because of the vast diversity needs to be diverse in its reach as well. And so that was one of the, I would say, successes Jess and I felt was had at the summit was it was the first time in recent history where we had such a wonderful, wholesome representation across the spectrum. So we had sport and rec there, we had, you know, religious groups there, we had our typical social serving groups there, we had event planning groups there. So the entire spectrum of the sector was represented at the summit, event planning groups there. So the entire spectrum of the sector was represented at the summit, and I think that that was a really crucial component and I do think there was intentionality hey, jess around offerings that would meet the mark across the entire spectrum of diversities of the sector and we wanted to make sure that there was something meaningful there for everyone.

Kristy Wolfe:

On the continuum, that makes a lot of sense, jess, did you want to add anything?

Jessica Labonte:

Just thinking about our summit feedback and our intention moving forward. I feel like it's like cooking for a family with 20 children and every child has the thing that they like to eat, and you want to make sure you're cooking something that everyone will eat, but only cook one meal, and that is indeed the blessing and the curse of planning forward and trying to stay relevant and be valuable and accountable to the sector. So I appreciate your comments around continuity, having attended these events and having them build forward, and I think that one of the things we heard from the summit was that people loved the networking time. We didn't have time during breakfast or lunch programmed time. It was just given for people to have connections, which there was a ton of it by the sound and visual of the room during those meal times, but there was definitely in the feedback beyond. Hey, I didn't want to choose my session, which I felt as well, session which I felt as well. There was also feedback around what's next. I want some further actionable things. I want some more tools. I want to actually get together and practice.

Jessica Labonte:

You know some of the things we're speaking about, which included you didn't mention the storytelling panel that you were on, so Key Canada hosted that at the Arnie with you and Jason Thompson and Jenny Spurr from Perch Communications, which was very well attended and well received, and so folks came away with a ton of value from the summit, which was amazing to hear, and also a craving to continue to push us to say, ok, well, what's next?

Jessica Labonte:

Though? What is, what is the next thing, and, and how can we we bring it closer to our work and get our hands, our hands, in there, and I think the way Laura and I have also worked, how we work in partnership and how we enjoy each other in partnership, is that like action-oriented piece and digging in and what's next, and so it aligns well with, I think, our mentality and style of working to continue to build on that energy and appetite for the next thing. So, yeah, we'll see what happens with our summit conversation, but it's definitely something we felt was really valuable for us and, it sounded like, for the attendees as well.

Laura Wellman:

Yeah, so definitely the website. So bowvalleynonprofitsca. Mozalla is great about ensuring that all the up-to-date information is there. We also have social media platforms, so there's both instagram and facebook bow valley nonprofits and, again, mozalla is really wonderful about not only including information around what might be next for locally for us, but as well as other resources that are available and happening across the province, so that's the best place. We also kind of have an email distribution list, and so more formal invitations are distributed that way to the sector as well.

Kristy Wolfe:

Okay, and I'll put the link in the show notes to the newsletter specifically because I find that when it does come to my inbox, it's just it's. I don't always remember to check websites and social media can suck the life out of you sometimes. But I do want to say that something that I've really noticed that Mozilla is doing is sharing really well. So if your nonprofit in the Bow Valley is putting on an event tag, the Bow Valley nonprofits in it, because they will also share and that's just. It's been a great way to kind of keep an eye on what's happening across multiple groups, and so I think that is again some of the value in what you're trying to do is amplifying what other organizations are doing within the Bow Valley.

Kristy Wolfe:

I mean, this podcast is called Give Amplify Connected. It is very much about how do we tie those pieces together, how do we let other people know about what's happening in the sector. Our last podcast was with the Jerry Forbes Center, which is in Edmonton, and it's a space where 25 nonprofits are housed together, and so the idea of sharing space, sharing resources, sharing some human resources as well to save costs then allows for more work. So definitely have a listen to that podcast with Diana Davis, because she really goes into what that's all about, and I think that this is what I'm seeing in the Bow Valley as well, that that is being called for. How do we work together to reduce some costs so that we can do more? The question I'm going to end you both with is tell us about an organization or a person that inspires you.

Jessica Labonte:

It's hard to pick one, so I'll just put that out there For me. I do just observe and adore the work that the Women Nancy Powell Foundation does in the Bow Valley. I think that their commitment and their openness to looking at the diversity of needs and pockets where things could be supported and seeing those and inviting conversation around those and just being open to the way that they fund is something I think is just stunning. And in fact I was working with a nonprofit just the other week who said do you know anyone else who operates the way the Women Nancy Powell Foundation do? And it's not just what they fund and the diversity of things that they fund, but it is for me how they are in relationship.

Jessica Labonte:

I think that especially I mean working for a municipality, working for the town, accountability and ensuring the due diligence piece and sometimes paperwork and forms and things can be a big part of the work and working with nonprofits it's so much about understanding the capacity and the capacity challenges which are being experienced and the work Laura and I are doing are trying to reduce those barriers.

Jessica Labonte:

Laura and I are doing are trying to reduce those barriers. And when I look at the Women Nancy Powell Foundation and how they work in relationship, over a coffee date and a conversation, and really a deep understanding of who people are and the work that they're doing and the work that they hope to do, and finding an alignment of values and an alignment of partnership, understanding and expectations. It's so organic, it's so genuine, and it's beautiful to see how the funding of the Women Nancy Powell Foundation has made a difference in so many places and spaces. And I do think of other communities and think, oh man, I really wish they would like, I really wish they would have a Powell Foundation in their community, because I see the difference that they're making, and so I definitely would put the POW Foundation right at the top of my list.

Kristy Wolfe:

Well, I have to say that that doesn't surprise me, and also Kathy Geisler is a bit of a mentor for how the Wolfpack Warriors Foundation has come to be, so again new on the scene, but watching and talking with Kathy and the Banff Cam Moore Foundation has really helped me to guide what we're doing as well. So I love that you just shouted that out, Laura. What about you who?

Laura Wellman:

inspires you. That was mine. Surprise, surprise, jess really said it so eloquently in terms of bringing us back to the value of relationship. And it is a simple yet complex experience process. Whatever it is that you want to name, and I think you know Kathy and Allison as kind of the leaders and the front voices and faces of that work. They are genuine, authentic believers in relationship and the importance of that and trust, relationship and trust.

Laura Wellman:

And I think, if I blow it out even further in terms of like, what is really you know who I'm admiring right now in the work is those individuals in the nonprofit sector right now that are doing this day in and day out.

Laura Wellman:

They're believing in relationship, they're believing in trust, whether it be, you know, the couple of nonprofits that are co-hosting the monthly grant writing group for nonprofits. To you know folks, all the funders being at the table around hey, how do we do this differently for nonprofits? How do we make less burden, how do we be more efficient in how we're doing this work, this work? To you know the folks saying, hey, let's think big and differently, like, let's take a look at what other communities are doing around, sharing some of these human resources and having a way that we think collectively about our shared challenges and we also celebrate each other's successes. I am constantly in awe of what this community is capable of when we convene and come together and believe in relationship and trust with one another. It is a magical, powerful place to be, and I'm honored to be walking alongside all the folks in this work.

Kristy Wolfe:

Well, and I just want to draw attention to the fact that the Banff Cammore Foundation also has done a podcast with us. So it is episode number six, but Banff Canmore Foundation is actually how I met Cathy Geisler when I moved here. So all of those pieces that we're talking about, that community collaboration just running into people and then having a conversation and seeing where it leads really ties back to all of this. So, ladies, I want to thank you so much for your time today and sharing everything about the Bow Valley Nonprofits. I appreciate it and cannot wait for your next event. Thank you so much for having us. This was a blast. Thank you for joining us today. The purpose of the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation is to give, amplify and connect. Don't miss the next episode. Follow, give, amplify, connect on your favourite podcast platform to hear from other Alberta-based nonprofits about the work they are doing. On a final note, remember to take care of yourself and your pack.

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