Early last year, Vantage Point began an exciting new partnership with the City of Vancouver. Together, over the past 15 months, we have provided 232 local not-for-profit leaders with access to learning opportunities focused on leadership and governance.

This unique partnership was born from a shared belief in the critical role not-for-profit leaders play in creating a connected, vibrant and healthy city. “Cultivating excellence in not-for-profit leadership is key to strengthening and creating positive change in our communities,” says Cherryl Masters, Cultural Planner at the City.

Here’s a snippet of the results from an independent evaluation of the partnership’s impact:

On June 27, we convened 150+ of those leaders to reflect, celebrate our achievements, continue to learn from each other – and dream about what might come next.

The afternoon kicked off with a keynote from Jane Cox of Cause + Affect, the team who brought the globally renowned PechaKucha Nights to Vancouver. Jane set the tone for the afternoon, sharing what she sees as the five central tenets of future leadership. You can check out her slides here.

We then moved into a panel moderated by David Jordan, Executive Director of the Vancouver International Fringe Festival and panelists Alison Brewin, former ED of West Coast LEAF, Bruce Passmore, ED of Leave out Violence (LOVE) BC, and Norman Armour, ED of Vancouver’s PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. The panel tackled topics including building organizational capacity for mission delivery through stronger processes, creating buy-in for change and how to reframe their view of challenges as opportunities.

The remainder of the forum was woven with opportunities for brainstorming, group discussions, case studies from DOXA Documentary Film Festival and Women Against Violence Against Women, and of course, plenty of time for networking.

A big thank you to our fantastic partners at the City of Vancouver and all of the forum attendees. We can’t wait to hear how you take this learning back to your organization.