Join a Peer Community
Supportive Communities with a common focus.
Learn about our Peer Communities
Connect with other non-profit individuals and organizations around specific capacity building, organizational development, and systems change topics. A peer community is a group of passionate non-profit leaders who convene around a sector-wide topic, in an environment that supports peer-to-peer learning.
By joining a peer community, you will connect with prominent leaders addressing current issues faced by non-profits in BC. These groups provide a casual yet intentional environment where participants connect regularly to exchange insights, discuss challenges, and explore resources.
Peer Community participants meet regularly to take learnings, discussions, and resources back to their organizations.
Key Features:
- Peer-to-Peer Learning: Participants gain valuable perspectives and ideas to bring back to their organizations.
- Flexible and Evolving Discussions: While each group has a defined purpose and topic, the discussions naturally evolve based on participants’ interests and emerging priorities.
- Minimal Preparation Required: Meetings are accessible, with little to no preparation needed to join and engage meaningfully.
- Participant-Driven Initiatives: Projects may arise organically from these discussions, led and sustained by group members.
Peer Communities align closely with the BC Non-Profit Network’s mission to convene and connect the sector, growing relationships and encouraging collaborative innovation. Whether you’re seeking solutions to organizational challenges, fresh ideas, or simply a supportive network, Peer Communities provide a platform to engage with others who share your passion for non-profit work.
Current Peer Communities
- Advocacy and Government Relations
- Collaboration Peer Community
- ED Unplugged
- Reimagining Governance Peer Community
- Provincial Organizations Collaborative
- Capacity Investors Collaborative
Provincial Organizations Collaborative
The Provincial Organizations Collaborative is a space for provincial and umbrella organizations to align and coordinate advocacy initiatives. The overall goal of this Collaborative is to generate support and solidarity around issues that matter most to our sector. The Collaborative is hosted by Vantage Point and meets on a quarterly basis.
Advocacy and Government Relations Peer Community
Launching in April 2025, the Advocacy & Government Relations Peer Community is a monthly virtual gathering for non-profit leaders and sector supporters to learn from and support one another in this vital area of capacity building. Sessions will vary in format—some will be topic-driven discussions, while others will feature relevant guest speakers sharing insights on areas of interest suggested by the group.
This community is designed for peer learning, offering practical tips, lessons learned, and effective approaches to strengthen advocacy and government relations efforts across the sector.
This group meets virtually on the second Tuesday of each month from 3:00 – 4:00 pm.
Collaboration Peer Community
This group convenes every two months to discuss all things collaboration! This peer community provides non-profit leaders, consultants, funders, and a chance to come together to ask questions, discuss collaborative practices, share approaches, and learn from organizations advancing effective and/or novel approaches to collaboration.
Together, this group will investigate collaboration on several levels, including: internal organizational collaboration, collaboration between or among organizations for different purposes, mergers & amalgamations (an extreme form of collaboration!), and large multi-organizational collaborations such as networks, coalitions, and collective impact.
The Collaboration Peer Community is the next evolutionary stage to our Non-profit Collaboration Community of Practice, which was the successor of our Non-profit Collaboration Advisory Committee. Much of our work on collaboration is generously funded by the City of Vancouver.
ED Unplugged Peer Community
ED Unplugged is a monthly event in which Executive Directors – including CEOs, Artistic Directors, General Managers, and other non-profit senior staff members – come together to learn and support each other, discuss challenges, dilemmas, and questions surrounding a variety of topics of interest, and build a community of non-profit leaders from across BC.
This group regularly invites speakers to join to share or reflect on an area of interest as suggested by participants. Previous topics include media relations, fundraising, digital accessibility, law for non-profits, HR in the sector and more.
This group meets virtually on the last Wednesday of each month from 3:30 – 5:00 pm.
Reimagining Governance Peer Community
Reimagining Governance is a monthly event where we discuss all things related to governance.
Governance is complex and goes beyond simply board performance. Good governance in non-profits advances missions and strengthens communities, and this space provides opportunities and pathways for organizations to design their governance based on their unique circumstances. This group is inspired by the work of ONN’s Reimagining Governance Lab.
This peer community provides board members, senior leaders, and those simply interested in governance to come together to ask questions, discuss governance issues, provide feedback, and learn from organizations advancing alternative solutions to governance. Previous topics include centering youth in governance, board recruitment, alternatives to Robert’s Rules, and equitable and accessible governance.
This group meets virtually on the fourth Monday of each month from 4:00 pm – 5:15 pm.
Capacity Investors Collaborative
The Capacity Investors Collaborative provides an opportunity for funders to connect with each other to explore collaborative opportunities specific to increasing non-profit capacity and supporting impactful organizations.
This collaborative meets quarterly in online gatherings (via Zoom) convened by Vantage Point, and provides an opportunity for funders to:
- Share experiences and best-practices in strategic capacity investment in non-profit governance, management, systems, and business models.
- Increase understanding of capacity challenges that grantees (charitable and non-profit organizations) encounter.
- Explore opportunities where partners can cooperate and/or coordinate their capacity investments to effectively build capacity of non-profit partner organizations – ultimately enhancing community health and well-being.
The Capacity Investors Collaborative is open to businesses, public and private foundations, organizations, and government departments that are committed to supporting the internal capacity of charitable and non-profit organizations in our province.
This collaborative is made possible thanks to the support of VCH Health Promotion Community Investments.