J. W. McConnell Family Foundation

[NOTE: cited resources not available on the Foundation website as of 12/21/09] The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation funds projects in Canada that foster citizen engagement, build resilient communities and have the potential for national scale or impact. The Foundation focuses on four areas by which to make a difference in the world: (1) promoting active citizenship in order to encourage benefits to both individual and collective well-being that flow from a sense of belonging and contributing to one’s community; (2) encouraging the development of resilient communities in order to manage change, uncertainty, and the unexpected over the long term. Resilient communities deal with complexity, and have the capacity for renewal and innovation in the face of rapid transformation or crisis; (3) fostering social innovation in order to create new ideas and understandings, and ultimately improvements in the human condition; (4) supporting the scaling-up of locally-based innovations to achieve greater national impact, scale and durability--an area in which the McConnell Foundation, as a national funder, has a particular interest. Its work is very much akin to how many arts practitioners may approach arts-based civic engagement work.