Thank you for your question.
One of the things that was incredibly helpful is that many of the funders were there from the very beginning. Many of us—the community foundation, the United Way, the provincial government, the municipal government—were the ones sitting around the table saying, “Something has to give, and it must be us.” We didn't have the uphill battle of trying to convince the funders to do things differently. We were trying to figure out for ourselves how we lined up. In terms of changes, Living SJ provided the United Way with a template for what we should be investing in and how we should be investing.
We have a team of reviewers that looks at funding applications. When they do that, they use a Living SJ lens. We look at whether this investment we make will drive that bottom line, the bottom line being achieving literacy by the end of grade 2. It's looking at those things that as a community we are trying to achieve and how we make that happen with our own money.
It also shifted the conversation from just the cheques we write, which are significant in our community—we grant about a million dollars a year—to how we can leverage funding. We've been able to put the first $10,000 or $20,000 on the table to assume some initial risk, because as a community-based funder we can do that to attract some funding from the provincial government to test a new idea or to attract a private consulting firm to give us some really great analyses of the work we're doing. Those changes have been able to happen because of our collective approach.
When funders aren't part of the conversation and you have to sell this to them, it's much more difficult. At my board of directors, Living SJ is part of our DNA now. It's part of our board agenda. We talk about it. That is also important in sustaining that role into the future.