Maximizing Effectiveness: An Assessment of Environmental Priorities and Voluntary Sector Capacity Needs in Alberta undertaken by Alberta Ecotrust in 2004 clearly showed that community groups face great barriers to effectively delivering their mandates.

Lack of funding (especially for core activities, including staff), volunteer management and recruitment, and communications skills were identified as the key factors limiting the effectiveness of environmental and community groups. Access to financial resources remains a critical challenge for Alberta’s environmental and community organizations. Albertans are close to the bottom when rated against other provinces for environmental philanthropy from all sources – individuals, corporations, foundations and government.

Click here to read the Executive Summary.

In order to help groups maximize their effectiveness, Alberta Ecotrust will start to focus more formally on programming that builds capacity of our grantee. Over the next year Alberta Ecotrust will:

• Hire a community outreach and capacity program coordinator
• Move to establish short-term support: list resources on website, investigate reputable programs, identify service providers, etc.
• Move from passive capacity building to comprehensive program delivery in the areas identified as capacity gaps: communications, fund development, volunteer management and governance/board development with specific emphasis on environmental knowledge
• Seek strategic partnerships with other service providers to develop a long-term focus on capacity assessment tools, tool box development, training programs and professional development opportunities, and grants to improve capacity ; and
• Engage Alberta Ecotrust ENGO partners more meaningfully by providing training opportunities and resources that build their capacity

In the meantime, please use these tools and links to help you in the following areas:

• Fund Development
• Volunteer Resource Management
• Communications