Highlighting Inspiring Communities

The McConnell Foundation provided funding to Inspiring Communities to support their collective impact initiatives addressing housing, community health and wellbeing, and climate action in the communities of Digby, Dartmouth and Cape Breton.

Inspiring Communities is a nonprofit organization in Atlantic Canada with the mission to create thriving, more equitable communities through systems change approaches like social innovation and collaboration. The organization brings communities together to work on shared challenges and strengthen the connections between them.

Working across Mi’kma’ki and with offices in Digby, Cape Breton and Dartmouth, Inspiring Communities centres members of equity-deserving groups who have traditionally been underrepresented in social innovation: African Nova Scotian communities, Indigenous people, racialized newcomers, neurodivergent people and people of differing abilities, and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities.

For example, Inspiring Communities has been supporting African Nova Scotians and racialized newcomers to collaborate and create the African Nova Scotian North End Halifax Community Land Trust. The Trust acquires land in proximity to the historic location of Africville, a once-vibrant Black community that was forcibly displaced by the City of Halifax in the 1960s.

The goal of the Trust is to develop a mixed-income housing project for the community as a means of reconciliation for some of the historical injustices experienced by African Nova Scotians. Success of this endeavour hinged on the support and coordination provided by Inspiring Communities. Additionally, the organization’s investment in enhancing the leadership skills of a young African Nova Scotian team member played a crucial role in advancing the project.

Inspiring Communities operates under the belief that including diverse voices in decision-making improves outcomes for everyone.