Creative Institute for Toronto's Young (CITY) Leaders

The Organizational Capacity Building Unit (OCB) at United Way Toronto supports community-based agencies to enhance their leadership, governance, human resource and evaluation systems so that they can help people in their communities more effectively. The support is provided through a combination of training, on-site consulting, leadership development, coaching and mentoring, and organizational effectiveness grants. Another important focus of OCB is to help build the capacity of residents engaged in neighbourhood and community development in Toronto’s priority neighbourhoods.

With fifth-round YCF funding, OCB is piloting the Creative Institute for Toronto’s Young (CITY) Leaders, a creative multi-stakeholder certificate leadership initiative that will further enhance youth leadership through innovative approaches to training, online forums, mentoring and action learning. YCF and OCB have worked together on the content and development of the institute that will provide key leadership education for young community leaders working in the social services sector as well as in Toronto’s priority neighbourhoods. The institute has already accepted its first group of 26 participants. Integral to CITY Leaders is the Learning Partners Consortium (LPC), which is a multi-stakeholder group of partners consisting of various educational institutions, foundations, youth-led organizations and social enterprises interested in the vibrancy of Toronto’s youth sector.