Creating, supporting and managing collective impact initiatives requires a separate organization/entity with staff and a specific set of skills to serve as the “backbone” for the entire initiative and to coordinate partner organizations and agencies.
In keeping with a collective impact framework, a backbone staff team of three was recruited in 2015 to support the collective impact work of WPRC.
Jill’s work focuses on bringing people from different backgrounds and sectors together around complex social challenges to create meaningful change. She has worked with diverse groups across the country on issues ranging from urban homelessness to rural resiliency, has designed and taught post-secondary courses on social innovation and systems change, and has presented on these topics internationally.
She is committed to working with people to co-create the change they imagine for themselves and their communities.
Jill holds an MBA from the University of Calgary and she is currently working towards a Doctor of Social Sciences at Royal Roads University exploring the complex, real-world challenges facing our communities and ways to address these through participatory processes.
Before coming to United Way Winnipeg, Erika spent 27 years working for the Provincial Government as a Community Development Worker. She was stationed in the West Central community of Winnipeg for the first 23 years, where she founded and facilitated networks, helped develop new programs, and led grassroots community efforts toward a safer, healthier community.
In 2011 she joined the department of Housing and Community Development in the Neighbourhoods Alive! (NA!) office, where she assisted neighbourhood renewal corporations and other community organizations supported by NA!. It was here that she first learned about and implemented principles of collective impact.
Over the years Erika has worked with a diverse and extensive range of community leaders and has gained valuable experience bringing people together to tackle complex problems.
