Collaboration is the only way forward, right? I mentioned earlier, if we could do this in one silo, it would have been done by now. And so that means we have to work together if we actually want to accomplish our goals.
You're listening to Let's Imagine, an Imagine Canada podcast for everyone interested in social issues and the nonprofit sector. I'm your host, Bruce MacDonald, at Imagine Canada. We believe that by leveraging our national vantage point, building cross sector relationships, and sharing and developing our knowledge base, we can advance social, economic, and environmental justice through our collective action.
Join us as we dive deep into conversations that have big implications for the non profit and charitable sector here in Canada. A special thank you to our knowledge partner, Carter's Professional Corporation, and our supporting partner. Blackbaud Together, let's imagine a stronger future. Welcome to the latest edition of Let's Imagine. Today, we're going to explore one organization's experience in addressing complex social issues. In this case, poverty.
We're delighted to have as our guest, Angie Peters, President and CEO of the Yonge Street Mission based in Toronto. After 16 years as a senior executive in telecommunications, Angie moved into the social profit sector to support initiatives investing in people and working towards the end of poverty.
Prior to joining the Yonge Street Mission, Angie founded and led Zoe Alliance Incorporated, a for profit social enterprise that equipped and empowered village based businesses in developing nations for sustainable growth. Angie's also recently released her first book, Just Act. We are the solution to poverty.
In this episode, we're going to talk about her insights and learnings from working in the poverty reduction space and frame these observations in a way that can apply across missions and causes. Angie, thanks so much for being a guest on Let's Imagine. It's great to be here. Thanks, Bruce. So before digging into some of the insights that you share in your book, please tell us a bit about the Yonge Street Mission, its work, communities it serves, and the difference it's making.
Yeah, for sure. So Yonge Street Mission is a 128 year old inner city mission. 1896 and has been doing great work over all of that period of time. And think about it, it's served through a couple of pandemics and some world wars and depressions and all sorts of things. So, um, it's been around the block. And so what do we do? We serve, today we have six locations in the downtown east. We focus on three populations, in particular, uh, vulnerable youth.
Families in crisis and people whose lives come from generational poverty. And so we don't try to serve every population because we're not good at every population. Those are the three populations we're good at. So that's what we do. And we're, we're a community organization. So we are a bit of an anomaly in the sector. We're mainly privately funded with a small portion of our funding coming from government. For about a 17 million sharp and we make a hay wish volunteers.
So we've got a 12 volunteer to one staff ratio.
That's amazing. You know, an organization has been around for a while serving its community. When it refers to been around through a couple of pandemics, because that speaks to history. So in our conversation to prepare for the podcast, I was really intrigued by the approach you and your team have taken at the Yonge Street Mission. It's truly systems change work. At a high level, you had mentioned three key insights you'd noted. as being integral to this work.
Can you please tell us about these particular observations? And then we will go deep on each one.
Yeah, surely. So when it comes to our systems change work, we obviously have the day to day work and all of that. That's really important. But when it comes to systems change, you know, what we've realized is that I'm going to state the obvious, Bruce. You ready? We can't do this by ourselves. Right? And our sector can't do it by ourselves. And nor can any other sector. Government can't do it by themselves. Housing developers can't do it by themselves.
Jeremy, like the only way we are going to have success is if we start to work together rather than at cross purposes. And in addition to that, Poverty's changed dramatically, like there has been some significant structural changes in our society, you know, from when our social system was created back in like the 1940s. It's not the same. And you know, the assumptions it was predicated upon, like things like a job is a ticket out of poverty, is no longer true.
And so we really have to have a different approach. And so in collaboration, in systems change work, we see the need for lived experience leadership or the voice of lived experience to make sure we understand what poverty looks like today. And what we really helped collaboration across sectors. So we bring the tools of everybody to the table and really work together towards solutions together in a same direction, which speaks to shared goals.
So rather than working at cross purposes, figuring out what we can each contribute to share goals is really critical.
Yeah, I was really struck when you had talked about this idea that in a sense, the underpinning of policy and action related to poverty, Even today, it might be rooted in something from the 1940s around this idea that if you have a full time job, that's in a sense your ticket out of poverty. And as we know, that's not the case today. We have many people who are employed with full time jobs that are still living in poverty.
Yeah, and even worse, just to jump in for a second there. If they're on social income, we tend to think, oh, well, we give people too much. Some people think we give people too much social income and it disincentives them from working.
Well, let's It's just not true because if you look at the numbers today, at least in Ontario, I can't speak for the rest of the province or the country, I should say, if you're on social assistance, you're receiving anywhere between 20 and 60 percent below the poverty line as your benefits. So our system, even our social income supports, you know, traps people in sort of a survivalist kind of cycle.
Yeah, absolutely. So we're going to maybe go a little bit deeper on each of these three areas because I think there's really some transferable ideas to other communities and other missions and causes. And we're going to start with lived experience leadership. I mean, to some, it may seem like a basic principle or tenet of working in this space. And to others, it may seem like a complex way of working.
Can you tell us about how the centering of people with lived experience contributed to the success of this work? In addition, what were the challenges it posed? And finally, what perceptions or hurdles did you have to overcome to ensure that people with lived experience were integral to this work?
Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, the first thing that, you know, that the benefit of lived experience leadership, not just involvement, leadership at the table is critical because it keeps us focused, right? Not only does it help us understand what poverty looks like really today and what are the barriers that are truly getting in their way, and more importantly, what we could do that would really be helpful. to help them realize their goals and move out of poverty.
In addition to all of those things, it keeps us focused. Because when you bring a bunch of different sector people to the table, we all come with our own narratives. And in this space, it's quite emotional. It can be very emotional, in fact, right? So you can, you know, one group may really despise another group and have opinions about another group. And so you could get a lot of like, Finger pointing.
And um, you know, we've even had a situation where the, one of the groups almost blew up at the beginning of the first year of getting into it, their work because of a dispute or this, you know, very emotional dialogue around one subject where social sector people felt a certain way, developer, people, developers felt another way. And it was, I was thinking, uh oh, here comes. Right. It's about to blow up on me, but we got through it. And I think that's important too.
That is also important that we can get through these differences. And this is how we actually build an understanding, a better understanding of each other's realities and constraints. But then also what we can all bring to the table. So it's an, it's a, it's an essential part of actually moving forward together.
Yeah, that's amazing. And it's interesting how you highlight it, not just participation, but leadership and how critical that is. The next insight was related to the critical importance of cross sector collaboration. Now I was surprised to hear in our prep conversation that you had employed a hackathon, a tool often associated with the digital world as a way to surface new ideas.
So can you tell us about your thoughts on the essential nature of collaboration, how it can address the tension between good intentions and the limitations of silos? And lastly, what were the key ideas that came from the hackathon?
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I think that collaboration is the only way forward, right? I mentioned earlier if we could do this in one silo, it would have been done by now. And so that means we have to work together if we actually want to accomplish our goals. Like we don't really have an option. This is the only way forward. And so it's essential. And yeah, it's a little more work. Uh, in fact, it's a lot more work, uh, especially at the front end.
But if we can get people who care about the same thing. We really care about poverty reduction, and we bring their leadership to the table from all the different sectors. And if we can get individuals who will let go of their own narratives, let come to the table with curiosity and creativity and commitment, and who will see the people's lived experience as the experts in them, right, then you can set a recipe for success there that is very, very powerful.
And we've seen that play out in that, in the hackathon, because when I did the hackathon, the event, what I saw was that. People came and they were really interested in learning from each other and really trying to roll up their sleeves and figure what they could do that would really help make the lives better of the lived experience leaders in the room. Because they were there, they were in the room.
And when you, when you make that a reality and not a concept, and when it's present, then it's more urgent, then we have a tendency to just line up and try to figure something out. It's very powerful. And the goals that they came up with. Initially, they came up with five goals. I won't go through all five of them because we took those goals to the lived experience leaders offside. And so what are the priorities? And they narrowed them down to three priorities.
The first is deeply affordable housing. The second is a real pathway to income, meaningful income and benefits for individuals. And then the third was a means of accessing existing community sports, which are actually terribly hard to access for individuals for their immediate needs.
So we're actually going to pick up a little bit more on this because you just touched on this idea of of the shared goals and that was the third key insight that you had, you know, and thinking about working in complex adaptive systems, finding ways to narrow the interests of a multitude of groups and individuals can really be challenging groups often need to make tough choices because they can't do everything.
So maybe you could tell us a little bit about more about your approaches to creating shared goals in such a complicated environment.
Yeah. So I think again, the big initiative or the big, um, way that we do that is having lived experience leadership in the room because their voice matters and it influences what we choose to do. And it helps us get outside of our own lanes and come into a single lane together. Their lane. We're coming into their lane. And, uh, I'm figuring out what we can do to contribute to that link. That is really the biggest thing.
And I think the only other thing I would say is, being really clear for everybody who's participating, that this is a non partisan activity, right? It's not about big government versus small government, large taxes versus low taxes, or anything else that might be a polarizing element in the conversation. It's very much about the people in the room that we're trying to help.
Angie, how hard was that for people who might've entered those spaces thinking they were coming as leaders because of title, organizational representation, almost sort of the work that they do, and then be placed in a situation where those with lived experience, that's, that's where you were looking to those individuals for that kind of leadership. How was that experience for those who might've assumed walking in that they were the leaders?
Well, in many ways, everybody in the room is a leader within their sphere. The nuances that in terms of direction, the lived experience leaders have say, right, in terms of what's going to be most helpful, but all three of the working groups are co chaired by a person of lived experience and a sector leader. So there's always some working together. And setting the agenda together and bringing that to the whole group.
And then everybody else is contributing out of their sphere of leadership towards what everybody's decided to do.
That's great. It's, it's, and it's so interesting to see how this model could be replicated in other areas and of course, adapted for their own unique communities. But I think there's some real learnings here. One of the other things that we talked about in preparing for the podcast was this issue of time, because.
The work that you're doing in the processes that you're going through, it's kind of hard and it's messy work and for it to be successful, you know, time pressures need to be handled in a variety of ways because you've got sometimes expectations on timelines and urgency from partner organizations. There might be desires from funders, you know, and sometimes if you're working with government, even election cycles can be. forms of time pressure.
So can you speak to how you managed and navigated different expectations related to time? And was there a critical instance where the issue of time could have derailed or affected the overall work?
It's a good question, the issue of time. And I think actually that the interestingly, the biggest way that time is a factor for us is because everybody in the room is typing and we're like, okay, let's fix this thing now. Let's go. And a year should be done. Right? And of course, that's preposterous and we all, on a real level, know that. Right? We're dealing with something that is going to take years to do, but we have to start with a different approach.
And so a big part of it is really keeping everybody's energy engaged and keeping them coming back, even though it is, like, the first year was messy. It was a whole lot of conversation that had, had to be allowed to go in different directions so that everybody's voice is entered into the room. And then we had to give time to explore that. And then we had to figure out how we were going to hone it down and decide.
And so it took a whole year to get to a position of, okay, right, this is what we're going to do. This is our goal and this is our game plan. And so in year two, we're getting to the goals and the game plans and starting to move forward. That's when you think about the people who are in the room and how busy they are, that's excruciatingly painful.
And yet, because of this high commitment, we, we stayed there, and I think an important thing to do at the beginning of something like this is just to state, this is messy, this is going to be longer, uh, than you want it to be, at times, conversations are going to be circular and frustrating, but we will get there, and when we get there, it's going to be solid, and it's sort of like that saying, you know, if you want to go, go alone, fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go with friends.
It's such a powerful reminder that when our folks in our sector are doing this kind of work, that even this idea of taking a year before really moving into concrete action, to your point, it may feel like agonizingly slow for many folks who are used to moving into these spaces, setting agendas, creating action items, project plans, and away we go, but the act of listening and engaging to be able to ensure that whatever action plan was going to be taken, was rooted
in the experience of those who were, in a sense, unfortunately, the experts. It was so powerful, and I think that reminder of that time is, is critically important. So you've been doing this work for a while, really an extended period of time. From, from your perspective, what are the signs of progress that you're seeing that you believe can be attributed to this particular way of working?
I think the biggest one is that everybody's still there and more, more are joining. In the work, right? Because that that speaks volumes and there's increased enthusiasm from the city and and others with different spheres of influence join joining the work and there's a lot of people are interested in. Sort of being involved in a second tier level.
So as we do things, we want to take it and test it off the different groups to say, this is what we think with this real, you know, developers go to developers with this really works for you guys. We think it'd work for us, you know, and just sort of have groups that we can have this reference groups to test this with and build engagement so that when we do get to a position where we're like, okay, ready, this is what we want to do. This is a change we're seeking.
Then, then, you know, just imagine this Bruce. It's not just. little old YSM trotting up to the government and saying, Hey, I think that you should do this, which is going to go, you know, nowhere. Just imagine if it was YSM plus, you know, five other big agencies, number of significant employers, funders, developers, and a large lived experience group coming and saying to the Ontario government, we think you need to do this.
And by the way, Developers are going to do this, and employers are going to do this, and agencies are going to do this, and everybody's got their part, even people with lived experience, they're going to do this. And if we all do this, it'll actually work. That's, I think, what, you know, is the dream scenario for our government, right?
Rather than listening to a bunch of disparate voices and trying to decide who's right and what's the right thing to do, us coming together and bringing a baked solution, that's the dream.
Well, and it's so powerful. And you know, you think about work that organizations do, or even theory around government relations and public policy work. Yes, surfacing problems is an important part of that. But to be partners with government coming with solutions and inviting their participation to be partners in those solution makes it even that much more powerful, especially when the coalition is as broad as the one that you referenced. Yeah. And it's fun. Absolutely.
So this is, as we head into our last question, you know, your role with Youngstreet Mission and now as an author and speaker provides you with a unique vantage point. This idea of talking with other sector leaders, government officials, academics, media, corporate leaders. And as we look ahead to the future, what gives you hope?
Well, to that, I'm going to go to my book for a second and read a quote, and because it is my source of hope. At the beginning of chapter two, there's a quote from Henri Poincaré. It says, To doubt everything and to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions, both dispensed with the necessity of reflection. And he goes on to define skepticism, cynicism, and apathy. And a skeptic is someone who is a seeker after truth. An inquirer who has not yet arrived at definite convictions.
And so I believe in healthy skeptics. Cynicism is where our society seems to live these days. It's a disposition to disbelieve everything. Anapathy is having given up. But we don't want just idealists. What gives me hope is that this group is not a group of idealists. These groups are groups of healthy skeptics who know, who've been there, who've got the war wounds and are in the arena anyway. And so I think we're going to get there.
Well, here's to creating networks of healthy skeptics across the country to dig into the most pressing issues facing Their own communities. Angie, thank you. I know you're a very busy person and really appreciate you taking the time to be with us on Let's Imagine today.
Oh, it's a pleasure. Thanks so much, Bruce.
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