"Shorefast asks a powerful question: 'How can we create an economy in service of place?' They explore how community economies are organized, their shared challenges, and the collective strategies to overcome barriers and unlock opportunities. It reminds us of the importance of nurturing a sense of place—something we risk losing if we don't actively cultivate it."
What Happens When Economic Stewards Gather in Place ?
The very first Fogo Session was held in early November, designed as a four-day working session that brought together representatives from the Institute’s inaugural community cohort. This cohort represents the first members of “Shorenet”, a “network of networks” connecting places committed to stewarding the local economies that serve their communities.
Fogo Session participants came from eight communities big and small across Canada: South Vancouver Island, BC; Battle River, AB; Scarborough, ON; Newmarket, ON; Prince Edward County, ON; Upper Fundy Coast & Foothills, NB; Gros Morne, NL; and Fogo Island.
The Shorenet cohort gathered included municipal leaders, nonprofit directors, tourism officials, and entrepreneurs. This group had been meeting virtually since summer of 2025. At the in-person Fogo Session the group moved from theoretical online discussions into interactive workshops, presentations, and experiential, place-based learning.
A Core Challenge: Coordination Between The “Three Pillars"
"Real stewardship is recognizing that our roles and responsibilities within a community are ever evolving. To truly meet the needs of our communities—we must persuade markets, governments, and communities alike to place 'place' at the centre of every decision. Recruiting everyone into this mindset is how we accelerate meaningful change."
Shared Challenges Across Communities
Despite geographic and demographic differences, participants identified common struggles present in all represented communities. These included:
- Persistent silos that make it difficult to build strategic partnerships across community organizations, government entities, and private sector actors;
- The affordability crisis that undermines social mobility and the labour force needed to sustain placed-based businesses;
- Accessing appropriate financial capital needed for place-based investment and development
- Recruiting economic actors to center place in their thinking, with better coordination between ground-up and top-down strategies when devising and implementing economic development policies and practices;
- Working within the realities of local places, eg. honouring the history of communities while charting future paths and investment readiness.
- The gathering coincided with the release of the Federal Budget. There wasn’t sufficient time to delve into the details of the Budget but at first blush the $51B Build Communities Strong Fund stood out as something that needed to be mapped to on-the-ground initiatives. Clearly the group sees communities of place as nation building assets.
The Fogo Session discussions revealed how interconnected many of these challenges are: housing affordability affects labour availability, which constrains business growth, which limits community capacity to attract investment. Places with growing visitor economies, for example, are particularly attuned to this challenge.
From Theory to Practice, and Practice to Theory
During online convenings preceding the Fogo Session and in-person on Fogo Island, participants shared unsolved challenges alongside successes to date with “community spotlight” presentations. A few examples include:
Newmarket, Ontario spoke of their impressive efforts to balance cultural development with commercial viability. They presented their Main Street revitalization project and shared forthcoming plans for blending heritage preservation with art and economic development.
Scarborough, Ontario showed how an innovative development partnership in their community is modeling how creative ownership structures can activate local economic activity and prioritize local employment.
From Victoria, BC, we heard from two community-focused organizations that are prioritizing blended finance strategies that bridge philanthropy and traditional finance.
Prince Edward County, ON, Gros Morne, NL, and Upper Fundy Coast and Foothills, NB are focused on sustainable, community-conscious tourism. Both places have prioritized the development of dedicated organizations and collaborative structures to responsibly manage tourism in their areas.
From Battle River, AB, our participants spoke with great pride about the shifts and tensions facing the prairies at this moment in Canada’s history.
In addition to hearing from the visiting communities, participants learned through immersion on Fogo Island. Mealtimes offered the opportunity to delve into the Island’s foodways, and daily afternoon outings allowed for further exploration of culture, landscape, and economy.
Visiting Shorefast’s community businesses, the cohort saw first-hand how place-based assets have become economic engines. Excursions to the Punt Premises and local craft studios showcased the singular history and traditions of Newfoundland & Labrador, underscoring the importance of the inshore fishing culture that scaffolds Shorefast’s approach.
Indeed, the importance of the past, present, and future of the Island’s fishery was continuously highlighted by the Shorefast team; after all, the charity’s community businesses and initiatives are intended to complement the Island’s co-operatively owned fishery.
Experiencing ideas in practice and hearing about the work being done by other places inspires practitioners to apply learnings to their own contexts. The team at Shorefast often invoke what is known as “Ostrom’s Law,” based on the work of Nobel-prize winning economist Elinor Ostrom: “That which is possible in practice is possible in theory.”
"This work resonated deeply with me from day one. It brought home for me the Nobel prize-winning truth: what is possible in practice is possible in theory. The principles shaping Shorefast's community economic development model reflect what I've seen on the ground, blending local place-centred values with real-world impact."
Making More Things Possible in More Places: Five Potential Strategies
Discussions throughout the Fogo Session explored the realities of Canada’s current policy and business environment, potential paths toward greater alignment between ground-up initiatives, and the need for economic narratives and actions that include place-based communities in our economic planning.
Inspired by these conversations and Canada’s recent federal budget, participants brainstormed potential avenues that would support place-based economies nationwide:
- Improving regional transportation as a foundational element of place-based economic develoopment
- Access to community-level data to allow placed-based planning and economic stewardship;
- Strengthening local procurement through tools like Shorefast’s Economic Nutrition Certification Mark;
- Enabling investment capital to flow into place-based communities. This work is being led by Shorefast’s Capital Solutions Working Group (CSWG).
- Incentivizing place-based entrepreneurship via accessibility to investment capital, mentorship, and policies that reward businesses rooted in, supported by and accountable to local communities.
“My biggest takeaway is that the tangible and sustainable progress begins when the Market, Government, and Community pillars meet each other with curiosity instead of competition—not asking ‘What’s in it for us?’ but seeing what becomes possible when we work in balance.”
What's Next? Building a Country: A Community of Communities
Armed with further strategies to become more effective economic innovators and stewards, communities departed the Fogo Session eager to put what they had learned into practice. . The first Shorenet cohort expressed a commitment to a “community of communities” approach to Canadian economic development and to a shared belief that geography is immutable and our communities of place are unrecognized nation building assets. Top-down investment coupled with ground up development is a winning formula.
The inaugural Fogo Session also shaped the Shorefast Institute’s roadmap in concrete ways. In a group design session, participants identified critical gaps in Canada’s economic development policy ecosystem, and were able to “vote” for knowledge areas where they most wanted to see resources developed.
Significantly, participants emphasized the need for both digital learning platform and face-to-face convenings. They requested peer-to-peer matching between communities, accessible skills databases, shared project visibility, and small-group sessions with clear agendas and concrete outcomes. These insights are directly informing how the Institute will structure Shorenet’s learning platform and future Fogo Sessions.