Leveraging two world-class Canadian models as examples: 1) the South Island Prosperity Partnership (SIPP), the cross-sectoral economic development alliance in Greater Victoria, BC, and 2) United Way Greater Toronto’s Inclusive Local Economic Opportunity (ILEO) initiative, attendees will learn:

1. The difference between collaboration and collaborative governance: why informal coordination is rarely enough to activate a local economy at scale,
2. How to design governance architectures that align community, business, and government leaders around shared economic priorities,
3. Common pitfalls that derail collaborative efforts: power dynamics, control trade-offs, funding dependencies, and collaboration fatigue will impact local efforts, and
4. What it takes to sustain regional stewardship over time: building trust, momentum, and shared ownership across institutions and sectors.

Please join us on Thursday, April 30 at 2:30pm (NL) / 1:00pm (ET) / 10:00am (PT) as SIPP’s Dallas Gislason and United Way Greater Toronto’s Tasleem Thawar engage in a conversation titled From Silos to Systems: Activating Local Economies through Structured Collaboration to focus on the “why”, “how” and lessons learned around building collaborative structures in places.