Counting down to ABLE 2015 - November 2-3

The ABLE 2015 Financial Empowerment Conference is almost here and excitement is building as we finalize details and gear up for what promises to be an informative and highly engaging conference. National leaders and more than 300 stakeholders from almost every province in Canada will be joining us to help kick off Financial Literacy Month (#FLM2015) and participate in a range of sessions designed to move the financial empowerment field forward. 

Since our last newsletter, our roster of presenters and panellists has grown to include: Dr. Gary Bloch, family physician with St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto and Co-Chair of the Ontario College of Family Physicians’ Committee on Poverty and Health; Jennifer Robson, Assistant Professor at Kroeger College, Carleton University; Louise Simbandumwe, Director of Asset Building Programs, SEED Winnipeg; and Brenton Peck, Manager at the U.S. Center for Financial Services Innovation; to name just a few. We’re also delighted to have Toronto Star columnist and consumer rights advocate Ellen Roseman, Community Foundations of Canada President and Chief Executive Officer Ian Bird, and CTV journalist Pat Foran joining us as moderators. View the current agenda to learn more about conference sessions and presenters.

The conference is almost sold out so interested stakeholders should register soon to avoid disappointment!

 

Aligning for Impact – coordinating and collaborating to achieve better outcomes faster
 

The strategic objective of this year’s conference is Aligning for Impact. In addition to providing conference participants with inspiring keynotes, learning opportunities, and working sessions, we want to encourage and help participants from all sectors to align their efforts locally and nationally in support of key financial empowerment goals, so that we can accelerate progress and grow our impact.

All sectors have a role to play in helping to build a vibrant financial empowerment field and a supportive policy, regulatory and funding environment that fosters real financial inclusion and wellbeing for Canadians with low incomes and greater sustainability for community financial empowerment efforts. 

To this end, we’re encouraging all stakeholders to identify shared priorities they can align on with others (locally, regionally or nationally) and to consider what goals and targets we should be setting as a field for the year ahead with respect to:
 

Many of you are already doing important work in these areas. The question is -- can we increase our collective impact by setting some shared goals and working more effectively together to achieve them?

 

To illustrate, we asked the Peel Children and Youth Initiative and the Calgary Financial Futures Collaborative to share their stories demonstrating the power of collective impact approaches. Read, Enrol by Six & the Canada Learning Bond and Financial Empowerment in Calgary, to learn how they tackled the task of forging a common agenda and plan and how this approach is transforming the lives of vulnerable people in their communities.