Community Knowledge Exchange (CKX) – Summit, November 19th to 21st

The Ontario Trillium Foundation and Community Foundations of Canada are working together to create the Community Knowledge Exchange – a new approach to building and sharing community knowledge.

But what exactly is community knowledge?

Community knowledge isn’t easy to define. In fact, that’s exactly the point.

Think of it this way: community knowledge includes information, facts and data that are (or could be!) available to be shared.

This could include things as basic as your city’s transit schedule, the demographic makeup of your neighbourhood, and the number and types of books that are checked out of the local library every year. Other examples could be outcome measures from an after-school program, a municipal database of trees on public property, or the results of a citizen-led neighbourhood revitalization project.

But community knowledge also includes ‘how’ and ‘know-how’ – the ability, capacity and understanding to turn that knowledge into action.

In other words, what you know is only half of it. It’s what you do with that knowledge that really matters.

And that’s the point of CKX.

We’re working together on CKX to learn and demonstrate how individuals, organizations and communities can use, create and share community knowledge to spark real social change.

Our approach is open and collaborative. We aspire to bring together partners from all sectors to join us and contribute to this community knowledge journey, leading to an inaugural CKX Summit to be held in Toronto, November 19-21.

The CKX journey and summit are focused on four core themes:

> Open Data: How can we turn existing data into knowledge that can drive change in our communities?

> Research: How can we use institutional and community-based research to make more informed decisions in our communities?

> Storytelling: How can we use stories to illustrate the positive impact of our work in our communities?

> Collective Impact: How do we know we’re making a difference in our communities?