Maytree DiverseCity Leadership Project
DiverseCity - The Greater Toronto Leadership Project includes seminars, networking, communications and leadership development for culturally diverse professionals to foster a more diverse leadership required to create a stronger and more prosperous city region.
DiverseCity – The Greater Toronto Leadership Project launched in 2008 to change the face of leadership in the Greater Toronto Region. Maytree and the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance knew that a more diverse leadership was required to create a stronger and more prosperous city region.
Together, we initiated an annual research report to map and track the levels of diversity in leadership. The first annual report established the benchmark for our city. In 2009, only 13% of the city region’s leadership were visible minorities vs. 49.5% of the population studied. To address this gap, we created a series of action-oriented leadership development initiatives enabling hundreds of new leaders to emerge across the public, corporate and nonprofit sectors.
The initiative are designed to address three primary goals:
Goal #1: Strengthen our institutions
DiverseCity onBoard connects highly qualified candidates from visible minority and under-represented immigrant communities with governance positions in agencies, boards, commissions and nonprofit organizations across the GTA.
DiverseCity School4Civics and DiverseCity Building Blocks offer training and mentoring programs that offer a civic literacy primer, equip leaders to run for elected office, or manage campaigns.
DiverseCity Voices is an online database of diverse voices connecting qualified speakers and the media in an effort to enrich the content of our national media, including newspapers, magazines, radio and television.
Goal #2: Expand our networks
DiverseCity Fellows readies the next generation of city builders through seminars, networking and action-based projects.
DiverseCity Nexus is a salon-style speaker series designed to bridge leadership connections between established and rising corporate leaders (now closed).
Goal #3: Advance our knowledge and track our progress
DiverseCity Advantage builds the body of knowledge on the economic and social benefits of diversity in leadership.
DiverseCity Perspectives delivers facilitated dialogues exploring what diversity means to us and how we can take full advantage of everything it has to offer.
DiverseCity Counts is a research project that studies the levels and impact of diversity in leadership. In its first three years, DiverseCity engaged Ryerson University’s Diversity Institute to measure the numbers of visible minorities in leadership positions in the GTA.
Since project launch, a new initiative has been added to the lineup:
DiverseCity Speakers is an online searchable database for event organizers looking for diverse spokespeople and presenters.
- See more at: http://maytree.com/integration/diversecity-leadership-project#sthash.xxG...
Image and Resources courtesy of Maytree Foundation