The Centre for Connected Communities (C3) was born out of the pioneering work of the East Scarborough Storefront.  Since 2001, The Storefront has been developing and adapting a new approach to community, the Connected Community Approach.

The Storefront example demonstrates how the Connected Community Approach holds the potential to strengthen the capacity and resiliency of one inner suburban community to find local solutions to complex issues, to innovate, celebrate and thrive.

In 2016 C3 was created specifically to support the ever-increasing requests for The Storefront to provide learning opportunities to other communities and to implement the Connected Community Approach beyond the borders of East Scarborough.

Today, while The Storefront goes ever deeper to create resiliency and capacity in East Scarborough, C3 is going broadly to help every community become a connected community.

The Centre for Connected Communities helps people, organizations and institutions to unlock the potential of their own connected communities.

To do this C3 works on projects and offers workshops, courses and coaching that:

Connect people to ideas, tools, resources and each other

Facilitate understanding across sectors and

Celebrate and elevate community building as some of the most important work in our society

…in order that communities everywhere can:

  • Improve the ability of people to create “by the community for the community” solutions to complex social issues
  • Increase local resiliency so that communities can respond proactively and collectively to the challenges they may face
  • Increase the capacity of local people to play meaningful roles in unlocking the potential of their own communities
  • Increase opportunities for community builders to have an impact on the systems, policies and planning decisions that affect them
  • Increase the visibility and the perceived value of community building as critical to our cities, regions and country.

The Centre for Connected Communities and the East Scarborough Storefront are projects on Tides Canada’s Shared Platform.  Tides Canada holds legal and fiduciary accountability for C3’s work.

To learn about about The East Scarborough Storefront
To discover publications aboutEast Scarborough Storefront