Monday July 6, 2020 ~ GREATER VICTORIA
by Mary Brooke, editor ~ West Shore Voice News
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, a local organization called Leadership Victoria is interested in how their network of leaders has been navigating the ever-changing leadership climate.
The group has created a survey toward addressing their stated goal to “evaluate local leadership amongst the pandemic and assess the needs and risks that are present for Victoria’s community-serving organizations”.
This promotion of a leadership-services organization comes at a time when the federal government was about to hand over a $900 million contract to one organization (called ‘We’) which is directly affiliated with the prime minister’s wife and mother, a move which seems to have generated pushback from the plethora of leadership organizations across the country. The contract with We was cancelled within days of the uproar, with Diversity, Inclusion and Youth Minister Bardish Chagger saying on July 3 that the government would end its partnership with the charity.
The We program would have offered honorariums of up to $5,000 to youth volunteers, which was criticized for being pay at levels below minimum wage. However, the idea was to volunteer, not to employ. Canada Summer Jobs handles the standard employment arm of student summer hiring.
Connecting emerging leaders in the Greater Victoria area:
Through the survey, Leadership Victoria hopes to connect with a diverse and representative sample of Greater Victoria’s non-profits, registered charities, and community-serving organizations. Their program requires a fee for participation.
The survey interface is not anonymous, but requests name, organization, contact information and details about financial resources and interaction with the 13 municipalities of the Greater Victoria region.
The survey is intended to generate leadership-training possibilities for local leaders. “We will be sharing the results of this survey with our network,” says Cara Baudin, a representative for the Leadership Victoria organization.
Survey link:
Survey link, courtesy of West Shore Voice News: https://www.leadershipvictoria.ca/resilient-leadership-survey
The survey introduction says this: “Due to the impact of COVID-19, many local organizations are hurting. Some have closed permanently while many others are facing terribly difficult decisions. The increased vulnerability of small businesses, organizations, and not-for profits who service the community has prompted the creation of this survey.”
About Leadership Victoria:
Leadership Victoria says that since its inception it has graduated over 370 participants who have completed 73 community action projects, saying this has left a tangible legacy in the community. They operate with volunteer board members, coaches, mentors, facilitators, and program partners whose aim is to put their collective skills and expertise to work in developing Victoria’s emerging generation of leaders.
They offer a six-month leadership learning experience to “emerging leaders” that runs from October to March. The fee is $3,900 to participate in customized content through live workshops and online classrooms, with open public events “so participants can deepen their connections to the leaders of Greater Victoria”.
