Growing Futures Vital Signs© Report 2023
A new approach to bridging the funding gap through Vital Signs.
The report reveals the following focus areas as the most pressing needs facing our community. By addressing these focus areas, we can work towards equitable and sustainable support for the well-being of our community.
- Supporting Safe and Affordable Housing
- Increasing Food Security
- Improving Mental Health Services for Substance Use and Suicide Prevention
- Sustaining Community Infrastructure
- Community Funding Gaps
Choose a focus area to explore further and see how you can impact your community today.
Regina's Non-Profit Voices: Addressing Funding Gaps
The Community Foundation organized a conversation among non-profit representatives to address Regina’s pressing challenges identified in the ‘Growing Futures: Vital Signs Report 2023.’ Representatives from 25 non-profit organizations provided insights. Participants aimed to collaborate on innovative solutions to enhance their collective impact on community needs. The following challenges, recommendations, and collaborative opportunities are based on a summary of the findings from this conversation.
Click below to read the documents:
Vital Signs© is a community check-up that measures the region’s health and vitality, identifies significant trends, and provides in-depth, up-to-date information about the people in these communities and the environments in which they live, work, and go to school.
Local data gathered through the program is used to support evidence-based, locally-relevant solutions to improve the quality of life at the community level. Vital Signs aims to inspire civic engagement, to provide focus for public debate, and to help a range of actors take action and direct resources where they will have the greatest impact.
It is Canada’s most extensive community-driven data program, spearheaded by Community Foundations of Canada and led by community foundations in Canada and around the world. More than 65 community foundations in Canada and 41 around the world take part, producing Vital Signs reports, hosting “Vital conversations” and more.
Through COVID-19 and Beyond:
Charities at the Heart of Our Communities
Supporting timely needs of our communities is important to us as a community foundation. We know COVID-19 has had an impact on our communities and the organizations that serve them, and that we could play a role in reporting on those impacts and how the impacts affect community needs. March 12, 2021 marked the one-year anniversary of the pandemic in Saskatchewan. The anniversary provided the opportunity to reach out to our South Saskatchewan community by way of a short survey and ask organizations to reflect on the past year and share how COVID-19 has affected their ability to support their communities. This report, Through COVID-19 and Beyond: Charities at the Heart of Our Communities, is what we learned from that collective input.
50 Vital Community Conversations
Founded in 1969, SSCF is a long-term endowment fund for our community that pools together many visionary philanthropists’ funds to invest them together for a higher return. As we celebrate our golden anniversary, we remain inspired every day by dedicated individuals – past and present – who have made a difference.
As part of our 50th anniversary year celebrations, we launched a program – 50 Vital Community Conversations – to get to the heart and listen to what matters in your community and how we can help to make a difference.
Vital Signs Conversations & Reports
Read all of our Vital Signs Conversations & Reports documents below.
South Saskatchewan Vital Community Fund
(Formerly known as the Smart & Caring Fund) This community research helps guide SSCF priorities, including the focus of its South Saskatchewan Vital Community Fund (SSVCF) granting program and other community support opportunities.
SSCF grants to charitable activities that promote and enhance vibrant, healthy and caring communities in south Saskatchewan. The purpose of the SSVCF is to allow the SSCF to respond to areas of focus identified in its current Vital Signs Report.
The Vital Signs research identifies Belonging as the top community indicator, and five emerging issues:
- Sustaining rural communities;
- Drug abuse and addiction;
- Safety in communities;
- Racism towards new immigrants and Indigenous peoples;
- Homelessness and affordable housing; and
- Mental health.
