When I arrived back in Sydney from our journey to Calgary attending Tamarack’s Evaluating Collective Impact workshop, it took numerous conversations and quiet reflections to realise how much I have learned from diving into the Canadian context of community work. To use a phrase I picked up from Liz Weaver: I really needed some "soaking time".

On the surface things were very similar: Friendly people talking about community work, social change, governmental policies, funding bodies, program evaluation and workplace culture. Everything seemed so easily comparable. We have kangaroos and you have caribous. Our restrooms are your washrooms, to get a small flat white coffee one must order an eight ounce wet latte... (or when in doubt just go to Tim Hortons).

During the breaks and around the tables there were many opportunities to get to know each other. “G’day, I am Can and I work as a Senior Project Officer for the LCSA, the peak body for neighbourhood and community centres in NSW.” 

What followed was a real wake-up call: “What does LCSA stand for? What are neighbourhood centres and what do they do? What does peak body mean? What projects are you working on? Are you a funding body?”

Wow... Having left the protective shell of the NSW community has urged me to be precise, succinct and most importantly descriptive! Stepping outside has given me a clearer view on what's on the inside.

I realise now that comparing two similar yet such different work environments meant translating, or more precisely, interpreting concepts and contexts between two cultures. There are many differences and commonalities and there is a lot we can learn from each other.

One major difference is the funding regime we operate under. In Australia the community sector is largely relying on government funding and there is a direct relationship between funders, the government, and the funded services. Fundraising and philanthropic are secondary income sources particularly for locally managed not-for-profit organisations. 

I learnt with great curiousity that in Canada corporate sponsorship and philanthropic funding are a main source of income for the community sector; and that there is a direct relationship between the corporate and the community sectors. I also understand 'funding brokerage' organisations such as United Way act effectively as what we would refer to as a "funding body",  setting the funding criteria, administering tendering and evaluation  processes.

Respectively this creates very different dynamics within our funding environments, in our relationship to each other and our ability to influence social policy. But there is one major thing we all have in common: the challenge for community workers to measure outcomes of community work; demonstrating not only how much we are doing, and that we are doing it well, but most importantly that communities and community members are better off as a result of our work. We operate under the pressure to be accountable for each dollar we spend and that our services and activities provide 'value for money'.

We are facing the challenge to embrace data collection and evaluation as part of our day-to-day practices as community workers both in the Australian and the Canadian contexts. 

I feel privileged to have been part of a learning environment provided by Mark and Liz who lead us through the thicket of evaluation theories and practices which will help us to tackle these challenges.