By Shorefast Institute
“Shorefast Founder and CEO Zita Cobb often describes Canada as a collection of 5,000 distinct places. Greater Victoria sits in an interesting position within that picture. It is one of the country’s 30 or so larger metropolitan regions, home to 13 municipalities, nine First Nations communities, and many rural areas. It is a region of many scales at once.
This layered geography is precisely what makes Greater Victoria, South Vancouver Island a critical partner in the work of the Shorefast Institute. If place-based economic development can work across a region this varied, it can work anywhere. Geography is the starting point; collaboration is the piece that holds the work together.
Two organizations in the Greater Victoria region are leading the way to coordinate effectively across sectors, demonstrating what is possible when we work across all three pillars of society (markets, governments, and communities): South Island Prosperity Partnership (SIPP), a non-profit, public-private partnership of municipal governments, First Nations, post-secondaries, major employers, nonprofits and industry associations working as an economic alliance; and the Victoria Foundation, a charitable organization working in British Columbia and across Canada, bringing donors, charities, First Nations and other groups together to generate ideas and fund solutions to complex challenges.”
