We are guided by our Theory of Change which assumes that when the Connected Community Approach is adopted, we can expect to see:
- Mindsets shift towards collective, community-centred solutions
- Practices adopted to increase social infrastructure investments
- Power dynamics adjusted towards more equitable decision making processes
- Policies and resource flows focused on creative and effective community-centred solutions
Our Team
We work in emergence and are driven by purpose. Led by our core staff team, Catalysts’ Circle works with an extensive network of partners and collaborators, forming teams on a project-by-project basis.
Executive Director
Sherry Lin
Sherry believes that art, culture and creativity are the tools to catalyze change, growth and transformation. She engages people in conversations about various issues using creativity and design as communication vehicles. Working with organizations to develop internal and external strategies,
Sherry focuses on collaborating with various stakeholders, from the board of directors to city officials
to youth and community members. Sherry’s expertise includes community engagement, public engagement with creativity and design, , infrastructure design, corporate governance and financial management.
STRATEGY Director
Anne Gloger
Anne Gloger has spent her career delving deeply into the whys and hows of effective community development and engagement. She believes that it is intentional, meaningful and authentic investment in communities, relationships and equitable processes that will create the kinds of transformational change that our world so desperately needs.
Anne supports a wide variety of change catalysts from communities, organizations, institutions and governments to design and implement strategies that truly centre communities. She does this by leveraging more than 3 decades of work with and in communities, and especially from her roles as founding Director at the East Scarborough Storefront and Centre for Connected Communities.
Our Vision
To create connected communities for an equitable and healthy society.
Our Mission
Making transformative change in communities possible.
Guiding Principles
We approach our work by:
- Grounding everything in relationships
- Putting people and process before product
- Starting with why, then invest in how and the what will emerge
We believe that:
- Meaningful equity-based impact requires explicit commitments to anti-racist principles and actions
- People and communities are agents of their own change
- Context matters
- Issues plaguing society can only be addressed through being in right relations with people, cultures and the land
- Everyone deserves autonomy, dignity and self-determination