The TNN Steering Committee, representing 19 diverse nonprofit organizations, identified community space as a foundational issue for the Network. Space—access to it, and its affordability, development, maintenance and retention—is an area that affects nonprofits across multiple sectors in the city.

TNN's Priorities Survey (February to April 2020) explored whether nonprofit organizations were interested in engaging in the priorities identified by the TNN Steering Committee, and if so, how they would like to engage in this work. 

Although the survey was conducted before the pandemic, the issue of community space is even more relevant now:

• We will be living with this pandemic, and the need for physical distancing, for the foreseeable future.
• The pandemic (not to mention anti-Black racism) has highlighted the need for more equitable resource distribution and the need for culturally appropriate spaces.
• We can't lose momentum on the community space issues that existed before the pandemic, such as the loss of properties to the private sector.

The survey was also intended to determine what other areas of interest—beyond space—that Toronto’s nonprofit organizations are interested in working on. Find out which issues were identified as pressing in the graphic below.

The graphic summarizes the key findings of the survey. To read the full survey report, click here.

We will be following up with all organizations who expressed interest in joining the space-related working groups in the near future.

Thank you to all who gave input!