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Vital Conversations

ABOUT VITAL CONVERSATIONS

Connecting Vital Conversations and community knowledge to philanthropy and grant making is what differentiates the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough from others.

Data and information about the City and County of Peterborough like Vital Signs® paints a picture of where we are as a community, but it’s up to us to figure out where we should go from there.

As we continue to build our understanding of Peterborough, we must engage in the more challenging – but exciting – task of deciding who we want to be, and what we need to do, together, to get there. This means Vital Conversations and dialogue that encourage listening, respect difference, build connections and seek out common ground.

Vital Conversations are sometimes more formal and structured, like those noted below. More often though, Vital Conversations happen informally every day at the Community Foundation – with donors, charities, professional financial advisors, community leaders and others – inspiring giving and granting to build a vital community, for everyone.

Vital Conversations Everyday

Vital Conversations are sometimes more formal and structured, like those noted below. More often though, Vital Conversations happen every day at the Community Foundation – informally with donors, charities, professional financial advisors, community leaders and others – inspiring giving and granting to build a vital community, for everyone.

Learn about Vital Conversations and action-oriented community knowledge from the perspective of:

Donors Foundation Fund Advisors Professional Financial Advisors Charities

Vital Conversations 2017

During the month of October 2017, more than 100 Vital Conversations brought friends and neighbours together in the Peterborough region to share a meal and a conversation about Greater Peterborough’s Vital Signs®. Everyday people stepped up as leaders to invite the guests, plan the meal and host the conversation using the Vital Conversations Card Game, a tool designed to guide interesting discussions where you share perspectives, ask hard questions and make suggestions for building a stronger community.

More than 700 people brought Vital Conversations to life in the Peterborough area, with participants from across the region, including Curve Lake First Nation, Apsley, Douro, Lakefield, Ennismore, Otonabee, Indian River, Buckhorn and the City of Peterborough. People of all ages took part, from teenagers to octogenarians, representing the diversity of the community and including people of different abilities, those living on low-incomes, individuals identifying as LGBTTQ2+, newcomers, immigrants, and different faith groups.

Vital Conversations 2017 Results

10 Things to do to build a vital community Civic Engagement Insight Report

Play the Vital Conversations Card Game

To play the Vital Conversations card game, you will need:

The Vital Conversations deck has 40 cards and includes instructions:

  • Guidelines cards – 8 cards with advice on how to have a respectful, interesting conversation.
  • Question cards – 10 cards with questions to start your conversations.
  • Conversation cards – 10 cards with prompts to help guide your conversation.
  • Action cards – 4 cards to help identify ‘Vital Actions’ that will build a stronger community.
  • Now what? cards – 8 cards with ideas on actions you can take after your conversation.

The Vital Conversations Card Game was created by the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough in collaboration with the Atkinson Foundation. The game is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Join the vital community movement

The Vital Community Fund is our community’s resource to support the people, ideas and activities that build community vitality in the Peterborough area. Grants from this fund will support charities in the City and County of Peterborough that are working on our community’s top priorities.

By giving together, we can meet today’s challenges and build for tomorrow. Whether you give $10.00 or 10% of your salary, every gift is combined and invested in the fund, building a permanent endowment that we can use to take action and make change, together.

Jennifer DeBues |

Executive Director

Have Questions? Get in Touch!