Contributors and Acknowledgements
Contributors and Acknowledgements
The Institute for Community Prosperity at Mount Royal University connects students with social impact learning through applied, community-partnered research, creative knowledge mobilization, and systems-focused education. Community prosperity refers to the cultural, economic, social and ecological conditions necessary for human potential to flourish, which encompasses well-being, sustainability, quality of life, and civic vitality. The Institute is interested in big questions about how we invest in social purpose and the common good in the 21st century. To access all of the Institute’s recent publications, visit: https://www.mtroyal.ca/nonprofit/InstituteforCommunityProsperity/Publications/index.htm
ATCO is a one-stop provider of integrated energy, housing, transportation and infrastructure solutions. ATCO’s Vision is to deliver inspired solutions for a better world, and they provide customers with innovative, sustainable solutions in the sectors that are fundamental to global growth and prosperity: housing, real estate, energy, water, transportation and agriculture. From its roots as a small enterprise called Alberta Trailer Hire in 1947, it has grown to a global company of over 19,000 employees throughout ATCO and all subsidiary and affiliate companies, operating in over 100 countries.
ATCO SpaceLab is an enterprise-wide framework of support for ATCO employees with the desire and creative energy to pursue sustainable new value for the company. Its mandate is to ensure that ATCO’s legacy of success continues for generations to come.
Authors
James Stauch is the Executive Director of the Institute for Community Prosperity, where he has developed or co-created social innovation, leadership, and systems-focused learning programs for both undergraduates and the broader community. A former foundation executive and philanthropy and social change consultant, James serves as a board member and advisor to a number of foundations and nonprofits. He is an advisor to the Nonprofit Resilience Lab, and on the Editorial Advisory Board of The Philanthropist, and is the lead author of an annual scan of trends and emerging issues, produced in partnership with Calgary Foundation. His recent contributions to community-partnered knowledge production include Merging for Good: A Case- Based Framework for Nonprofit Amalgamations, with Trellis, The Problem Solver’s Companion: A Practitioners’ Guide to Starting a Social Enterprise, co-produced with Shaun Loney and Encompass Co-op; In Search of the Altruithm: AI and the Future of Social Good, co-authored with Alina Turner of Helpseeker; and A Student Guide to Mapping a System, co-produced with Systems-Led Leadership and the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford. James is Visiting Fellow at the Skoll Centre, University of Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a member of Catalyst 2030.
Cordelia Snowdon-Lawley (she/her) is the Changemaking and Community Research Strategist at the Institute for Community Prosperity at Mount Royal University. Her work at the Institute spans multiple projects, including strategic program design and delivery, social marketing and public communications, support for changemaking-focused learning programs, mentorship with the Catamount Fellowship, and researching ways to improve nonprofit governance and collaboration. In her various roles, she seeks to enact system-level structural change by examining how to make policies work more efficiently for the people they serve and advocating for improving the accessibility of resources, services, and spaces. Her background experience includes leading academic representation through the Students’ Association of MRU and research as a previous Catamount Fellow and her education is in Policy Studies and Social Work.
Designer
Wilde is an Information Design agency that strives to create visual access for complex ideas, allowing users from diverse backgrounds to obtain information in the most efficient way possible.
Creative Commons License
This report is a publication of the Institute for Community Prosperity at Mount Royal University. It is publicly available for distribution in electronic format, with a limited number of colour copies available on request. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Acknowledgements
The genesis of this project came from the ATCO Transformation Team, who lead ATCO SpaceLab and are exploring accessibility issues and dynamics as a topic of interest to the company, from technological, commercial and social purpose standpoints. George Constantinescu, Kyle Koss, Andrea Klaiber-Langen, and Alicia Tropak all provided insightful queries, guidance on scope, and continually pushed for this scan to remain broad and systems-focused, not fixated on specific ‘solutions’, no matter how alluring they may appear.
We are immensely grateful to the many insights and thorough review of the penultimate draft provided by Colleen Huston of the Disability Action Hall / Calgary Scope Society. We are in awe of Colleen’s incredibly current knowledge across so many domains of activity. Much gratitude is also extended to the experts – practitioners and academics – who generously shared their time and knowledge about trends, issues and innovations in accessibility: Alison Stutz, Chief Executive Officer and colleagues, Deaf & Hear Alberta; Alicia Tropak, Director of Transformation, ATCO: Andrea Van Vugt, founder and president, Disability Pride Alberta Foundation: David Legg, PhD, Professor Mount Royal University; Kelly Holmes-Binns, Vecova; Kevin Ng, Director, Technical & Program Content, Accessibility Certification at Rick Hansen Foundation; Mahadeo A. Sukhai, Vice-President Research and International Affairs & Chief Accessibility Officer ARIA Team (Accessibility, Research & International Affairs), Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB); Pam McGladderly, Chief Executive Officer, URSA; Pat Pardo, Director, Access and Inclusion Services, MRU; Raelene Henderson, Director of Staff & Inclusion, MilkJar; Sarah McCarthy, Vice President, Strategic Initiatives at Rick Hansen Foundation; Sean Crump, Head Chair & CEO, Included By Design; Sean McEwen, GEDI-Hub Director; Director of Operations at Gateway Association Calgary; Yvonne Martodam, Chief Operating Officer with Vecova. Additional thanks to Sarah Lawrason of the University Health Network, University of British Columbia, and Erik Christiansen at the MRU Library. Finally, this scan has incorporated insights from previous scans conducted for the Calgary Foundation in 2023, 2022, and 2021. These scans covered a far broader array of topics, but included short sections related to certain aspects of disability or accessibility.
Disclaimer
This work is produced to mobilize and amplify academic, practitioner and public knowledge for the purposes of sparking ideas, enhancing practice, and enriching public insight. It does not constitute formal academic research, and as such will not result in a published academic work or presentation at an academic seminar or conference. A reference to any vendor, product or service in this work does not imply any endorsement, recommendation or approval by the author or sponsors of this work.
