The Prosperity Council of Waterloo Region is a federation of the Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce, the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce, Canada’s Technology Triangle, and the Communitech Technology Association. Together, these organizations represent more than 3,400 business in Waterloo Region.

Prosperity, for the purposes of the Prosperity Council, involves initiatives and policies that support wealth creation while seeking to improve the social well-being, and overall quality of life in our community.

In 2003, the Council organized a regional Prosperity Forum, which resulted in the collective commitment to five key directions, one of which includes:

          to create and fund a regional arts and culture development and promotion body.

Since then, the Council has been working toward developing an infrastructure capable of sustaining a vibrant regional arts and culture sector.  In June 2007, the Prosperity Council hosted an initial forum called Creative Intersections, which established a framework for the role of arts and culture in the growth of prosperity within the Region of Waterloo.  The session provided an opportunity for the broader community to connect with the arts-related developments, and:

          a strategic planning process for the support and development of future initiatives was initiated.

From here, the Prosperity Council’s objective is to develop a plan that contains a variety of initiatives to create / support / mobilize / enable creative communities.  The core initiative to support this objective is:

the creation of a Creative Communities Venture Program that will network and mobilize funding, volunteers, resources, skills and ideas to initiate and sustain creative enterprise throughout the region.

To move this initiative forward, the Prosperity Council, in 2008, engaged third party consultants who have prepared a “Model Communities” research paper, and now are ready to introduce this research at several upcoming events. A consultation session for Waterloo Region’s artists, arts groups and arts volunteers will be held in early September 2008, and a gathering of the region’s most forward thinking community leaders in business and politics will take place in mid September 2008 at the Creative Dimensions in Prosperity Forum.

As part of the preparation for the Creative Dimensions in Prosperity Forum in September, the Prosperity Council has sent out an invitation to anyone conncted to the regional arts community to attend a special Arts Community Forum on August 28.

A Plan for Creative Communities in Waterloo Region 

The Creative Communities approach links the arts and the creative process to a much wider range of economic activities, including tech innovation and local/regional marketing.  It encourages innovative thinking, fosters entrepreneurial business development and builds a community that enhances quality of life while attracting and sustaining a young, well-educated, diverse work force that in this global economy can choose to live anywhere.

This long term Creative Communities vision is big - it will leverage what the Waterloo Region is best known for – a community deeply rooted in strong cultural traditions, diversity, hard work, creative technology start ups and “outside the box” thinking. This vision re-imagines the community by connecting existing creative industries with arts and culture institutions while also developing new initiatives that contribute to an animated street life and encourage and provide a strategy for a spectrum of creative enterprise.

In an increasingly global community, communities are faced with how to attract creative workers who are drawn to thriving, inventive urban corridors that reflect art, culture and creativity that embrace diversity and innovation.  A well-educated workforce is crucial in this “information age” to connect business with technology and the global economy.

Waterloo Region’s rich cultural heritage, entrepreneurial spirit, strong value on diversity and “can do” attitude create a unique context for a Creative Communities Venture Program.  Local colleges, universities and health care organizations are key resources in building creative economy in small and medium sized cities.  Combined with technology start-ups and world-class organizations like the Perimeter Institute, the University of Waterloo’s School of Architecture in Cambridge and the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Waterloo Region is well positioned to be successful with a Creative Communities initiative.

Links:

Summary of the results of the inaugural Prosperity Forum in 2003

"Take home" document for Creative Intersections event June 11, 2007