A new mandate for the Federation of Calgary Communities

Abstract

The purpose of this Master's Degree Project was to study the Federation of Calgary Communities (FCC) in order to assess concerns raised about the FCC by The City of Calgary. A 1993 Calgary Parks & Recreation survey of 111 Calgary community associations identified lack of communication, ineffective representation and duplication of services as three problems the FCC must address by 1995 in order to receive future municipal funding. The primary objective of this thesis was to recommend changes to the Federation's operating structure that would address these concerns. Research undertaken included a case study of the FCC, a survey of Canadian community federations and a comparative evaluation of the FCC with respect to its Canadian counterparts. The FCC was found to function very well relative to other Canadian community association federations that were identified and surveyed. Recommendations developed to improve its operations were twofold. Incremental changes to the FCC's means of communicating with both its members and the public were suggested as was the adoption of a clear advocacy role. In addition, it was recommended that services provided by the FCC be limited to member community associations only as a means of providing an incentive for Federation membership. To address the City of Calgary's concerns about duplicated services, more radical changes were suggested. These included the development of a new mission statement, a restructuring of the FCC's mandate and suggestions for how the FCC could benefit from its proposed liberation from excessive municipal control. Although this document is an academic thesis, it is also intended to serve as a reference tool for people working with or for community association federations across Canada.