Partners

Venue Partner

Evergreen Brick Works in Toronto is the location for 2024’s iteration of Space for Grief. A space full of stunning industrial architecture and greenery, Evergreen Brick Works is a 130-year-old abandoned brick factory hidden in the ravines at the heart of our city, transformed by Evergreen, a national not-for-profit, in 2010.

Evergreen is transforming public spaces in our cities to build a healthier future for people and our planet. Learn more here.

About Our Partners

  • Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists is best known for placing white-painted bicycles – ghost bikes – at the location where a cyclist has been killed in the Greater Toronto Area. The non-profit group is volunteer run, currently led by Geoffrey Bercarich, Joey Schwartz and Jun Nogami.

    Geoffrey Bercarich has been putting up ghost bikes for 20 years.

  • Bereaved Families of Ontario – Toronto (BFO-Toronto) provides free grief support to individuals and families who have experienced the loss of a loved one. With a compassionate, community-based approach, BFO-Toronto offers peer support groups, one-on-one sessions, and specialized programs that create a safe space to navigate the complex emotions of grief.

    Guided by the belief that no one should have to grieve alone, we are dedicated to helping those in need find connection, understanding, and hope through shared experiences. Our services are open to anyone, regardless of background, and are provided by trained volunteers who have also experienced loss.

    By building a community of support, BFO-Toronto is committed to ensuring that all individuals can access the help they need, when they need it.

  • CP Planning is a non-profit community network building the capacity of non-profits to protect and generate affordable housing at the scale required to meet community needs. Since its founding, CP Planning has scaled to become a national organization sparking and being a backbone support for community action to build and implement the social connections, tools, and innovative strategies required to combat the escalating housing crisis in Canada and secure and build housing affordable so that all communities can thrive.

  • Dixon Hall supports over 10,000 individuals annually, who are vulnerable or at risk, including youth, elderly, persons with disabilities, people experiencing homelessness, the unemployed, people in need of housing, those experiencing mental health challenges, and newly immigrated individuals and families. Additionally, our programs extend to those seeking employment, experiencing isolation, dealing with substance use disorders, and communities affected by economic disparities.

  • The Maker Bean Cafe is a maker space cafe in the lovely neighbourhood of Bloorcourt at Bloor and Dufferin in downtown Toronto. It's a place where people can design, use digital fabrication tools and learn about 3D printing & laser cutting in the warm, welcoming environment of a cafe. It's a place that offers tech-themed workshops, camps and birthday parties for adults and kids. A partner in the community hosting local markets, food drives and a space for local artists to meet and create.

  • Method Collective is a design studio working at the intersection of systems and foresight to create systems and cultural change powered by research, community engagement, and interactive, experiential, and/or art-based interventions such as Space for Grief.

  • Mobilizing Justice is a multidisciplinary and multisector partnership working to build sustainable connections for research and knowledge exchange to solve transportation inequities in Canadian cities.

    Transportation barriers limit many Canadians’ ability to commute, access healthcare, use public services, and fully participate in public life. These limitations negatively affect individuals' health, wellbeing, and ability to thrive. As population growth, gentrification, and unaffordability continue to push less affluent residents to the peripheries of cities—areas where providing effective public transit, walking, and cycling infrastructure is challenging—these transportation barriers will only deepen social inequalities.

    We are an unprecedented coalition of 33 academics from 6 Canadian provinces and 3 countries, 14 government agencies, 7 transportation companies, and 7 non-profit organizations dedicated to addressing these challenges. All of our partners are steadfastly committed to delivering equitable transportation systems.

  • Launched in 2018 by the School of International Futures (SOIF), the Next Generation Foresight Practitioners (NGFP) is a network of over 900 people from all over the world who are using futures and foresight to create positive impact and systemic transformation globally.

    Our members come from various geographies, areas of expertise, and walks of life – from working with food systems in India to developing new technologies in Kenya to reshaping the future of elections in the US to redesigning interspecies friendly cities in Germany. What they all have in common are exceptional projects and ideas with the potential to shape the future of communities, countries, and sectors.

    Through SOIF’s expertise of doing foresight with impact, its connections with the broader futures and foresight field, and the support of the NGFP team, we offer our members a nurturing environment and enabling conditions for their projects and ideas to flourish and expand their positive impact in the world. Our ultimate objective is to democratise the futures and foresight field, so we have diverse voices from younger generations participating equally in the co-creation of better, fairer, and more equitable futures for all.

  • Park Lawn Corporation is a leading provider of death care products and services across North America. The company operates cemeteries, funeral homes, and crematoriums, offering a wide range of services including traditional burials, cremation options, memorial services, and pre-planning solutions.

    Park Lawn is known for its commitment to providing personalized and compassionate care to families during their most challenging times. With a focus on maintaining high standards of service and environmental sustainability, Park Lawn has grown its presence across Canada and the United States, acquiring and operating numerous facilities while continuing to evolve within the death care industry.

  • Piat Public Health is a woman-owned consulting firm dedicated to advancing healthier communities through data-driven solutions. We specialize in community needs assessments, strategic planning, evaluation, and health equity initiatives. By bridging system data with lived experience, we help health organizations, nonprofits, and public agencies move from insight to impact.

  • Scarborough Arts, a not-for-profit charitable organization, serves the Scarborough community by developing, delivering, and promoting innovative arts programming and cultural initiatives in collaboration and partnership with the community.

    Scarborough Arts is one of six Local Arts Service Organizations (LASOs) in the City of Toronto. LASOs are mandated by the City of Toronto to serve a specific geographic area and provide inclusive and affordable opportunities for local residents, artists, and arts organizations, with a focus on underserved children, youth, and participants from a broad demographic spectrum. As anchor community arts organizations in Toronto, they promote the arts at the local level, making culture a part of the daily fabric of community living.

  • School of International Futures (SOIF) is a global non-profit transforming futures for current and next generations. Our vision is an equitable and sustainable world for current and next generations. We help people transform the present by using structured thinking about the future. We bring together three disciplines in the service of transformation:

    Foresight and futures: We advise decision-makers about how to use foresight approaches to address complex, future-facing policy and strategy questions across governments, foundations, civil society and corporations.

    Participation and governance: We put people at the heart of the future. We seek to ensure that representation, legitimacy and participation are central to foresight work. We act as a bridge and connector between different groups.

    Networks of change: We believe that building networks is central to systems change. We weave, incubate and scale networks of social change agents.

    SOIF was founded in 2012. It is headquartered in the UK and operates globally, using diverse teams to work with leaders, organisations and communities.

  • The Toronto Shelter Network is an umbrella organization that champions the best housing outcomes for people experiencing homelessness. We enhance the collective capacity and voice of people with lived experience of homelessness and diverse homelessness service providers in Toronto through knowledge sharing and learning, collaborative planning, research and advocacy. We believe that housing is a human right and envision a city where everyone has a home that enables them to live with dignity.

  • Toronto Public Library is the biggest and busiest public library system in North America, with more than 46 million annual visits to our branches and online. We empower Torontonians to thrive in the digital age and knowledge economy through easy access to technology, lifelong learning, and diverse cultural and leisure experiences, where, when and how our customers need us.