Montréal Policy for Community Action
With the Montréal Policy for Community Action, the city recognizes and promotes the importance of community groups and organizations, its valuable partners in regards to their contributions to society and their expertise.
The city is officially setting out its intention to use the policy as a reference to managing its social responses.
The three guiding principles of the policy recognize the immense contributions made by Montréal’s community groups and organizations to Montrealers’ quality of life and create an official framework for the city’s relations in this regard. The city is putting forth its intention to maintain relationships with all of Montréal’s community organizations that are based on the values of transparency, equity, integrity and engagement, as well as mutual trust and respect.
This policy is part of the broader priorities set out in the Montréal 2030 Strategic Plan, in which the city makes a commitment to consolidating the social safety net and ensuring the longevity of the community network as well as its associated services and infrastructures.
Tangible commitments
Recognizing the community sector
The city recognizes the importance of community organizations and groups, which it considers key speakers that are specialists in their field. To support its recognition process, the city wants to integrate these partners’ expertise in the municipal decision-making process. It also hopes to invite them to take part in determining its orientations.
Respecting and promoting the community sector
The independence of organizations and groups is at the heart of community action. It allows them to protect their identity and maintain room for maneuver with public powers and evolve at the same pace as their needs. The city recognizes that a healthy distance between itself and the community sector needs to be preserved, which is why it has made a commitment to respecting the independence of these organizations’ operations.
Developing ethical partnerships with the community sector
Ethical partnership is free, voluntary and based on the values of mutual respect, trust and transparency. It requires that the city honour the independence and diversity of the community sector and its practices.
“The city has been working closely with groups and organizations in the community movement for quite some time. However, in order to be effective and sustainable, this collaboration must be built on reciprocal trust. Through the Montréal Policy for Community Action, we aim to strengthen this trust and express our recognition of the community sector, not only for the work they’ve done in the past decades, but also for the work they will do in the decades to come.”
Complement to the policy
With a view to greater transparency, the executive committee has tasked the Service de la diversité et de l’inclusion sociale (SDIS) with producing, publishing and updating an annual list of programs managed by the city.
This action is a response to consultations on the draft Montréal Policy for Community Action and the recommendations of the Commission sur le développement social et la diversité montréalaise.
As a complement to this list, Montréal’s municipal subsidy management portal (in French) offers a unique entry point for organizations, in which:
- Current calls for projects are visible.
- Subsidy applications can be submitted and tracked.
- The organization’s or projects documents are recorded.
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