This digital version of VCC’s 2025 Report to Community offers a high-level snapshot of our work, highlighting key impacts and milestones from the past year. It’s designed to give you a quick, accessible overview—but it only tells part of the story. For a fuller picture of our collective impact, explore the full report.
Project
Welcome!
A Note from Our Leadership Team
Click to see how Calgary is quietly transforming the systems that shape poverty—and why it matters.
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VCC delivers measurable value to Calgary by connecting funders, government, and partners around evidence-based strategies that reduce poverty and improve well-being. With 20 years of experience under its belt and a renewed leadership team in place, VCC is well positioned to continue shaping policies, supporting communities, and delivering high-impact solutions that make Calgary a safer, more equitable city for all.
Sam Hayes, Board Chair
In 2025, VCC marked 20 years of impact, driven by a bold belief that poverty can be reduced not only through programs, but by changing the systems that create it. VCC’s commitment to evidence-based policy and advocacy, meaningful engagement of people with lived experience of poverty, and the integration of Indigenous perspectives has ensured Calgary’s poverty-reduction efforts remain strategic, connected, and effective.
Dani DeBoice, Executive Director
2025 Snapshot
15,000+
Calgarians engaged
8
Major reports published
370+
Media mentions
14
new Enough for All Champions welcomed
13
Policy & research briefs shared with policymakers
104,000+
website visits
8
Calgarians with lived experience of poverty onboarded to network
7
Policy wins across 3 orders of government
20,790+
Social media followers
Well-Being Dashboard
The Enough for All Well-Being Dashboard brings to life vital data demonstrating Calgary’s progress toward achieving its poverty-reduction goals. Published in January 2025 in collaboration with YYC Data, the dashboard is used by government, researchers, and community groups as a helpful, easily accessible tool for understanding current data on poverty and well-being in Calgary.
Preventing Homelessness by Closing the Social Assistance Gap: A Policy Brief
VCC released a policy brief showing that preventing homelessness through adequate income supports is significantly more cost-effective than responding after the fact. The brief demonstrates that closing the social assistance gap could reduce homelessness and outlines key income thresholds needed to maintain housing stability in Calgary. Findings were shared directly with policymakers to support evidence-informed solutions.
Living Wage and Its Impact on Calgarians
VCC calculates and publishes Calgary’s living wage annually to help employers, policymakers, and the public understand the true cost of living in our city. In 2025, the living wage rose to $26.50 per hour—nearly 77% above Alberta’s minimum wage—driven by rising costs in food, transportation, and child care, while some policy supports helped ease household pressures. Learn more (link)
To better understand the impact and value of the living wage as a tool to reduce poverty, VCC engaged an external evaluator to conduct an outcomes harvest evaluation of VCC’s work. The evaluation found that the Living Wage Initiative delivered benefits across employers, employees, and policy:
- Employers reported stronger retention, morale, and productivity, while employees experienced reduced financial stress and improved quality of life.
- The initiative has also influenced municipal policy and program design, helping embed living wage principles more broadly across systems.
See some of our other research
Gig Economy Research Project
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Calgary Election Platform
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Policy wins
In 2025, VCC and its partners in the Social Policy Collaborative recorded policy wins across all three orders of government, including:
Informing Policymakers and Advancing Policy Solutions
Informing new policymakers: VCC helped ensure poverty reduction remained a clear priority in the 2025 municipal election by equipping Council candidates with evidence, policy solutions, and community insight. Through its election platform, candidate briefings, and sector engagement, VCC kept well-being and poverty reduction front and centre throughout the campaign and beyond.
Strengthening disability supports: VCC advocated against clawbacks to the Canada Disability Benefit, informed provincial income support reforms, and helped community members understand the potential impacts of proposed changes.
Supporting affordable housing: VCC championed implementation of Calgary’s Home is Here Housing Strategy, helping keep affordable housing and stability at the centre of civic decisions.
Securing the Low Income Transit Pass: VCC pushed for sustainable funding for Calgary’s Low Income Transit Pass, reinforcing the role affordable transit plays in connecting people to work, education, and essential services.
As steward of Enough for All, Calgary’s community-driven poverty reduction strategy, VCC helps ensure lived experience shapes the decisions that impact our city. In 2025, VCC spent more than six months engaging over 5,000 Calgarians across every ward, hosting conversations in 44 community spaces and gathering input from 1,017 people with lived experience. Community insights on housing, employment, food security, health, safety, and inclusion informed VCC’s municipal election platform, were shared with civic leaders and partners, and will continue to guide collaboration—including the 2026 Enough for All strategy refresh.
Community: VCC builds awareness of Enough for All by engaging diverse audiences across Calgary’s community, academic, and business sectors. Beyond the extensive engagement for the Your Voice, Our Future project, VCC also engaged community through more than 10 presentations, conferences, roundtables, panels, and public events.
Lived Experience: VCC rounded off 2025 with 37 lived-experienced network members who contributed to our work in a variety of ways: sharing their experiences navigating employment in Calgary, shaping our municipal election priorities, recording a podcast on the challenges they face while living in poverty, and participating in a new mental health research project to be released in 2026.
iih kanii tai staiiwa: In 2025, VCC honoured oral storytelling traditions by releasing an oral report on its December 2024 pipe ceremony, supported United Way of Calgary and Area’s 15th Annual Connect Event and released a podcast episode featuring Indigenous Gathering Place (IGP) to amplify the importance of the IGP for Calgary.
2025 Snapshot
Shining a Light on 20 Years of Impact
It began with a simple but powerful question: What if we could address poverty not just at the surface, but at its source?
In 2005, that question brought together a small steering committee determined to think differently about poverty in Calgary. Today, VCC is a central force in Calgary’s poverty reduction landscape—respected by community, trusted by government, and driven by evidence. And the work is far from over.
Future Snapshot
Enough for All Strategy Refresh
VCC is leading the refresh of Calgary’s community-driven poverty reduction strategy, Enough for All, alongside partners, policymakers, Indigenous leaders, and people with lived experience. After years of major social and economic shifts, the refresh ensures the strategy reflects today’s realities, builds on what’s working, and strengthens focus for the next phase of impact. The updated strategy will launch in fall 2026.
Mental Health Research Project
VCC is leading a collaborative research project to improve access to mental health supports for Calgarians living in poverty. Working with partners across sectors and Calgarians with lived experience, the project will identify barriers, co-design solutions, and advance policy changes to create a more responsive and effective mental health support system. Research will be completed in late 2026.
2024 Evaluation
VCC’s work is evaluated annually by an independent third party that engages stakeholders through surveys, focus groups, and interviews. The evaluation also reviews Enough for All Champion research and annual reports to understand how Enough for All is changing the systems that hold poverty in place. In 2025, VCC engaged a new evaluator who conducted evaluations of both the implementation of Enough for All and VCC’s organizational strategic plan.
2025 Financial Statements
To ensure transparency and accountability, we undergo an independent annual audit to confirm that funder dollars are managed responsibly.
Related Projects
Alberta's Gig Economy
Calgary Social Policy Collaborative’s new report exposes the pressures facing Alberta’s gig workers and the policy tools that could better support them
Calgary’s Living Wage for 2025 is $26.50 per hour
Alberta’s largest city sees a $2.00/hr jump in living wage compared to 2024
Making Ends Meet
Stories of lived experience told through community voices
Indigenous perspectives on building a future where there is enough for all
Indigenous teachings and oral storytelling traditions capture the conversations, wisdom, and experiences shared during the pipe ceremony