Rural Development Network - Priority Populations

We are a non-profit organization that works with rural, remote and Indigenous communities and organizations across Canada. We collaborate to identify and bring focus to rural issues, build local capacity, and develop innovative, rural-based solutions to social and economic challenges. Our work includes: -Developing capacity-building toolkits & resources -Providing expertise, capacity, training, & community engagement -Advocating on key issues & amplifying the rural voice -Supporting with accessing project & capital funding (Lisa is primary contact for the organization but there would be other project leads depending on which project it is.) Project idea #1: Storytelling – The Rural Development Network is the responsible for distributing the Reaching Home funding from the Government of Canada to rural and remote organizations and communities in Alberta, including First Nation and Métis Settlement communities, to support community efforts in addressing and responding to homelessness. Our organization is committed to continuing to advocate on behalf of these communities for the need for increased funding to address rural homelessness. Something we’ve been trying to do for years, and generally lack the capacity to do, is to pull together the powerful stories and data from the communities we work with that showcase the impact that their work, and this funding, has in their communities and for people experiencing homelessness. This would greatly support advocacy efforts, and provide tangible stories and information to share with government. We are looking for a student to help research and compile stories, reports, and data to share successes and outcomes for our advocacy work in getting increased funding allocated to rural communities for homelessness, as well as share the successes of these communities with others who could potentially replicate their approach or learn from it. Project Idea #2: Implementing Best Practices & Policies in Violence Against Women Shelters: We recently completed the Shelter Pulse project which has been dedicated to creating research-based, trauma-informed policies and procedures for rural Violence Against Women (VAW) shelters across Canada. These policies and procedures are now available on an online database accessible to those working in the sector. However many shelters, especially in smaller rural communities, still lack the time, capacity, and training to actually implement these policies into their operations. We want to develop workshops and resources to continue supporting with next steps & the implementation. We are looking for a student to support with any aspect of this work, such as developing workshop materials, change management resources, developing short videos (or video scripts) for providing an overview of the implementation of key policies and procedures through a change management approach, creating a guide or toolkit, or any other resources to support shelters in implementing the procedures. Project Idea #3: Indigenous housing guide - Our Sustainable Housing Initiative (SHI) is redefining housing by supporting the development of cost-effective, innovative, and sustainable housing in rural communities across Canada. Rural Canada has a critical shortage of affordable housing options but it hasn’t received the same attention as urban centers. In addition to providing community members with a safe and adequate place to live, housing also strengthens social inclusion, promotes a sense of community, and is critical to economic development. A core part of our work is to help rural communities access project and capital funding to develop cost-effective, innovative and sustainable housing through a proven and streamlined process. We have published an award-winning Step-by-Step Guide to Developing Affordable Housing in collaboration with housing professionals across Canada, and are currently exploring the creating of another guide for Indigenous communities

Bridging the Gap: Rural Homelessness Data and Advocacy

The main goal of this project is to develop an advocacy plan for collecting and utilizing rural-specific homelessness data. This involves researching, reviewing policies, and creating case studies to highlight the importance of accurate data collection in rural, remote, and Indigenous communities. The ultimate aim is to secure funding and support from foundations, government, and municipalities to address the unique challenges of rural homelessness and ensure these communities receive the necessary resources and attention.

Level Up: Digital Marketing Overhaul for a National Non-profit

1 team of up to 2 students Our team is looking for a social media marketing wizard who can help us drive more traffic and improve our SEO positioning. Flex your SEO/social media muscles and work with us to: Conduct a keyword analysis to determine relevant search terms to our organization Plan and create a content calendar: help develop content across our social media platforms to drive maximum traffic to our sites Discover and get familiar with tools and programs such as Hootsuite, Trello, Adobe Indesign/Illustrator/Premiere/Spark, and Canva Create and implement a strategy document that outlines: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) requirements to ensure our organization appears on the first page of Google for relevant keywords Social media requirements to increase the number of followers/likes and share We’re excited to work with students who can help us not only brainstorm but more importantly: take ideas and run with them to achieve the following: Promote our national conference on Rural and Remote Housing and Homelessness Top-ranked result for Rural Development Digital campaign(s) to highlight the services/projects offered by/through our organization Increase follower count on primary social channels (Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook) Increase newsletter subscribers Improve engagement across all existing channels (5-10% increase) Digital Marketing Strategy We want students to help us develop and implement a digital marketing strategy to grow and engage our target market. We want your expertise to better understand where our audiences are and how to best leverage our digital platforms to reach them. The main questions we’d like students to help us answer are the following: How do you best market an event to drive up ticket sales and conversions? How could we improve the promotion of our organizations and our values? How can we better leverage the social media channels we have? What budget is appropriate for marketing? What does a robust marketing budget contain? How do you leverage digital marketing for a not-so-tech-savvy audience?

Level UP: Virtual Conference Training Development

1 student Our team is looking for a technologically savvy student who can help us prepare for our upcoming Canadian Rural and Remote Housing and Homelessness Symposium! No previous experience with these platforms is needed, just the ability to learn them quickly. The student will: Develop webinars to train presenters, moderators, sponsors, and staff on the use of Zoom and the Pheedloop conference platform; Develop easy to use and understand tutorial documents for presenters, moderators, and sponsors to reference when navigating Pheedloop & Zoom; Develop tutorials and information for our staff members for the day-of event management, and key features. The student may deliver/record the training webinars, or an RDN staff member may deliver them depending on the timeline. Virtual events have become a necessity during COVID, and the trend of virtual events will continue into the future. Through this role, the student will gain valuable experience in the virtual event space, with both digital skills and overall event coordination. Becoming familiar with the inner workings of a virtual event platform is a valuable skill that can be transferred to other organizations and events. Developing training materials is also an opportunity to improve writing and communication skills, and presenting information in a clear and concise way. If the student is able to be the “presenter” to record/deliver the training webinars, they will gain presentation and public speaking experience. All of these items will contribute to a smooth and successful event. The student is not required to have previous experience with Zoom or Pheedloop to deliver this project. For a tech-savvy student, these platforms are easy to use and to learn, and they can do that as part of the project. Deliverables: Four training webinars for the conference (for speakers, moderators, sponsors, and staff, which have slightly different features within the platform). Four stand-alone one-page documents with tutorials/key information.