Living wage initiative outcome harvest: Evaluation report
| dc.contributor.author | Fawcett, Jolene | |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | Chouinard, Jill Anne | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-12-19T19:44:46Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-12-19T19:44:46Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024 | |
| dc.degree.department | School of Public Administration | |
| dc.degree.level | Master of Arts MA | |
| dc.description.abstract | This report provides an overview of an Outcome Harvest evaluation of Vibrant Communities Calgary's Living Wage Initiative. Vibrant Communities Calgary (VCC) is a nonprofit organization that advocates for and convenes groups around social and economic issues and solutions – they steward the City of Calgary’s community-owned poverty reduction strategy "Enough for All". One goal of the strategy is to ensure Calgarians have enough income and assets to thrive, which is advanced by promoting living wage pay. A living wage is the hourly rate that is region-specific that takes into account what an employee needs to be paid to meet their basic needs, save for an unexpected event, and to participate in society. VCC's Living Wage Initiative works in several ways to promote living wage pay, including convening partners to support establishing the Alberta Living Wage Network (ALWN) a provincially coordinated living wage movement. Outcome Harvesting is a robust evaluation methodology that measures impacts by surfacing what outcomes have occurred over a specified time period, and seeks to understand the significance of them and the contribution of the program. It is useful in complex environments, where change is not predictable or linear, such as in poverty reduction and systems change efforts. This Outcome Harvest evaluation looked at changes between 2019-2024 for living wage certified employers and their employees, for Calgary's local economy, for collective advocacy efforts in Alberta, and for government and funder decision-making and policy, and asked how VCC contributed to the changes. The findings suggest that employers had to make adaptations to become and maintain their certification, and they subsequently experienced several benefits and challenges, with the benefits outweighing the challenges, reinforcing their commitment to certification and living wage pay. The evaluation found that employees experienced positive job satisfaction and personal benefits which had a ripple effect out to their families and communities, and reinforced employer positive outcomes. Further, several municipalities and nonprofit organizations came together to establish the Alberta Living Wage Network which increased awareness and education on the living wage, advanced recruitment of more network members and living wage employers, and facilitated utilization of living wage in policy and decision making with varying success. Overall, the efforts of VCC, the ALWN members, and living wage allies have developed a robust movement that provides a credible and tangible indicator to talk about affordability and poverty as a systemic and not an individual issue. Overall, this facilitates more employees having enough income and assets to thrive and promotes meaningful and dignified work, advancing VCC's work in the community-owned Enough for All poverty reduction strategy. | |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Graduate | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1828/20867 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.rights | Available to the World Wide Web | |
| dc.subject | living wage | |
| dc.subject | poverty reduction | |
| dc.subject | evaluation | |
| dc.subject | Outcome Harvest | |
| dc.subject | impacts | |
| dc.title | Living wage initiative outcome harvest: Evaluation report | |
| dc.type | project |