Advocacy Capacity Building Initiative

A national program to strengthen the recreation and parks sector's voice in public policy, in coordination, at every level of government.

Communities across Canada are navigating complex and interconnected challenges: mental and physical health, social cohesion, climate resilience, economic uncertainty. Recreation and parks are central to addressing every one of them.

That role is not consistently understood or reflected in public policy and funding decisions. The public policy conversation is crowded. Fiscal pressures are real. Sectors that are not coordinated, disciplined, and evidence-informed risk being overlooked.

Recreation and parks are a necessary public good. For the sector to be valued in a way that is commensurate with what it delivers to Canadian life, we need to strengthen our collective ability to engage in public policy discussions. ACBI is how we do that, together.

The Advocacy Capacity Building Initiative is a national program designed to increase the recreation and parks sector's capacity to tell its compelling story in the rooms where decisions are made.

ACBI builds advocacy capacity across the sector, aligns messaging and priorities, integrates data and research into a shared narrative, and creates coordinated moments of engagement with decision-makers. This is not centralized advocacy. It is coordinated advocacy: mutually reinforcing activities anchored in a Collective Impact approach, delivered as a practical pilot under the renewal of the Framework for Recreation and Parks.

CPRA leads delivery in partnership with Homeward Public Affairs, who bring government relations expertise and a track record of supporting mission-driven organizations.