Call for Proposals

The 2018 OCASI Executive Directors Forum is designed for Executive Directors or Senior Managers from OCASI member agencies and other immigrant service organizations in Ontario.

This is a time of growth and transformation for Ontario’s immigrant and refugee serving sector. The Executive Directors Forum gives sector leaders the opportunity to dialogue on sectoral priorities, issues and concerns with their peers, and with representatives from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration and other stakeholders.

The application process is open to all, including trainers and consultants from the community, private and government sector, staff from OCASI member agencies and other community organizations (presenting as an organization or as a private individual/consultant). Please complete and submit the Session Proposal Application Form by Friday May 11th, 2018.

IMPORTANT: Please note that OCASI expects that all presentations are grounded in an anti-racist, anti-oppression analysis.

OCASI ARAO and Accessibility policies: ocasi.org/about-us

The goal of the OCASI Executive Directors Forum 2018 is to come to a shared understanding and commitment to work together to build and sustain an inclusive and immigrant and refugee-centered settlement and integration strategy for Ontario.

• To strengthen the dialogue on immigrant and refugee settlement and integration among OCASI members, and between OCASI, government decision-makers, funders and other stakeholders;
• To strengthen organizational capacity and advance the professionalization of the sector;
• To facilitate the understanding and process of building constructive, formal and informal relations with external and new players in settlement and integration;
• To continue the dialogue on the future of settlement and integration in Ontario.
• To facilitate the networking and sharing of information, innovative approaches and expertise among new and experienced sector leaders.

Building on the success of a decade of Executive Directors Forums and regional meetings, this event will bring together more than 200 Executive Directors and their designates from autonomous, community-based, immigrant and refugee serving organizations across Ontario.

The learning objective(s) must include organizational capacity building. The design must be an adult learning model. OCASI expects that all workshops are are based on anti-racism and anti-oppression.

The workshop description should include:

• Purpose and outline of workshop
• Learning outcomes: an indication of the skills or knowledge that the participants will have at the conclusion of the workshop
• Teaching/facilitation strategies to be employed (i.e. lecture, case studies, focus group discussion, analysis)

This year we are committed to prioritizing workshops on a broad range of themes that are of critical interest to sector organizations. We invite you to submit a proposal for a workshop that would address one or more of several major areas of interest identified by OCASI members through: the input from of the Forum Advisory Committee, Surveys and periodic regional meetings and discussions. You could also submit an innovative proposal on other themes that would be of interest to this audience.

• Women’s Issues
• Organizational Wellness ( Communication, safe spaces,succession planning)
• The role of the nonprofit/ settlement sector
• Advocacy Training
• Anti-Oppression (confronting “isms”,creating safe workspaces and policies, allyship etc.)
• Migration and sustainable development
• Sector Leadership (e.g. ED Role, Succession planning)
• Telling/Selling our stories (e.g. Working with media; public education, communication)
• Funding and Programming (broad eligibility)
• Developing creative interventions to address unmet settlement needs
• Developing, leading and sustaining effective and equitable partnerships and collaboration
• Learning about charities and laws that govern charities
• Writing effective funding proposals and managing contract negotiations
• Governance for community-based organizations in times of change
• Human Resources management and addressing challenges
• Developing and managing outcomes evaluation for programs
• Effective financial management for community-based organizations
• Research (e.g. Community based research; using data)
• Self-Care – (burnout, self-care for staff, dealing with vicarious trauma)
• Use of New Technologies ( Social media Marketing, Hashtag activism etc.)

OCASI would like to showcase community start-ups and small business and OCASI Member programs in the GTA. If this is you or your organization, please submit a description of your business or program with the subject line "Vendor call" to [email protected] by May 11th, 2018.

Applicants will be notified of the outcome by Monday June 1st 2018. Approved vendors will receive complete logistic information and will be asked to register for the forum and sign a contract.

Table rental fees are as follows:

• OCASI Members: $100
• OCASI Non-Members: $150

If you are interested in submitting a proposal application please download here.