By celebrating your teams’ accomplishments along the way, you sustain the relationships, connections and capacity you’ve built, and will maintain benefits to communities for years to come.
Thinking about the sustainability of your initiatives at the onset of your planning will set your team up for success.
When planning for sustainability:
- Maintain relationships of your core team to keep the momentum going
- Revisit your assessments and look for new opportunities to create change
- Approach like-hearted organizations to collaborate and sustain initiatives that are successful
Learn from the experience and make improvements along the way. Don’t forget to highlight your achievements and celebrate your successes!
When the Funding Ends - Myrna's Story
Tools and Resources:
- Login to the Community Library to access appendices associated with step one of the AHCA:
- Year in Review – Guide Appendix R
“It’s inspiring to see what we can do as a community when we unite and work toward common goals”
~ Community member of Vulcan
You’ve accomplished amazing things and other communities want to learn from you.
Alberta Healthy Communities Action Guide
Access full action guideDownload the full Guide. The Alberta Healthy Communities Action Guide, leads you through the Alberta Healthy Communities Approach and provides you with tools and resources to support you in every step of the process.
Community Stories
View all stories
We are collecting stories on how communities are creating healthy places and spaces. If you have a story or idea about your own community we would love to hear it!
External Resources
Harvesting the Wisdom of Coalitions
What factors contribute to the sustainability of coalitions?
Centre for Sustainable Development
A sustainable community is continually adjusting to meet the social and economic needs of its residents while preserving the environment’s ability to support it.
Prevention Institute
Community leaders must think from the very beginning about how their efforts will be sustained.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Healthy Communities Program, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, & Division of Adult and Community Health. (2012). A sustainability planning guide for healthy communities. (). US: National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
- Luque, J., Tyson, D. M., Lee, J. H., Gwede, C., Vadaparampil, S., Noel-Thomas, S., & Meade, C. (2010). Using social network analysis to evaluate community capacity building of a regional community cancer network.38, 656-668.
- Ramanadhan, S., Salhi, C., Achille, E., Baril, N., D'Entremont, K., Grullon, M., . . . Savage, C. (2012). Addressing cancer disparities via community network mobilization and intersectoral partnerships: A social network analysis. PLoS One, 7(2), e32130.
- Alberta Health Services. (2014). Comprehensive School Health: Celebrate and Share your Successes. Retrieved from Alberta: http://www.albertahealthservices.ca/SchoolsTeachers/if-sch-csh-celebrate-and-share-your-success.pdf
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Road to Better Health: A Guide to Promoting Cancer Prevention in Your Community. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US Dept of Health and Human Services; 2012
- Kegler, M. C., Norton, B. L., & Aronson, R. (2007). Skill improvement among coalition members in the California healthy cities and communities program. Health Education Research, 22(3), 450-457. doi:cyl109 [pii]
- Fawcett, S. B., Collie-Akers, V., Schultz, J. A., & Cupertino, P. (2013). Community-based participatory research within the latino health for all coalition. Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community, 41(3), 142-154.
- Gathering Perspectives Report
- Cormac Russel. Managing Director of Nurture Development, a leading Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD)
