Mapping Ontario’s Community Data Ecosystem
How does community knowledge become public influence?
Mapping Ontario's Community Data Ecosystem
How does community knowledge become public influence?
Ontario has extensive community knowledge. Residents, grassroots groups, nonprofit organizations, researchers, funders and public institutions all produce information that can help improve policies, services and funding decisions.
But knowledge does not move through these systems equally.
IIBD is developing a province-wide initiative to examine how community evidence travels through institutional relationships, funding structures, data infrastructure and public decision-making processes — and where that evidence loses influence along the way.
The initiative will bring together ecosystem mapping, decision-pathway analysis, community participation and practical tool development to make these systems more visible, understandable and accountable.
Its purpose is not simply to produce another map or report. It is to help communities and institutions identify where evidence becomes disconnected from decisions and what can be done to strengthen that connection.
- 01
Map the ecosystem
Identify the people, organizations and institutions that produce, fund, interpret and use community knowledge.
- 02
Trace decisions
Follow how evidence moves into funding, policy, planning and service-delivery decisions.
- 03
Identify accountability gaps
Show where responsibility becomes unclear or community evidence becomes disconnected from institutional action.
- 04
Build practical tools
Develop methods that communities and institutions can use to create more transparent evidence-to-decision pathways.
Ontario has extensive community knowledge. The challenge is ensuring that knowledge can travel, carry influence and produce accountability.
The challenge
Community data is generated through service delivery, administrative systems, surveys, consultations, research partnerships and community-led initiatives.
It then moves through institutions that determine what is measured, which evidence receives attention, how findings are interpreted and whether the information changes a decision.
Community members and organizations may contribute significant knowledge without being able to see where it travelled, how it was used or why it did not influence the final outcome.
The central question
How does community-generated knowledge travel into public and institutional decisions in Ontario, and where do gaps in coordination, power, funding and accountability limit its influence?
What the initiative will examine
Institutional relationships
Who produces, funds, stores, interprets and uses community information.
Decision pathways
How evidence moves into planning, funding, policy, program design and service delivery.
Funding flows
How financial relationships influence what gets measured, whose capacity is sustained and which knowledge receives institutional attention.
Data infrastructure
The systems, agreements, standards and tools that enable or restrict the exchange and use of information.
Accountability gaps
Where responsibility becomes difficult to trace, feedback does not return to communities or participation becomes extractive.
Proposed approach
Presented as a developing approach, not as completed work:
- Environmental & institutional scanning
- Stakeholder & ecosystem mapping
- Document & policy review
- Interviews & facilitated conversations
- Decision-pathway case studies
- Funding-flow analysis
- Community & institutional validation
- Pilot testing
- Practical tool development
The final scope, regional sample, partnerships and case-study areas will be confirmed through the initiative-development process.
Help build the map
IIBD is developing the scope, partnerships and pilot components for Mapping Ontario's Community Data Ecosystem.
We are interested in connecting with community organizations, public institutions, funders, researchers, data intermediaries and people with experience producing or using community evidence.
- Informing the environmental scan
- Proposing a decision-pathway case study
- Participating in a future interview or validation session
- Supporting community participation
- Contributing methodological expertise
- Becoming a knowledge-mobilization partner
- Funding an independent component of the initiative
Anticipated outputs.
Ecosystem map
A systems-level representation of the institutions, relationships and pathways shaping community data in Ontario.
Applied research publication
A forthcoming report examining how community evidence moves through funding, policy, planning and service-delivery systems.
Decision-pathway case studies
Focused analyses following community evidence from its source to a specific institutional decision.
Practical accountability tools
Templates and methods that communities and institutions can use to make evidence use and decision pathways more visible.