Across rural communities in Atlantic Canada and beyond, a quiet transformation is underway in the tourism sector: one that puts residents’ well-being at the forefront and reimagines development as a community-rooted process. At the heart of this shift are passionate community members who not only believe that ‘a great place to live is a great place to visit” but are actively making strides to strengthen the fabric of their home community.
Through support from the ACTivate program, a dynamic partnership between Coady Institute and the Gros Morne Institute for Sustainable Tourism (GMIST), residents are (re)discovering what makes their community unique and exploring new approaches for how to mobilize community assets and agency to strengthen their community and create more sustainable tourism opportunities.
What Makes ACTivate Different
ACTivate, short for Activating Community Tourism, is a program designed to support people who want to make a positive change in their community and explore more sustainable approaches to tourism development. The program’s philosophy is simple yet deeply insightful: A great place to live is a great place to visit. Tourism development becomes sustainable and authentic when it both emerges from and serves the people who already call the community home.
ACTivate makes two important shifts in tourism development. The first shift re-centered community in the conversations around tourism development, ensuring that community well-being is a priority in addition to outside visitor experience. While creating a great place to live lends itself to being a great place to visit, the reverse is not always true. The second shift focused on the (re)discovery of community strengths, capacity, and power to bring about change. The program is grounded in asset-based community development (ABCD), a strength-based model that recognizes the abundance already present in communities and the power people have to make a difference. This differs from conventional approaches that often identify what communities lack (needs-assessments) and define the solutions as being something to be found outside of the community.
Jonathan Foster, Executive Director of GMIST, says the partnership came to be after much research.
“We explored citizen empowerment models around the world, and one name kept coming up: Coady,” Jonathan says.
“After conversations with [Coady Institute’s] leadership, we realized this could be something impactful in the region but just as important, fun and exciting. The value has been in playing off each other’s strengths in adult education, designing and delivering a program that is simple, experiential, and community focused.”
Jess Popp, Senior Program Staff with Coady Institute, says the program has continued to strengthen through each of the fourth cohorts.
“As the partnership has evolved, we’ve maintained a constant curiosity and willingness to learn together and have been able to shift into more innovation and truly collaborate on session re-design and facilitation, which has resulted in much more relevant and impactful learning opportunities,” she says.
This reflects Coady’s broader mission of educating, connecting, and inspiring leaders who ignite community-driven change. Through participatory learning and ABCD, Coady emphasizes that communities already hold the assets they need to thrive. The key is recognizing how they might go about surfacing, connecting, and unlocking these assets to bring about change.
From Learning to Impact
During the ACTivate, participants engage in a 9- to 12-month blended learning journey, combining online sessions, a five-day intensive gathering in Gros Morne, and ongoing networking and mentorship.
The most recent cohorts work in “community clusters” of three to five members, ranging from volunteers, local business owners and non-profit leaders to youth and retirees, who design a process that will help their home community discover what makes it unique and mobilize its gifts and assets in order to strengthen grassroots community and tourism development.
ACTivate helps leaders move from ideas to real practice.
“What we’ve seen is a shift from just slogans to real conversations with communities,” Jonathan says.
“Many participants had been constrained by project-based terms from outside funders. ACTivate helped them rediscover how to listen, build confidence, and negotiate with government from a position rooted in community priorities.”
A key theme in recent sessions has been resiliency.
“Resiliency is about how long you can stay in the frustration of moving from the unknown to the known,” Jonathan notes.
“Many organizations had invested heavily in plans that sat on shelves because they couldn’t tolerate the uncertainty. Those that succeeded were the ones that committed to the messiness of learning.”
This insight has helped participants support their communities through setbacks — shifting from rigid planning to adaptive, learning-centered approaches.
Growing the Network
“One of the most important components of ACTivate is the incredible network that develops,” Jess notes. “Participants not only learn an incredible amount from each other throughout the program, but they remain connected long after graduation and become key supports for each other as they work to enact change locally.”
To date, more than 100 people have participated in ACTivate, and the ripple effects continue to expand.
“What we always hoped is that people would take these tools and teach them on their own without GMIST or Coady,” Jonathan says. “Sometimes we’ve had to nudge them out of the nest, but now we’re seeing leaders embrace ABCD and share it in their own contexts. That’s what fills my cup.”
ACTivate is funded by the Government of Canada through Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), whose support has been instrumental in ensuring accessibility to community leaders across the region.
As the program evolves, one thing remains clear: real change does not come from outside experts or pre-written plans. It comes from communities who already hold the tools and are now (re)discovering the power to use them. With Coady’s mission and GMIST’s innovation, ACTivate stands as proof that community-led learning can spark resilience, empowerment, and lasting impact.