Advocacy Capacity Building Initiative
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.
What You'll Learn
ACBI runs from June 10, 2026 through January 20, 2027. Eight learning touchpoints move participants from foundational advocacy capacity to coordinated national engagement, and back into sustained sector practice.
Advocacy 101 (Open). What advocacy is and what it is not. The role of practitioners as advocates. Building confidence and shared understanding. Open to all.
Advocacy 201 (Leadership Cohort). How policy moves through government. Identifying entry points and decision pathways. Aligning advocacy efforts with how decisions are actually made.
Advocacy 301 (Leadership Cohort). Strategy development and positioning. Message discipline and narrative clarity. Structuring effective engagement with decision-makers.
Policy and Advocacy Lab (Leadership Cohort and Champions, at the Summit). Understanding the recreation and parks policy landscape. Identifying policy opportunities. Developing and refining an advocacy strategy or policy pitch in real time, with feedback.
The arc moves from awareness, to capacity, to application, to sustained practice. Every Leadership Cohort participant and Champion completes the program with a personal advocacy plan ready to deploy.
The Four Policy Priorities
The Issue Verticals are the federal policy areas where coordinated sector advocacy can shift decisions. They are the focus of the Issue Vertical Champions track, and they shape the issue-specific briefings in the Leadership Cohort.
Infrastructure and capital investment. The condition, capacity, and reach of the recreation and parks infrastructure that communities depend on.
Workforce development. The people who plan, deliver, and lead the sector's work, and the pipeline that sustains them.
Resilience and crisis preparedness. The role of recreation and parks in community resilience, emergency response, and recovery.
Physical activity and participation. The conditions, programs, and access that allow more Canadians, in every community, to be active in their daily lives.
Each vertical is supported by a content partner who brings subject matter expertise and a capacity partner who supports delivery and engagement.
The Journey
ACBI is structured as a journey, not a series of one-off events. Forward Together Summit 2.0 is the central milestone where preparation, alignment, and shared purpose translate into action.
Pre-Summit (June to November 2026). Awareness, learning, and preparation. Webinars build capacity and a personal advocacy plan.
Forward Together Summit 2.0 (November 16 to 18, 2026, Ottawa). Application and coordinated action. Delegates further develop skills in the Policy and Advocacy Lab and the Decision-Maker Simulation, with selected participants in a coordinated Day of Action on Parliament Hill.
Post-Summit (December 2026 to January 2027). Debrief, iterate, sustain. Coordinated follow-up and continued engagement on the priority verticals.
Partners
CPRA acts as the coordinating backbone for this initiative: convening partners and participants, supporting alignment across jurisdictions, providing shared tools and messaging, and coordinating national engagement. This work is conducted in partnership with CPRA's provincial and territorial members, and is designed to strengthen, not replace, advocacy efforts within each jurisdiction.
Delivery partner: Homeward Public Affairs. Homeward brings government relations expertise and a track record supporting mission-driven organizations, and works alongside CPRA to design and deliver the program.
Vertical partners. Each vertical partner is supported by a content partner who brings subject matter expertise and a capacity partner who supports delivery and engagement. The Infrastructure and capital investment vertical is supported by IAKS as content partner and RC Strategies as capacity partner. Additional content and capacity partnerships are in development across the other verticals.
Organizations interested in becoming a champion are invited to connect with CPRA directly.
