Community Coordination Plan

Developed in partnership with United Way Greater Toronto, the Community Coordination Plan works with more than 300 community-based organizations and other partners. The partnership model implements service coordination and hyper-local solutions, as well as systems-level planning, to meet the needs of Toronto’s equity-deserving communities.

The Community Coordination Plan is made up of ten geographic Clusters and two population-focused Clusters, including:

  • A Black Resilience Cluster for Black-serving, Black-led and Black-focused (B3) community organizations
  • A Newcomer Cluster for community organizations supporting migrants, refugees and undocumented Torontonians

View Community Coordination Plan Clusters Map

Find your Community Development Officer and learn how to get involved in the Community Coordination Plan.

Cluster Operation & Collaboration

Each Community Coordination Plan Cluster is facilitated by City staff and United Way Greater Toronto staff who convene community organization leadership in virtual meetings on a regular basis. Each Cluster collaborates on:

  • Real time issues management
  • Identifying and addressing strategic priorities and emerging needs
  • Supporting access to resources
  • Tracking, analyzing and reporting on trends, gaps and solutions
  • Escalating systemic challenges through identified City and United Way Greater Toronto channels

Community Resilience Framework

In responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, the City, United Way Greater Toronto, and Community Coordination Plan Cluster partners identified the need to prioritize community resilience and sector preparedness to address future urban shocks through strategic collaboration. Through evaluation and ongoing conversations with partners, it was jointly determined that creating a common set of actions and readiness factors for each Cluster would be essential to mobilizing the unique capacity developed since the start of the Community Coordination Plan

The City, United Way Greater Toronto, and Community Coordination Plan Cluster partners are prioritizing community resilience and sector preparedness to:

  • Support organizational capacity building
  • Address future climate, public health and/or human service emergencies
  • Ensure equitable responses to urgent and emerging needs and recovery
  • Embed strategic and coordinated collaboration across the Community Coordination Plan platform, in partnership with relevant City divisions

 

Pilot Project

Led by the Canadian Red Cross and funded by United Way Greater Toronto, the Community Coordination Plan Community Resilience Pilot aimed to better understand the readiness level of Community Coordination Plan partner organizations and pathways to Cluster-wide response when faced with climate-related disasters and human-related and other emergencies.

Pilot Activities

Working with the North Etobicoke and East York Don Valley Clusters, the pilot included:

  • Assessment of assets, gaps and vulnerabilities of participating organizations through the Ready Rating Program
  • Identification of capacities, strengths and opportunities in each pilot Cluster
  • Creation of a common set of actions and readiness factors for each pilot Cluster
  • Completion of a simulation activity, designed and implemented by Canadian Red Cross staff, with each pilot Cluster

Pilot activities were tracked through the Pilot Reference Group, a collaborative of internal City staff and external community partners, facilitated by Health Commons Solutions Lab. This group focused on systems level planning that would support Community Coordination Plan future state development based on pilot learnings.

With future shocks and stressors inevitable and a strong foundation already in place through the Community Coordination Plan, creating a clear, actionable roadmap to strengthen collective resilience and guide how we respond, recover, and adapt as a city is critical.

A Roadmap for Community Resilience

Jointly developed with the members of the Canadian Red Cross Pilot Reference Group and other key system actors, the roadmap outlines the activities required for the Community Coordination Plan to work towards building a more resilient system for response and recovery from future shocks and stressors. Activities are organized around four overarching components.

Four Components of the Resilience Roadmap

To help organize the work ahead, Health Commons Solutions Lab identified four themed components of the Resilience Roadmap, including:

  1. Resilient Cluster Infrastructure: Strengthen cluster capacity to address ongoing stressors while also establishing tools and processes that support effective community response within and between clusters.
  2. City-wide Partnerships: Identify and strengthen key city-wide partnerships to enable coordinated responses to a wide range of urgent human needs during crises.
  3. Resilience Hubs: Recognizing The City and United way Greater Toronto’s existing and planned hubs as critical social infrastructure, outline how Community Coordination Plan partners can collaborate with community hubs to explore their evolution into resilience hubs through partner engagement, role definition, and resource development.
  4. Continuous Learning & Evaluation: Embed a continuous learning and evaluation framework to reflect on past experiences, integrate lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and other emergencies, and adapt through shared learning as we work toward shared resilience goals.

The City, United Way Greater Toronto and Health Commons Solutions Lab established the Community Coordination Plan City-Wide Resilience Table as a result of the work of the Canadian Red Cross Pilot Reference Group.

Purpose & Partners

The Table is a focused, strategic connector that brings together community intelligence and City expertise to strengthen Toronto’s readiness, response, and recovery across recurring and emerging pressures.

The Table’s goals include:

  • Shared awareness, alignment, and coordination across sectors – particularly in advance of and during emergencies
  • Support of shared readiness and collective problem-solving around Toronto-specific scenarios
Community Coordination Plan City-Wide Resilience Table Partners
Partner Name Affiliation
Health Commons Solutions Lab Sinai Health System, Core Partner
United Way Greater Toronto Non-Profit Sector Lead, Core Partner
Social Development - Community Development Unit City Division, Core Partner
Social Development - Poverty Reduction Strategy Office City Division
Social Development - Toronto Newcomer Office City Division
Toronto Emergency Management City Division
Environment, Climate & Forestry City Division
Toronto Public Health City Division
Toronto Public Library City Agency
Canadian Red Cross Non-Profit Sector Lead
211 Toronto Non-Profit Sector Lead
Volunteer Toronto Non-Profit Sector Lead
Social Planning Toronto Non-Profit Sector Lead
North York Harvest Food Bank Non-Profit Sector Lead

 

2025 Heat Season Survey

The City and United Way Greater Toronto worked with Health Commons Solutions to survey 67 Community Coordination Plan Cluster partners across the ten geographic and two population-focused Clusters following the 2025 heat season. Participating Cluster partners and members of the Community Coordination Plan City-Wide Resilience Table were convened in April 2026 to review the results and understand the newly developed Community Coordination Plan Heat Readiness Tool.

2026 Proposed Pilot Projects

In response to the survey summary and based on discussions with the Community Coordination Plan City-wide Resilience Table, The City, United Way Greater Toronto and Health Commons Solutions Lab developed two small-scale, community-centred heat relief pilot options. The projects will be aligned with United Way Greater Toronto’s  Resilience Hub Pilots at Rexdale Community Hub and Thorncliffe Park Hub.

The Community Coordination Plan Resilient Partnerships Grant was designed for current Community Coordination Plan partners to implement projects that focus on:

  • Community resilience training or workshops for organization staff, such as climate adaptation or emergency preparedness
  • Multi-organization capacity building, including systems partnership strengthening for resilience and/or emergency readiness
  • Conferences or knowledge-sharing events that promote inter-organizational learning
  • Collaborative planning efforts focused on resilience and sustainability outcomes

Projects were developed by project teams across two geographic clusters that align with the regional Connects geography.

  • North and South Etobicoke Clusters
  • Black Creek Humber Summit and York Weston Pelham Clusters
  • Downtown East and West Clusters
  • North York and East York Don Valley Clusters
  • North and South Scarborough Clusters
  • The Newcomer and Black Resilience Clusters are activating individual projects tailored to the priorities of each population-focused Cluster

    The Toronto Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy is the City of Toronto’s action plan for ensuring that each of our neighbourhoods can succeed and thrive. The Toronto Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy supports healthy communities across Toronto by partnering with residents, community agencies and businesses to invest in people, services, programs and facilities in 33 identified Neighbourhood Improvement Areas (NIAs). The strategy aims to activate people, resources and neighbourhood-friendly policies to deliver local impact for city-wide change.

    Learn more about how you can get involved today!
    Date modified: May 26, 2026