Jennifer Gordon Email & Phone Number

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Mobilizing the 30 actions from the Plan to End Chronic Homelessness together with non-profit organizations, those with living experience, regional council, municipal government and the greater community of people caring for those experiencing homelessness.

Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

Pineapple Flags is a capacity building enterprise that supports the social impact, non-profit and creative sectors. As the Founder and Creative Specialist I offer a variety of services including: research & evaluation, grant writing, program and curriculum design, social impact coaching, arts-based community building, and arts-based facilitation.Pineapple Flags mission is to help social enterprise, organizations, community groups, academics and individuals to work past innovation barriers and maximize their impact on the collective good.https://pineappleflags.ca/

Cambridge, Ontario, Canada

Working closely with the Director of Communications and Advocacy and the YWCA Cambridge team, I engage in community-based research and networking to identify and develop advocacy priorities and implement the organizations advocacy strategy. YWCA Cambridge's advocacy is dedicated to taking forward issues that affect cis and trans women and girls and non-binary and two-spirit individuals, doing so through innovative intersectional feminist responses and efforts.

153 Frederick Street, Kitchener

In this role I am responsible for building the agencies (and communities) capacity to be responsive to important issues in our community as it relates to gender-based violence and the issues that inform it. I provide leadership to a committee of stakeholders involved in this work that provide strategic direction and expertise on region wide initiatives that work toward a Waterloo Region that acknowledges and rejects gender-based violence. Elements of this position include community organizing, relationship building, capacity building activities, public education, research, online advocacy campaigns, digital community building, policy advocacy, a podcast, blog and collaborative events. www.thefeministshift.ca

153 Frederick Street, Kitchener Ontario

Director of Youth Services As the Director of Youth Services I identified new opportunities and initiatives to support the organizations strategic goal of building out a youth services department. I was responsible for identifying community needs through systems level analysis, completing grant applications and identifying untraditional funding opportunities, creating strategic partnerships and engaging the community in our programming. I set and maintained our department budget, provided supervision to staff, students and volunteers in delivering programming and completed evaluations and funder reporting. I was also responsible for department marketing and participant recruitment.Director of EntrepreneurshipUnder my leadership I developed the YW Kitchener-Waterloo In Her Shoes social enterprise (www.inhershoesyw.com) that focused on working with marginalized women to develop entrepreneurial skills to build their business ideas and start their own business. I was collaboratively responsible for the development of the In Her Shoes social enterprise business, including developing our website and online selling platform through Shopify (instagram selling, facebook selling, ebay, and google shopping), developing processes for our online business (shipping, returns, etc.), developing our social media platforms, marketing plan and communications strategy as well as the set up of our bricks and mortar store and developing our training launchpad. In addition, we developed an 8-week training curriculum that was responsive to the growth needs of women looking to explore entrepreneurship as a way to gain financial stability. In the summer of 2019, In Her Shoes was the recipient of two federally funded grants scaling the program 1000% and introducing a new focus on employment and youth as well as exclusively supporting newcomer women.

153 Frederick Street, Kitchener

Worked to develop programming responsive to the needs of girls, trans, two-spirited and non-binary youth in Kitchener- Waterloo. My work included writing funding proposals, building program curriculums, engaging stakeholders, conducting needs assessments and program evaluation work. I worked from an anti-oppressive feminist lens that centred on issues around youth resiliency and well-being

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Intersectional cross-disability research and development at a national and local level. My job tasks vary based on project goals and expertise needs. Current focus is on social impact, digital community building, grant writing, and community based research.

Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

Local Character is a women's artist collective centralized in Downtown Kitchener, Ontario. One arm of Local Character serves as an incubator for artists to build their digital and e-commerce skills, scale their artisan businesses, and share skills through our collaborative website selling our individual art . The other arm of Local Character is arts based community development work where we take a portion of our proceeds from sales to infuse back into the community into projects that encourage creativity, build connections and break isolation.While I am the founder and provide support and resources to the development of our model, Local Character is designed as a collective where folks share leadership, build direction together, and lend their expertise.

Wilfrid Laurier University - Kitchener, Canada Area

- Manage a variety of research projects varying in size. Ensure research processes, goals are set and timelines and deliverables are met, establish and maintain communication with stakeholders including community partners, research participants, and funders. Work with the research team assigned to each project to ensure a smooth working process, strong leadership and interpersonal communication.-Write grant and funding proposals for future research, as well as work with community organizations to secure funding for their research needs.- Responsible for the development of promotional and communication documents such as newsletters, website updates and knowledge mobilization related to our research projects and findings.- Navigate and balance partnership expectations between the university, MCCHR, community partners, funders and service users.- Prepare final research reports as well as prepare reports for publication.

Wilfrid Laurier University, Kitchener Ontario

- Conduct university-community based research including: Qualitative and quantitative data collection, data analysis, report writing, formal presentations, and developing training tools/ facilitation.- Experience coordinating/managing and conducting all aspects of research projects from inception and defining goals, through data collection, analyzing results and formal reporting.- Well versed in evaluations, needs assessments, arts based methodology and research concerning women’s issues.- Provide mentorship for students, research assistants and volunteers within the scope of research projects.- Experienced in a variety of research methods including quantitative surveys, semi-structured/structured interviews, case studies, program evaluations, environmental scans and participant observation.- Ensuring ethical guidelines are followed: Obtain informed consent, data collection, reporting and storing, maintaining confidentiality.Milestones- Conducted over 300+ interviews.- Conducted 30+ focus groups for various unique projects- Worked with close to 30 agencies and collaboratives in Kitchener-Waterloo and throughout Ontario.- Known for being able to network and build community capacity to secure participants from hard to reach communities.

In this role I coordinated and facilitated multi-agency cross-sectional planning tables to innovate around support barriers experienced by individuals experiencing 15+ years of persistent homelessness. This work involved identifying and addressing systemic barriers within the social service sector in Waterloo Region and working collaboratively to develop and amend policy, planning processes and programming opportunities to strengthen our collective community capacity.

Ba, Psychology & Sociology

Activities and Societies: President- Habitat for Humanity WLU Chapter (2004-2007),Focused on community and social psychology.

Masters Of Social Work, Communities, Policy, Programs And Organizations

Activities and Societies: Student Representative: - Divisional Council and MSW Curriculum, Admissions, Practicum and Student.

Post Grad Certificate, Social Media Marketing

Focused on building online communities and social media marketing through research & evaluation, development of online strategies.