Our Impact
She Belongs: Finding your role. Finding your voice. Finding your community.
2022 wasn’t an election year for municipalities, but it was a year where continued action, events, and dialogue to support and amplify women and gender-diverse people in municipal leadership remained critical. At Ask Her YYC, 2022 was a year of dialogue with our community, volunteers, supporters, and partner organizations. Our focus was on creating awareness about the need and important benefits of creating gender parity in municipal leadership. We did this through partnerships with community groups and in launching our “She Belongs” event series.
Moving the needle on the representation of women in municipal leadership
In 2020, we launched our flagship program, Prepare Her, and launched supplementary programs, including Mentor Her and Campaign School (in partnership with Equal Voice). Over 140 women participated in these programs. Of these women, 13 ran in the 2021 election for multiple municipalities and for school board trustee. Today, four sit as elected City Councillors, two in Calgary, one in Airdrie and another in Okotoks.
And this impact doesn’t even cover the dozens more who have been inspired to volunteer on a campaign, work in policy and government, or participate in other forms of community leadership. Or the awareness built in media commentary, events, and social media outreach.
Parity by 2025
We have a vision to see parity on Calgary City Council by 2025. To get there, we need a pipeline of candidates and supporters ready for when the time comes. That means we need to ask, prepare, and champion women and gender-diverse people now. Prepare Her is Ask Her’s flagship program that helps potential candidates build the necessary skills, acumen, and leadership to execute a successful campaign. Cohort 3 kicks off in September and applications are open now.
In addition to Prepare Her, our focus over the next couple of years will also include:
Advocating for supportive policy: Identifying Ask Her’s positions on policy topics and communicating those to the public and to policymakers to further Ask Her's mission and increase advocacy capacity.
Building and amplifying Ask Her’s community: Deepening fundraising and outreach efforts to ensure the organization is sustainable and supported throughout 2022 and beyond.
Our vision:
We believe that City Council should look like the community it serves
Our mission:
We believe that City Council is stronger, better, and more effective when it reflects the community it serves. We advance inclusive and equitable representation by preparing women of diverse backgrounds to engage in municipal leadership.