Surveys and sessions
We offer survey development and analysis, as well as interviews and focus groups with diverse communities. This is often used to support equity reviews and strategy development and provides a more nuanced understanding of staff and community barriers and recommendations for change. We conduct interviews and consultations with the leadership team, staff members, external communities or others identified by the organization in multiple languages, including French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic and others.
The Diversity Institute provides comprehensive survey development and analysis, as well as interviews and focus groups with diverse communities. These services support equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) assessments and strategy development, offering deepers insights into barriers and actionable recommendations. We engage directly with leadership teams, staff members, external communities and key stakeholders, conducting interviews and focus groups in multiple languages—including French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic and others—to ensure broad and inclusive representation.
Examples of our previous work include:
We collaborated with the City of Markham to create a Diversity Action Plan and an Eliminating Anti-Black Racism Action Plan. To develop these documents, we led a robust engagement process with Indigenous Peoples, racialized and Black communities, persons with disabilities, members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, people of different religions, seniors, youth and business owners in various languages like Mandarin, Cantonese, Tamil and Farsi. This was coupled with a city-wide survey. This external engagement was coupled with perspectives from City staff to understand barriers and recommendations for the final strategies.
We conducted a comprehensive environmental scan and prepared a report on the current state of health equity within the Niagara Region. We also conducted a series of consultations and surveys with Niagara Ontario Health Team (NOTH) partners, liaisons and members to support the research on gaps and barriers to accessing healthcare services and to gain internal perspectives. Consultations were implemented in all stages of this project including the development of a curated definition for Health Equity, the development of a health equity tool, and the development of a best practices and resources guide to ensure they meet the needs of the organization.
We developed the Reimagining Black Futures in Vaughan: Addressing Anti-Black Racism Action Plan through community engagement with diverse Black communities in the City of Vaughan and organizations within the GTA serving Black individuals, families and communities. This plan included Black seniors, youth, members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, newcomers and business owners. This was also coupled with a city-wide survey to better understand community needs and recommendations for change. Subsequent workshops were held with communities to share findings and the draft strategy.
We developed the Empowering Change: A Comprehensive EDI Strategy: 2024-2030. This strategy included internal city interviews and focus groups, as well as community sessions to understand community needs. We led both online and in-person sessions with communities in multiple languages like Arabic, Mandarin, and Punjabi to understand existing barriers and recommendations for change related to the City as an employer, policy maker, service provider and purchaser of goods and services.
We developed standards documents for the Government of Canada’s 50 – 30 Challenge (external link) . We developed three separate standards documents including two Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) and a Technical Specification (TS) to support the Challenge. The development included convening multiple Expert Committees to review content as well as multiple national engagement processes in English and French. This included virtual consultations and an online public review, garnering feedback from hundreds of people and organizations across Canada.
We developed The Black Experience Project, in collaboration with the Environics Institute. We engaged 1500 people in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) who self-identify as Black in extensive group consultations and interviews. The results provided a better understanding of the challenges Black individuals face and gave direction for policies and initiatives that support the Black community.
We assessed the state of EDI in the GTA real estate market by partnering with the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB). The collaboration produced a landmark study based on a survey distributed to the 60,000+ TRREB members across the GTA and consultations with the TRREB Diversity and Inclusion Taskforce. A key finding was the need for training and education to empower members to effectively navigate the GTA’s increasingly diverse and dynamic real estate market and industry. DI also curated workshops geared towards both TRREB members as well as managers and brokers to better support them in integrating EDI in their daily work.
We conducted research on barriers to inclusion and access to care for equity-deserving groups, within the organization and among the communities served. This involved developing comprehensive surveys for staff and volunteers and clients (adults and youth). The survey results were analyzed using disaggregated data and thematic coding, providing valuable qualitative and quantitative insights. These findings, alongside the Diversity Assessment Tool (DAT) analysis, informed the creation of a best practices toolkit and guided the development of targeted training sessions to support further EDI implementation.