Inaugural Blog: What is Momentum 2.0?

Welcome to Momentum 2.0’s inaugural blog post!

Over the past few months, we realized when writing our news updates that the team often had more to share than what we could fit into the news section or on our social media, so we’ve decided to start a blog! We want this blog to serve many purposes; we want it to provide more information on the work we are doing  to those who want more depth than what we post on the website’s news section and our social media, we want it to allow our team (staff and volunteers) to reflect and share their experiences through being apart of Momentum 2.0, and we want to catalogue our journey, so that we don’t lose sight of where we’ve come from.

So, as first post, what better topic than what is Momentum 2.0 and why was it created?

What is Momentum 2.0?

Momentum 2.0 is a national (Canada) non-profit organization whose purpose is to empower and accompany individuals, communities, and the organizations that serve them, to reach the next stage in their development and, hopefully, allow them to make their dreams a reality. Momentum 2.0 is open to all, though it prioritizes working with under-served communities, such as First Nations, Métis and Inuit, official minority language communities, individuals living with disability, low income, or low literacy, visible minorities, 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals, among many more (for the full list, refer to the Canadian Red Cross’ definition of vulnerable populations). Momentum 2.0, despite not having charity status, has organizational purposes that were crafted to follow the CRA’s guidelines for charitable organizations, notably including:

• Advancing education of and about the barriers facing, the realities being experienced, and the best practices and drivers to support Canada’s vulnerable communities by developing and sharing learnings and knowledge, conducting research, and supporting individuals and groups through training, organizational and community development, and recognition. 

• Enhancing individual and community well-being through efforts targeting mental and physical health, breaking isolation, exploring, connecting with, and embracing one’s identity, learning about, engaging with, and sharing one’s heritage and culture, and empowering individuals, groups, and communities to be who they want to be. 

• Relieving poverty by providing material resources (e.g., clothing, food, furniture, educational material, etc.) and expertise to support and empower people living in poverty to meet their needs, so that they can overcome poverty.

• Supporting community vitality and sustainability through developing and equipping individuals, community-based organizations, and communities with the tools needed to serve vulnerable populations and grow. This is achieved through the development of methods, procedures, and toolkits, created through knowledge-based methods and pilot initiatives, that can be shared across Canada. 

As of writing this at the end of June 2025 and 10-months after legally incorporating the organization, Momentum 2.0 has a variety of projects across the province of Québec (where we are based) and will be starting a consultation of official minority-language organizations across Canada in the coming weeks, as a first foray into meeting our ambitions of being a national organization. 

Why Was Momentum 2.0 Created?

As to how Momentum 2.0 came about, the idea that would become Momentum 2.0 first took shape in 2023, when our (the founders: Eric, Helen, and Richard Walling) desire to empower and strengthen individuals and communities was confronted with our discontent towards the status quo that exists in many community-oriented sectors, which reinforces paternalism and greed, stifling innovation and, ultimately, harming those who need services the most. From our long history in the community sector, particularly working as consultants and/or bystanders with underserved communities (nearly 100 years of combined experience), we’ve witnessed many situations where we were powerless to act on.

Examples include gross conflict of interest (e.g., board members of an organization refusing to allow it to apply on funding to reduce competition/increase potential funding for their own organizations or using smaller organizations to funnel funding towards their organizations, instead of helping the organization grow), complacency and apathy towards effectively serving their community (e.g., organizations not making meaningful efforts to reach out to potential clients/members, usually those that would need the services the most, and concentrating significant resources around a small pool of participants/clients), a lack of organizational capacity, particularly related to project management (e.g., many very interesting projects that fall to the water due to community organizations not being able to enact their vision), and, as a product of much of the prior, very siloed work, leading to both duplication and gaps in services. Those who suffer the most from these issues are not the organizations, but the individuals and communities who need services, particularly those whose voices are marginalized and rarely heard.

By early 2024, the desire to start a non-profit dedicated to the development and empowerment of Canada’s vulnerable communities (what would become Momentum 2.0) was present. However, multiple events between May and June 2024 catalyzed the transition of Momentum 2.0 from an idea and a desire to a reality. We will go into more detail on these specific situations in future blog posts.

Where is Momentum 2.0 Now?

Since our incorporation on September 6^th, 2024, Momentum 2.0 has been true to its name, developing active and prospective partnerships with 50 organizations and applying on about a dozen grants for a total requested funding of $872,762.05 for the 2025-2026 fiscal year. Our current success rate on the applications we’ve heard back from is 63% (we’re still awaiting responses from 20%). To this, we add the incredible generosity of John Roy, who has provided us with around $15,000 worth of clothing and sporting equipment, alongside Eric Walling who has provided Momentum 2.0 with around $52,000 in cash to support the organization’s development. All of this has allowed us to hire a project coordinator and three summer students. Needless to say that we are incredibly proud of what we have been able to achieve in such a short time!

Our currently active projects include the finalization of research on the best practices to develop intergenerational initiatives, a project to encourage senior women to shine and empower those around them, research and development of community networks to support youth dealing with substance abuse, the development of sports and wellness programming in First Nation communities, the co-development of an environmental and cultural education programming with First Nation schools, the development and delivery of digital literacy programming with vulnerable populations, especially those on Quebec’s North Shore, and a consultation of official language minority organizations across Canada. We are also exploring around a dozen funding opportunities to apply for between September and the end of the calendar year. Additionally, we will also be creating our first strategic plan over the summer, and will explore how to diversify our funding, notably by reaching out to and partnering with for-profit corporations, during the fall.

The future is bright and we look forward to sharing our journey together!