About the Gathering
The Gathering is an annual pay-what-you-can event where Manitoba’s community builders connect, learn, and celebrate success.
It is open to all from staff of community organizations, to students, funders, civil servants, academics, or anyone interested in community development and community economic development.
Join us on October 24, 2025 in Winnipeg!
Registration will open in September.
For 23 years, Manitoba community builders have gathered every fall to learn from one another’s work, connect over a shared meal, and to celebrate the challenging but necessary practice of building stronger communities.
In community work, we are called to collaborate: with our colleagues, stakeholders, funders, community members, or across movements. The Gathering helps to facilitate, solidify, and forge greater collaboration between and among community builders.
It has been a privilege for us at the Canadian CED Network to host this event, and to hold the stories and history of our community sector. Thank you to every single person who has participated, volunteered, coordinated, presented, worked, sponsored, provided feedback or contributed energy to this event. It continues to exist because of you.
Location and Date
We acknowledge the place in which we gather is on Treaty 1 territory, the homeland of the Red River Métis, and the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabe, Ininiwak, and Dakota Oyate peoples. Our host location is St. John’s High School – 401 Church Avenue in Winnipeg.
The Gathering will happen on Friday, October 24, 2025. Registration begins at 8:25 am, and the Opening begins at 9:00 am. Check out our Program for the day’s schedule.
Theme for 2025:
Imagining Our Future: Moving to Transformative Action
We are surrounded by big threats – the climate crisis is intensifying, threats internally and externally to our democracy and sovereignty are a daily occurrence, and we are bearing witness to an assault on human rights globally. This is where many of us as Manitobans sit right now.
To overcome these big threats, we need to move to transformative action to envision a new future and build a space that is equitable, innovative, and just for all.
The learning opportunities of the 23rd edition of the Gathering will explore transformative action through the lens of Community Economic Development. Participants will benefit from peer learning and networking, and be challenged by speakers to shape our future as community builders.
Together, we’ll explore important questions like:
- How do we resource transformational change?
- How can we use our imagination and dream of a sustainable and just future for all?
- How will looking to the future help us in our present?
- What role will Community Economic Development play in bringing transformational change?
Join us for the Gathering 2025 – Imagining Our Future: Moving to Transformative Action – a one-of-a-kind annual event for Manitoba community builders.
NETWORK & INFORMATION SHARING: connecting community builders to share our stories and foster partnerships
MENTORSHIP & PEER LEARNING:
community-led learning focused on practices and strategies to build more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable communities and economies
ACTION & INNOVATION: creating a space for sharing successes, challenges, and questions for community building work
AGENDA SETTING: reinvigorating efforts for change in our communities organizations
The Gathering has been hosted for 23 years, originally a project of CCEDNet Manitoba and United Way Winnipeg. Now, CCEDNet Manitoba hosts the event with support from a group of fantastic community leaders from a variety of organizations.
The 2022 Gathering was the first in-person Gathering since the start of the pandemic, and our time together focused on the power of JOY – how we use it to connect to each other and strengthen our community building organizations and movements.