If you were told you could have a say in how millions of dollars are distributed to local charities, would you be interested? If you could help guide important decisions made by governments, universities and organizations throughout Greater Victoria, would you?
In 2017, 1,498 Greater Victoria residents did just that when they took part in our online Vital Signs survey.
The survey is used to help produce Victoria鈥檚 Vital Signs report, an annual community checkup that looks at how our region is performing in 12 key issue areas, such as housing, transportation and environmental sustainability.
Each issue area is given a letter grade based on your input, such as 鈥渆conomy,鈥� which received a B- in 2017, up from a C+ in 2016. For each topic, we also ask you to choose three things to celebrate and three things to improve.
This report then goes on to play a key role in how the Victoria Foundation makes its granting decisions, not to mention the many charities, governments and other organizations we hear from who tell us they use Vital Signs at all levels of decision-making.
We would love to see some groups of residents have more representation in the survey. Youth, for instance, did not have much of a presence in 2017, with those age 24 and under at just four per cent of respondents.
Hearing from more people living outside the core would also be good. Last year, 40 per cent of respondents said they lived in the City of Victoria, and a quarter came from Saanich. From there, the drop-off is sharp, ranging from seven per cent from Oak Bay to two per cent from both Colwood and North Saanich.
Seven out of 10 said they had lived in Greater Victoria for more than 10 years. While it makes sense that those who have been here the longest have the most to say, we really value hearing from those who are new to our community and might have a fresh outlook to contribute.
Women also made up 72聽per cent of respondents. This puts us in something of a rare position for these times: We want to hear from more men. And if the survey included more transgender people, we would be thrilled about that, too, since they represented less than one per cent of respondents last year.
We want you to be heard, and the Vital Signs survey is our way of making that happen. So, please, starting on May 7, head to victoriafoundation.ca to find the survey and help guide our community鈥檚 future.
Sandra Richardson is CEO of the Victoria Foundation.
