Pathways to Education Canada is operating in an increasingly complex and uncertain environment, needing to address changes impacting the charitable sector, social services sector, and education sectors. Meanwhile, the needs facing youth are shifting in increasingly uncertain and changing times. With this in mind, Pathways Canada engaged Creative Futures to deliver a future-oriented strategic planning process.

Our Approach:

• Background document review to understand current context and work completed to date;

• Research and analysis of key trends impacting the future of Pathways Canada in 2040;

• Interviews with key stakeholders to understand current and future needs of youth, and challenges facing the organization;

• A French focus group with Quebec program partners to understand the unique Quebec context;

• Two foresight workshops with internal and external stakeholders, exploring possible future scenarios of Pathways to Education, and critical steps needed to respond;

• Synthesis of key themes, insights, and emerging priority areas into an Interim Report;

• Strategic Planning Retreat with Strategic Planning Committee to co-develop a refreshed vision, strategic direction, and focus areas;

• A staff retreat to review work completed to date, and identify a set of refreshed values;

• Delivery of a final strategic plan and implementation plan, with strategic priorities, actions, metrics, and method for evaluating the plan.

Results:

During the first phase of the project it became clear that for the strategic plan to be successful, it needed to provide meaningful opportunities for Pathways Canada’s community of partners, alumni, staff, Board of Directors, and funders to provide input. As such, Creative Futures worked closely with the Pathways Canada team to design and deliver a process that provided multiple touch points with key stakeholders, while ensuring the final stages of the plan’s development was led by the Pathways Canada team. As such, leading up to approval, Creative Futures supported the Pathways Canada team to take ownership over the final steps of the plan’s development, refining language and collaboratively developing the implementation plan. Despite a variety of leadership changes at the organization throughout the project, Creative Futures and the Pathways to Education Canada remained on track, and took the strategic plan to their board for approval in July 2025 as planned.