Announcing Hive Toronto 2017 Membership Cycle


Hive Toronto is excited to announce that we will be launching our new membership cycle on January 20, 2017 at 9 AM EST. This year Hive Waterloo Region and Hive NYC launching their own membership cycles during the same time frame as well. This allows teams to utilize aligned language and efforts to welcome a new cohort of members in 2017.

Over the past few months, Hive Learning Networks in Chicago, Toronto, and New York City have been collaboratively working to create consistent membership structures across all cities. During the process, we took a deep dive into each city’s current membership processes and documentation. We identified strengths and major gaps within each city’s membership process, such as non-inclusive membership categories, irregular membership cycles, lengthy applications processes, and inconsistent on-boarding of new members.

This cross-city alignment has been incredibly rewarding, yielding a simplified and more inclusive membership process with the potential of alignment of membership cycles in all cities and greater potential of cross-city collaboration. Part of this cross-city alignment is the development and implementation of the new Community Ally category. This tier will now allow us to engage with informal community organizers, coalitions and social justice workers and more. We believe that this is a first step to ensure improved efforts of inclusive practice within the network.

Here’s a snapshot of what our new membership will look like:

Types of Membership

Hive Member

Organizations or institutions that:

  • Must be a registered not for profit in Canada(this requirement is necessary to apply for Hive Toronto mini-grant funding)
  • Provide youth development and learning opportunities directly to young people in the Greater Toronto Area.
  • Invest in increasing access and equity in education through digital media and web literacy.
  • Commit to ongoing learning and innovation for both educators and youth participants.
  • Commit to creating and contributing to inclusive learning environments within and outside of their organization.

Community Ally

Organizations that are aligned with Hive’s core principles and practices but do not meet Hive Member criteria. This can include community organizing groups, community focused coalitions etc.

These groups showcase a commitment to:

  • Invest in increasing access and equity in education through digital media and web literacy.
  • Commit to ongoing learning and innovation for both educators and youth participants.
  • Commit to creating and contributing to inclusive learning environments within and outside of their organization.

All member organizations and community allies must agree to Hive Toronto MOU.

Next Steps

These revised Hive Toronto Member Guidelines will inform our New Member Application cycle, which will go live in January 20, 2017.

As a community, this is an exciting move for us all and I’d like to hear your thoughts on the new strategic direction. I’d be happy to discuss this further with you. Please feel free to get in contact with me at simona@mozillafoundation.org