Support Services to the Voluntary Sector

The Social Planning Council lends its experience in social research, policy analysis, and community consultation to not-for-profit organizations and individuals through the provision of the following services:

Information Requests
The Social Planning Council operates as a clearinghouse for information on the socio-demographic and socio-economic make-up of Ottawa, on social issues of concern to residents, and on the voluntary sector in Ottawa. Our clients may access our centralized database, containing census electronic data, local administrative data, as well as SPC-developed data on Ottawa's social sector, by submitting an information request to Dianne Urquhart.

Custom Research
The Social Planning Council is available to partner with not-for-profit organizations, community groups or academia in meeting their research needs. Our researchers are skilled in quantitative and qualitative analysis on economic and social issues, the design and management of research projects, participatory research methodologies, group facilitation, social mapping, and research project coordination. Learn more...

Public Presentations
The Social Planning Council is available to speak at public events or meetings on social issues.

Social Mapping
The Social Planning Council has developed an exciting infrastructure to enable voluntary and health sector organizations to do their own social mapping.  For more information, visit the Community Information and Mapping System.

As well, the Social Planning Council provides mapping services to its clients/members or on contract. We use a Geographic Information System that integrates geo-spatial data and clients' local data on specific issues that concern our clients. Laying out your issues on maps adds value to the eloquence of your data and facilitates decision making.

Bring us your data or tell us what is your concern and we will produce maps on "where on earth your issues lie", what are relevant social or economic trends, and how your issue inter-relates with other issues.

Free socio-economic data
The Social Planning Council provides free socio-economic data both on-line and in our fact sheets.