Our Impact
From Scarcity to Strength
Rise Calgary's "Scarcity to Strength" approach meets people where they are — stabilizing immediate needs, then supporting them to build toward longer-term opportunity.
Our Impact
From July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025, Rise Calgary supported more than 24,000 client visits and welcomed 2,658 new clients — bringing our total registered client base to 12,687.
Since 2021, we've welcomed around 2,000 new clients every year, a steady reflection of the growing need across our community.
Our mission is to reduce poverty by strengthening economic and social mobility. Through essential services, programs, and opportunities, we help people build stability, improve their well-being, and move toward a stronger future.
“Rise Calgary believes in people. We’re here to provide timely, compassionate, and accessible support to our customers, while they work to achieve their goals.”
Stabilization: The Journey Starts With Stability
People facing poverty often have to focus on immediate needs before they can plan ahead. At this stage, we help address urgent personal, financial, and housing challenges, creating the stability needed to move forward.
distributed through the Basic Needs Fund
returned to low-income Calgarians through our tax programs
people supported through Financial Navigation
housing advocacy interactions
Mobility: Building Skills for Long-Term Stability
As clients build stability, they begin developing the skills, strategies, and networks needed to move forward. Reliance on emergency support decreases while food security, housing stability, and overall well-being improve through ongoing coaching and goal-setting.
career, employment, and job-related coaching interactions
hours of employment coaching
hours of mobility coaching
of coaching clients increased their financial knowledge
Empowerment: Building on Strengths
Clients build on the skills and strengths they already have, becoming better able to balance daily needs while planning for the future, even on a limited income, with ongoing access to resources and skills that support a pathway out of poverty.
increased their financial knowledge and skills
feel more confident about their finances
feel less stressed about their finances
financial coaching sessions delivered
One Journey: From Newcomer to Community Leader
When we first met "Jack" four years ago, he had recently arrived in Canada as a refugee from Syria, raising five young children with his wife — three of them living with disabilities — while she faced serious health challenges of her own.
In those early days, Jack was in our office several times a month. Together we worked through the maze of the benefits system: health and education support for his children, an AISH application and appeal for his wife, and a refugee sponsorship application for family still in danger overseas.
Then something began to shift. Jack started bringing his own laptop, completing applications himself and asking us only to review them. His confidence grew and before long he was helping other Syrian newcomers navigate the same systems, sometimes bringing them to our office, sometimes guiding them on his own.
Today, Jack rarely needs us. He's employed, his family has the support they need, and his wife's mother and sister have been approved to join them in Canada. He arrived overwhelmed by a system he didn't know. He became a leader his community relies on.
Explore the Work Behind the Impact
These results come from programs spanning basic needs, tax filing, coaching, and financial empowerment — delivered across Calgary and on Siksika Nation.