Social Innovation, Community Building

Needed: Community Animators
Type: vol./ exchange ($250+/month value) (see below)
Organization: Centre for Social Innovation
Location: 192 Spadina Avenue, Toronto ON

Looking for a volunteer or work-exchange opportunity to grow your skills, live your values, and contribute to meaningful social change?

Join a community where you’ll build relationships, tap into professional networks, and support solutions that put people and the planet first!

The Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) is seeking seeking committed volunteers to join our Community Animator Program (CAP) who are excited to support our staff and members in fostering positive change. 

As a Community Animator, you’ll contribute one day per week for six months alongside our team in exchange for unlimited coworking space, plus all the perks of being a CSI Member.

If you’re excited about growing professionally, building meaningful connections, and becoming part of a vibrant community, we’d love to hear from you – apply now!
 

• The commitment: Exchange 7 hours on a dedicated day, once per week, for a 6-month term (April 6 – October 9, 2026)
• The benefit: Free CSI membership, including unlimited hot desking, and inclusion to our vibrant, innovative community.
   

Who are Community Animators?

Since the Community Animator program started in 2010, we’ve enrolled 1,500+ participants from all walks of life and from all over the world.

We’re looking for Community Animators with a friendly, welcoming energy who are interested in learning about and contributing to our animation, operations, and facilities needs. Community Animators are diverse, but what many have in common is that they are in transition, whether academic, geographic, personal, and/or professional. The program represents an opportunity to refine or reinvent themselves and to re-pivot their knowledge, skills, and networks. CSI strives to create an environment where people who share our values can practice the fun and friction of working together.

What also draws Community Animators together is a common desire to support each other and our members with excellent customer service, radical hospitality, and a commitment to approaching tasks, projects, and placemaking with sincerity and goodwill. Community Animators are the glue that keeps our community together and the glitter that makes it sparkle.

Immersing yourself in the program is great for anyone looking to build community, eager to learn and serve, and interested in expanding their teamwork and networks. Who knows where this experience could lead you?

 

What Can Community Animators Do?

Community Animators work closely with CSI staff to prepare, maintain, and animate our non-profit community hub and coworking space at 192 Spadina Ave., so that our members and guests can have a consistently positive and productive experience.

Community Animators work with CSI staff to efficiently and gracefully handle whatever member service request comes their way. They ensure the feel, flow, and function of the building and community keep going strong. Community Animators work in small teams of 5–7 people per day alongside staff to cover a wide variety of both predictable and spontaneous circumstances. Communication, training, and reliability are key factors to success.

Specifically, Community Animators are trained and called on to perform parts of three roles:

1. Welcome and assist every CSI Member and guest with a proactive attitude that helps them navigate their way through the building. Community Animators perform a wide variety of functions: handling in-person, phone, and desktop inquiries; resetting meeting rooms; refilling coffee stations and stock supplies; running the dishwasher and tidying kitchens; and processing mail and package deliveries. If you like front-facing customer service, cleaning and organizing, problem-solving, and checking off to-do lists, then a Community Animator’s operations aspects may be right up your alley.
    
2. Act as host and ambassador for CSI. You may be shopping, preparing, cleaning up, and animating our weekly rituals (‘Salad Club’, ‘Get the Scoop’, and ‘Bagel Bonding’); or, facilitating connections between individuals and organizations; taking visitors on sales tours; or, helping set up chairs, tables, and lights for an event. Community Animators are comfortable offering support in an appropriate and culturally competent manner with a diverse range of staff, members, and guests. If you like expressing CSI’s values and mission, getting to know and connecting people, and logistically supporting events, then a Community Animator’s animation aspects may suit you well.
    
3. Improve the design and function of our 60,000 sf building. With our facilities and tech staff, you may find yourself tackling AV, phone, printer, or network problems; or, monitoring mechanical systems; or, hanging art, painting walls, and moving furniture; or, procuring sustainable supplies; or, implementing waste reduction practices; or, improving our accessibility, health and safety practices. If you want to learn more about how things work and how to fix them, or you bring technical skills to offer and like going where you’re needed on short notice, then a Community Animator’s facilities aspects may fit you like a glove.

On the days that Community Animators are not working their shift, they are welcome to participate in the wider variety of activities and events that CSI and its individual and organizational members offer to foster connections and engagement. As a matter of fact, we hope you do! 

How to apply:

Please fill out the application form by Friday, March 6 here.

Please mention you saw this at GoodWork.ca.

Thank you for your interest in becoming a Community Animator at the Centre for Social Innovation!