Twinned Communities will first engage in a pilot project to determine opportunities for policy and process refinement prior to wide-spread rollout of the model. A variety of community types will be welcomed as participants. Outcomes of the pilot project will be; Benchmark research on current levels and destinations of current foreign aid originating form each of the pilot communities; A fully functional database populated website that can expand to any number of community twinnings; Initial community relationships established in a minimum of ten community twinnings A strategic plan for global expansion of the model including marketing and financial plans.
		A variety of factors will be considered in the selection of communities; existing in extreme or moderate poverty (In The End of Poverty by Jeffery Sachs, the author convincingly argues the benefits of efforts that lift the poorest countries to a level that although still poor, have broken out of the cycle of poverty that inhibits them from attaining economic growth. In moderate poverty, more than 25% of the population lives on less than $2/day; in extreme poverty, less than $1/day.) national ranking on the Human Poverty Index degree of economic freedom within the country (including prevalence of corruption) the existence of a local champion in both communities (or ease of creating one) diversification across the entire set of pilot communities in terms of community size, demographics and/or region others yet to be determined – The Advisory Committee will be providing additional selection criterion.		We are in the process of establishing pilot community twinning details. Developed communities currently include Burlington, Mississauga, and St. Catharines. Other communities outside of Ontario and Canada are currently being sought. Communities from Haiti, Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, and Rwanda are currently being considered as community twins. The Burlington, Mississauga and St. Catharines trio will focus on three communities in the same country to explore synergies of geographic proximity. If you would like to get your community involved in the pilot project, see Getting Involved.