The Taproot Edmonton Calendar gets a major update

When we launched the Taproot Edmonton Calendar, we did it because we kept hearing the same thing over and over: it’s surprisingly hard to find out what’s going on in time to actually take part.

Since then, the calendar has grown into a core part of what Taproot Edmonton does. It powers event listings in The Pulse, the Events Roundup, and our other newsletters, it helps people plan their evenings and weekends, and we regularly hear from readers that it has become one of their favourite things we offer.

In November we launched a major update to the calendar that incorporates feedback from users, improves the user experience, and provides a stronger foundation for future enhancements.

What’s new in this release

This update is a long overdue refresh that brings the calendar in line with our news and vote sites, and adds a number of features that make it easier to find what you’re looking for. We have officially taken the calendar out of beta!

A cleaner, more cohesive design

The calendar now shares the same header and navigation structure as our news and election sites, so moving between them feels more seamless. It should be easier to jump from reading the latest news to finding upcoming events in the calendar.

We’ve also reduced duplication on the front page so you are more likely to see a wide variety of events at a glance, rather than the same listings repeated in multiple sections.

Multiple ways to view events

Everyone browses events a little differently, so we’ve added a layout toolbar to every page that lists events. You can now choose:

Cards: the visual layout you’re used to, with images.
Compact cards: a more streamlined view without images.
Table: a spreadsheet-style view that’s great for scanning dates, times, and locations quickly.
List: a simple, text-forward presentation.

Pick the layout that works best for you; the calendar will remember your choice, and you can change it any time with a click.

Search and better filtering

You can now search the calendar from the box at the top of every page, or use the dedicated search page to dig deeper. Today’s search is a straightforward keyword match on event titles, organizers, and locations, with some helpful shortcuts like “start:today” to zero in on what’s happening right now.

We’ve also expanded the filter options so you can narrow things down by criteria such as time of day, alongside the categories, dates, and locations that were already available. This should make it easier to find, say, family-friendly events on Saturday afternoons, or talks and panels after work.

Behind-the-scenes improvements

We have also made several technical improvements that will help us keep the calendar running smoothly as it continues to grow. These include:

Better handling of images to improve reliability and speed.
Spam filtering to reduce the number of inappropriate events submitted.

Why this matters to us (and, we hope, to you)

The Taproot Edmonton Calendar is not a side project. It is one of the most important ways we help the Edmonton region understand itself better.

Events are where ideas are shared, relationships are built, and communities take shape. A well-curated, reliable events calendar is part of the connective tissue that helps our community function. That’s why we’re continuing to invest in it.

How you can help the calendar grow

Here are some ways you can support and benefit from the Taproot Edmonton Calendar:

Use the calendar: Visit edmonton.taproot.events when you’re planning your week, or when someone asks, “What’s going on in Edmonton?”
Submit your events: If you host events in the Edmonton region, please submit them to the calendar. It is free and easy to do, and helps more people find out about what you’re doing.
Share it: Tell your friends, colleagues, and communities about the calendar and our Events Roundup newsletter so more people can discover what’s happening.
Support our work: If you’re in a position to do so, becoming a Taproot member helps sustain the calendar and all the other work we do to keep our community informed and connected.

What’s next?

We have several additional improvements to the calendar in the works, including:

Personalization options for Taproot members, such as saving events to a personal calendar.
Enhanced search and filtering capabilities, especially related to geography.
More ways to browse related events, such as guides for specific interests or themes.

We’re also excited about better integrating the calendar with our news site, to provide a more holistic view of what’s happening in the Edmonton region.

If you have feedback, spot a bug, or have an idea for how the Taproot Edmonton Calendar could serve you better, please get in touch.

That’s a wrap on Taproot’s 2025 election project

Just as we did four years ago, it’s time to put a bow on our election project. Over the past year, the entire Taproot team has worked diligently to provide Edmonton voters with reliable intelligence about the candidates running for office in the 2025 municipal election.

Core to this effort was the Taproot Survey, a questionnaire designed to surface how the candidates running for mayor and city council in Edmonton align with voters on the issues. In the end, 74 candidates running for mayor and city council completed the survey, and more than 27,000 people answered the same survey to see how the candidates aligned with their views.

The survey itself was informed by the 950+ responses to our election question, insights gathered at listening sessions, input from our election partners, and our own observations of what Edmonton’s next city council will face. You can learn more about how we crafted the survey in our previous blog post.

In addition to the Taproot Survey, we hosted several listening sessions, built a robust election website, partnered on a mayoral forum, published dozens of articles to help voters get ready for election day, and much more.

Projects like this are a big undertaking for a small but mighty team like ours. So, in this post, we want to take a moment to reflect on what we set out to do, what we built, the impact we had, and what’s next.

Why we did this

Our mission is to help communities understand themselves better, and this election project was a great opportunity to do just that.

Curiosity is at the heart of everything Taproot does, and covering a municipal election is no different. Our approach is to ground our work in the issues voters care about, rather than engaging in the “horse race” coverage that is more interested in who’s leading in the polls and other tendencies that reduce politics to a kind of sport.

We believe that communities work best when trustworthy information is available to everyone. We provide that to our community on a regular basis, and we hoped the election project would introduce Taproot to new audiences who might benefit from our work. Early indicators suggest we succeeded in that regard, with thousands of new readers engaging with our election coverage.

Of course, while our work is free to read it is not free to make, and we’re grateful to the hundreds of Taproot members whose financial support made this project possible. If you value work like this, please consider becoming a Taproot member.

Taproot co-founder Karen Unland shared closing remarks at the mayoral forum Taproot co-hosted with the Edmonton Public Library on Oct. 9, 2025. (Colin Gallant)

What we built

The entire project began with an expression of curiosity: What issues do you care about as you consider who to vote for in the 2025 municipal election, and why?. We gathered more than 950 responses to that question, a critical foundation for the rest of our work.

In May and June, we hosted five listening sessions to dive deeper into the issues we heard about. Dozens of Edmontonians shared their time and thoughts with us online and in person, and we learned a lot.

One of the new initiatives we launched this time around was our partner program, where we collaborated with organizations to integrate their communities into the process and help amplify our election work. We were thrilled to work with 32 organizations! Each partner could choose how much or little they wanted to be involved, from sharing the election question and Taproot Survey with their networks to co-hosting events. We learned a lot that will help us improve the program for future elections, and we’re grateful for the enthusiasm and support we received from our partners.

Input from the election question responses, listening sessions, and our partners helped us craft the Taproot Survey over the summer. Distilling all of that rich input into 30 multiple-choice questions was a challenge, but we’re proud of the final product. We also spent the summer months making several improvements to the software code that powers the survey, implementing new features such as the ability for candidates to add comments alongside their multiple-choice selections.

In early September, declared candidates for mayor and city council in Edmonton were invited to complete the survey. After nomination day on Sept. 22, we invited all registered candidates, and later that week we made the survey available to voters.

By the time Election Day arrived on Oct. 20, 74 candidates had completed the survey, and more than 27,000 voters had used it to see how they aligned with the candidates.

Here are some of the other key components we built as part of this project:

We revamped our election website that served as a hub for all things election-related, including candidate information, survey results, news articles, event listings, and election results.
We co-hosted a mayoral forum with the Edmonton Public Library at the Stanley A. Milner branch and online on Oct. 9. Members of our team moderated several other candidate forums, and we even co-hosted an election-themed trivia night with the Edmonton Heritage Council.
We analyzed the campaign finance disclosures that candidates were required to file by Sept. 30, and made the data more accessible to voters at our election website.
We spoke with former city councillors about the steep learning curve that new councillors might expect.
We published dozens of articles covering various election issues, often drawing on results of our listening work. For example, we looked at what voters and candidates said about provincial relations.
Our weekly municipal affairs podcast, Speaking Municipally, featured several election-focused episodes, including interviews with some of the candidates.
We spoke about the election on CBC’s Edmonton AM every Wednesday morning leading up to the election. Members of our team also appeared on several other radio shows and podcasts to discuss the election, including This Is Edmonton and Real Talk with Ryan Jespersen.
We hosted an election debrief for Taproot members on Oct. 24, where we shared insights from the project and answered questions from members.

The impact we had

We’ve been thrilled with the response to our election project from voters, candidates, and partners alike. We’ve received many messages of thanks and appreciation for the work we’ve done, and it’s clear that our efforts have made a difference in helping people get informed and engaged in the election process.

That said, we recognize that the low voter turnout in this election — just 30.4% of eligible voters cast a ballot — is a disappointment. While our project likely helped many voters make informed choices, it’s clear that more work is needed to boost civic engagement.

Recently, we sent post-election surveys to voters, candidates, and partners to gather feedback on our election project. Here are some of the highlights from the responses we received (published with permission).

Voters

“Patty and I have been regular daily readers of Taproot since we moved to Edmonton,” David Blatt wrote. “Their coverage is always useful and comprehensive, but they did an especially magnificent job with the muncipal election, where they distributed a lengthy and thoughtful questionnaire to all mayoral and council candidates, along with a public survey, and then ran dozens of stories addressing all the major issues. They’re a great addition to the local news landscape and providing real benefit to Edmontonians new and old.”

“Taproot’s coverage of the election was unprecedented. No other organization has analyzed candidate views in this detailed way to help me make my voting choices,” Jim Stein told us.

“Taproot’s coverage of the election helped me understand the issues, evaluate candidates’ positions, and feel informed. The survey made me feel confident in my voting decisions,” Andrea Michaud told us.

“I have been recommending the Taproot election survey to anyone who will listen since the first time it was offered. It’s so useful to help get at the main issues that matter to me and how I align with the candidates. And if you haven’t been paying attention but you want to make an informed choice, it’s a great way to catch up with very little time and effort,” Kerry Powell told us.

“I really enjoyed Taproot’s election coverage, from the articles, the dashboard, and the podcast. It was a great way to stay informed about the election and gave me a great way to steer people who are less municipally inclined to get out and make an informed decision on their vote!” Bernardo R. told us.

“Great tool. Exciting to have a local, independent organization providing helpful, unbiased tools to help inform voters. Keep up the great work!” Cody Johnston told us.

Candidates

“Answering the Taproot candidate survey was an important step in my short campaign, as it helped me formulate or solidify my opinion on topics that I was aware of but hadn’t focused on during my campaign up to that point,” Jennifer Porritt, candidate for councillor in tastawiyiniwak, told us. “It gave me one of very few other forums to clearly articulate my position on a wide variety of topics that were important to voters.”

Partners

“I thought Taproot created a safe and inclusive space to participate in the conversation around election issues,” Nathan Binnema of Green Drinks YEG told us.

“Taproot’s election project gave so many in our communities access to resources and tools to help them with being informed as they headed into election season and to the polls,” Saniya Ghalehdar of She Said told us. “The Taproot team is responsive, engaged, and they truly care about informing and equipping voters. As a community member doing equity work, I feel that they were an integral part of helping build more inclusive and equitable resources for folks wanting to take part in democratic activities.”

What’s next

Our election project may be wrapping up, but our work is far from over.

We have several updates planned for our election website, including adding official election results by voting station, and adding final campaign finance disclosures when they become available in March 2026. Our team is still publishing articles related to the election, such as a recap of the swearing-in ceremony, and interviews with scrutineers about their experiences during the vote count.

But most of our attention will now turn to our regular coverage of city council. The “On the Agenda” feature, published every Monday when council is in session, provides an overview of upcoming council meetings and agenda items. Speaking Municipally, published every Friday, will continue to provide analysis and commentary about council’s decisions, and The Pulse provides the latest headlines, including those about city hall, every weekday morning.

If you value work like our election project, please become a Taproot member. There are many benefits of paid membership at the individual or organization level.

If you’re not ready to commit to membership but want to keep up-to-date on our work, subscribe to our newsletter.

By the numbers

1 key question
955 answers
5 listening sessions
30 survey questions
74 candidate responses
27,000+ voter responses

The Taproot Survey is helping voters and candidates ahead of Election Day

As we head into the final few days of the election, we want to share a few updates on our election project. If you’re still trying to decide who to vote for, we recommend taking the Taproot Survey to see which candidates align best with your views.

We have received several messages of gratitude for the Taproot Survey in recent weeks. Thanks to everyone who has reached out to us! Here are just a few of the comments we’ve received from voters:

“It is so helpful for citizens who want to become informed on the elections.”
“I came to realize how complex all the issues facing potential city councillors and potential mayors were.”
“It’s really a great way to filter out the people you’d actually vote for.”
“It was super easy and kinda fun.”

We have also heard from several candidates, who offered their thanks for the opportunity to share their views with voters. One candidate told us, “It’s an excellent way to help get Edmontonians engaged and strengthen our local democracy!”

More than 15,000 people have taken the survey so far, and we now have responses from 73 candidates, including all 13 mayoral candidates.

Please share the survey with your friends, family, and colleagues. A short link you can use is taproot.vote/match.

Recent updates

We have made several important updates to our election website since our last blog post:

Financial disclosures filed by candidates have been integrated into the website. You’ll find links on each candidate’s profile page, and we have a new page listing all the disclosures that were filed by the Sept. 30 deadline. We also wrote a story summarizing what we learned from the disclosures.
You can now more easily compare how candidates responded to the Taproot Survey. Each candidate’s profile page includes a Compare button that lets you select up to three candidates to compare side-by-side. For example, here’s a comparison of mayoral candidates Tim Cartmell, Rahim Jaffer, Andrew Knack, and Michael Walters.
Some candidates wanted to make changes to their survey responses, perhaps to fix typos or to provide answers to questions they might have skipped originally. All such changes are now reflected on the site and clearly marked as updated. The new Updates page puts them all in one place for additional transparency.
We have incorporated survey responses into the affiliation pages, so you can now see how candidates from each party responded to the survey in one place. Here are the pages for Better Edmonton and PACE.
There’s a new page listing all of the pitches that candidates submitted along with their survey responses.
We’ve made several updates to candidate profiles, including new photos and social links. Thanks to everyone who sent us updated information.

Voters and candidates on the issues

In addition to the Taproot survey, our team has been busy covering the election in other ways. You can find all our election coverage tagged #yegvote. A few highlights:

Voters and candidates on provincial relations
Voters and candidates on policing
Voters and candidates on arts funding
Voters and candidates on Indigenous relations
Voters and candidates on snow and ice clearing

Mayoral forum recap

In partnership with the Edmonton Public Library, we hosted a forum with 10 of the 13 mayoral candidates on Oct. 9. Stacey Brotzel moderated the event, which featured questions from our team and the audience.

You can watch the full recording on YouTube. We also wrote a story about what we heard from the candidates regarding infrastructure, property taxes, and infill. I also spoke about the forum during my latest segment for CBC’s Edmonton AM.

What’s next

Monday, Oct. 20 is election day, and the polls will be open from 9am to 8pm. If you’re unsure where to vote, you can use our Election Guide to find your voting station, or check out the City of Edmonton’s voter information page.

We have updated our election website with a results dashboard that will go live as soon as the polls close. We expect to receive some results on election night, but we don’t expect to know who will form the next city council until some time on Tuesday, Oct. 21. We’ll share what we know on our website and in The Pulse.

Next week’s episode of Speaking Municipally will dive into the election results. Taproot members can join us for a special edition of Taproot Exchange on Friday, Oct. 24 at 12pm where we’ll discuss what the results mean for Edmonton’s next city council. Watch your inbox for the link to join us.

Consider becoming a member

It takes a lot of work to undertake a project like this, and we couldn’t do it without the support of our members. If you value this work, please consider becoming a Taproot member. Membership is just $10/month or $100/year for individuals. If your organization would like to support our work and benefit from reliable intelligence about the Edmonton region, we also have an organizational membership option.

Candidates can now answer Taproot Edmonton’s election survey

When we first shared our election project back in March, we included a rough timeline of what to expect in the months and days leading up to the Oct. 20 municipal election. I’m happy to report that we have mostly stuck to that schedule!

Candidate survey sent, responses coming in

The latest milestone was the completion of our candidate survey, which we began sending on Sept. 6 to those running for election.

If you’re running for mayor or city council in Edmonton, you should have received an email with a link to the survey. If you haven’t, please get in touch with us at hello@taprootedmonton.ca.

The survey includes 30 questions covering a wide range of topics. It was informed by the 900+ responses to our election question, insights gathered at listening sessions, input from our election partners, and our own observations of what Edmonton’s next city council will face.

This year’s survey is an evolution of the one we developed for the 2021 municipal election, incorporating best practices and lessons learned. For example, we kept the multiple choice format, but added an optional text box for candidates to provide additional information for each question.

Last time we had 10 categories or topics with three questions each. This time, while we grouped related questions together to make completing the survey easier, we do not have a fixed number of questions per category. When drafting the survey, we organized questions into three big types. Many questions ask about a candidate’s views, some address their priorities, and some ask about action they would take. Each type of question has similar wording.

The questions are designed to be clear, concise, and easy to answer. Like last time, each question is accompanied by some brief context crafted by our editorial team to help candidates and voters better understand the issue at hand.

Every question this time has just three possible responses, plus a standard “I don’t have a position on this issue” option. Candidates can also choose to skip questions. We did our best to craft responses that will meaningfully differentiate candidates.

Everyone who filled out the 2021 survey saw the questions and responses in the same order. This time around, we are randomizing the groupings of questions and the order of responses within each question. This approach helps reduce bias.

It’s a lot of work to put together a survey like this! Our team spent many hours drafting, revising, and testing the survey to ensure it meets our expectations of clarity, fairness, and usefulness to voters.

The survey is an important step toward our goal of equipping voters with reliable, issue-focused information ahead of the election. Now we need candidates to complete it.

As of Sept. 12, we have 33 responses from candidates either completed or in progress. We are hoping to have collected most responses by Nomination Day on Sept. 22.

After that, we’ll launch our voter matching engine, which will enable voters to take the same survey to see how the candidates align with them on the issues. Thousands of Edmontonians used the tool in 2021 to help them make informed choices.

Candidates’ answers will also be displayed along with their other information on our election website, (as we did in 2021).

Taproot Edmonton is partnering with the Edmonton Public Library on its mayoral forum on Oct. 9, 2025. Learn more.

More opportunities to learn where candidates stand

Another place you’ll see the results of the survey is at the mayoral forum we have partnered with the Edmonton Public Library on, to be held at the Stanley A. Milner branch and online on the evening of Oct. 9. Some of the questions to be put to the candidates will be informed by the survey results. Register to attend, and watch the Taproot Edmonton Calendar for other opportunities to inform yourself ahead of the Oct. 20 election.

We’ll also be incorporating the survey results into our election coverage. Our journalists have already been digging into various election issues, often drawing on results of our listening work. For example, the team looked into tackling homelessness in Edmonton, a top concern for voters who participated in our listening sessions.

There’s much more to come in the weeks ahead!

If you value this work, become a Taproot member. We recently updated our website to better highlight the benefits of paid membership at the individual or organization level.

If you just want to keep up-to-date on our election work, please subscribe to our newsletter.

What we heard at our election listening sessions

Throughout May and June, we hosted five listening sessions dubbed “What’s on your mind, municipally speaking?” to hear from Edmontonians about the issues that matter most to them in the 2025 municipal election. Two of the sessions were online, and three were in person at Edmonton Public Library branches in Castle Downs, The Meadows, and downtown.

In 2021, pandemic restrictions meant every listening session we held happened on Zoom. This year, we could mix virtual and in-person events, and it was incredibly rewarding to meet people where they live.

The listening sessions are a key part of our 2025 municipal election project, which aims to help Edmontonians make informed choices in the upcoming election. The idea was to offer space for people to go a little deeper into the issues that matter most to them.

We are grateful to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts with us. We heard from dozens of people, and we learned a lot.

An excerpt from the flip-chart notes taken at our listening session in Castle Downs on June 7, 2025.

A flavour of what we heard

Hundreds of comments, whiteboard notes, and flip-chart scribbles coalesced into several clear themes, including homelessness, social disorder, governance and accountability, infill, housing affordability, infrastructure and growth, policing and public safety, active transportation, and climate change.

Here are some examples of what we heard:

“How we deal with the homeless population, how we view them, is kind of fundamental to how we view other aspects of our society.” Participants agreed that the housing crisis demands urgency, creativity, and empathy while also acknowledging growing unease about safety on transit and in public spaces.
“The city has done a lot of work around initiatives and reports and plans, and then there’s no accountability to actually deliver on those.” People want competence over theatrics: clearer measures of success, better follow-through on approved plans, and safeguards against party-style politics that could deepen polarization.
“What I am against is in older, mature neighbourhoods, where all of a sudden you’ve got house, house, house, 11-unit building right beside the house. No parking provided.” Support for compact growth collides with worries about lost trees, parking shortages, and oversized projects that feel out of scale. Residents asked how council will preserve neighbourhood character while meeting housing targets.
“We need to build deeply affordable housing, and we’re not doing it right now.” Beyond homelessness, people fear being priced out of the city altogether. They pressed for tools — like inclusionary zoning or city-owned land — to keep a mix of incomes in every ward.
“A lot of the business people … they’re just having to close because they can’t get people to their businesses. And I don’t know that the city is doing much to help them.” From LRT construction headaches to rec-centre shortages, voters questioned whether Edmonton is choosing the right projects, sequencing them well, and mitigating disruption for local businesses.
“I’m not saying defund the police. I’m just saying, can there be a reallocation into different agencies that would be better suited to provide the types of support that we’re looking for?” Many see value in policing but want a bigger share of the safety budget to flow to mental-health teams, outreach workers, and transit peace officers.
“Bike lanes are seen as anti-car, and I’d like to hear the rhetoric change to ‘transportation options.’” Debate over bike lanes remains fiery, yet there is a growing chorus for neighbourhoods where walking, rolling, and transit feel as convenient and as safe as driving.
“The smoke has been … like a hard punch, because it almost always comes.” Wildfire smoke, heat islands, and tree loss turned abstract climate goals into lived reality. Participants talked about tangible resilience measures, from shade infrastructure to tougher tree-retention rules, alongside emissions cuts.

Underlying many of these discussions is a frustration with the limits of municipal power when provincial decisions (or inaction) shape key files such as housing, policing, and social services.

How we analyzed the input

We used large-language-model tools at two key points. First, we fed the transcripts, flip-chart photos, and whiteboard notes into a large-language model and asked it to cluster recurring ideas. Those thematic groupings came straight from the AI; for the purposes of this post, we did not apply any editorial tweaks to that structure. Second, we asked the same model to pull candidate quotations for each theme. From the resulting pool, Taproot chose the excerpts you see here.

Looking ahead to the broader election project, we’ll run several rounds of analysis with multiple large-language models on all the input we collect. The goal is to get a comprehensive, data-driven view of community priorities; our editorial team will then combine those machine-generated insights with additional reporting and judgment to shape the candidate survey and other election tools.

We’re fortunate to have powerful large-language-model tools at our fingertips to handle the heavy lifting of pattern-spotting and quote-gathering, freeing our team to focus on other important work. Because this technology is evolving quickly, we’re committed to learning in public and following emerging best practices, including recommendations from resources like Trusting News, to keep our use of AI transparent, responsible, and firmly anchored in human editorial judgment.

What happens next

Alongside our election question, input gathered at these sessions will help us draft a candidate survey that will be sent to all candidates this summer. The survey will form the backbone of our voter matching engine, which we plan to launch in September.

Here’s what’s next in our election project timeline:

July and August: Formulate the candidate survey;
August and September: Distribute the survey to all declared candidates;
Sept. 22 to Oct. 20: Distribute the matching engine through Taproot’s channels and community partners;
Oct. 20: Election Day.

How you can still help

There’s still time for your input to shape our work! If you haven’t already, please take a moment to answer our election question: What issues do you care about as you consider who to vote for in the 2025 municipal election, and why?

Every response helps us build a better candidate survey and a more useful voter-matching tool, so Edmontonians can make confident, well-informed choices on Oct. 20.

If you’re an organization that wants to help spread the word and ensure your community’s perspective is considered, get in touch to become an election partner. We have 22 partners so far, and we’d love to work with you.

Taproot Edmonton’s social media posts are now automated

Social media can be a valuable tool, but we’ve realized it’s not essential to our mission to help you understand what’s happening in Edmonton and the surrounding region. After reviewing our data and reflecting on the value we provide, we’ve made an important change to how we use social media: Our posts are now automated.

Taproot is now automatically posting stories and newsletters to five social media platforms, including LinkedIn.

Until the end of 2024, we handcrafted each post for our social media channels. But when we examined the results, it became clear that social media wasn’t driving significant traffic to our website or increasing sign-ups. Investing more time to boost engagement would have taken us away from what we do best — delivering reliable, focused intelligence about our community.

In fact, many of you rely on our work precisely because it allows you to avoid spending excessive time on social media. Our weekday newsletter, The Pulse, and our weekly roundups provide everything you need to stay informed and connected, without endless scrolling.

As Taproot Edmonton member Julie B. says: “I love knowing what’s going on in my city and what’s the latest news. Where else can one get all this info in a timely manner complete with links for more in-depth information when you want it? I’m very grateful for this publication!”

In addition, as a Canadian news publication, we currently face restrictions on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. And with many organizations shifting their primary social presence to platforms where we’re restricted or not active, manually posting became even less aligned with our goals.

To keep informing those who use social media as an alert system, we’ve automated posts to announce new content across several platforms, including LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon. While our posts will still provide helpful alerts, we won’t be actively monitoring these channels for responses. From time to time, we may still manually post important updates or special content, but this won’t be the norm.

However, many members of the Taproot Edmonton team are active on social media and happy to engage. If you’d like to connect or reach out, you can find our team on LinkedIn.

Thank you for following along and supporting Taproot. We’re committed to keeping you informed, connected, and inspired while saving you time.

How wellness checks help Taproot thrive

At Taproot, we pride ourselves on creating a workplace where people feel valued, supported, and empowered to do their best work. As we chart a new future for local news, we are committed to leaving behind the often problematic culture of traditional newsrooms. One of the practices that has helped us do this is the wellness check, a simple but powerful way to start every meeting.

What is a wellness check?

Our wellness check asks, “How are you feeling today?” Participants select one of four states: Struggling, Surviving, Thriving, or Excelling. Each state includes descriptors to help pinpoint where someone is — whether they’re feeling low energy and unproductive or inspired and in a state of flow.

We didn’t invent the idea of a wellness or mental health check-in, and neither did ATB X, the accelerator program where we first encountered this practice in 2019. But we embraced it, made it our own, and adapted it to fit Taproot’s needs. Over time, it has become a cornerstone of how we connect as a team.

Why it matters

It can be easy to start a meeting with a generic “How’s everyone doing?” and hear the automatic “I’m fine” response. But “fine” doesn’t give us any useful information. The wellness check allows us to go deeper and create a space where people feel safe sharing how they’re really doing. For instance:

If someone is thriving or excelling, we know they may have the energy to tackle big challenges.
If someone is struggling or surviving, we can check in further, adjust expectations, and provide support.

One of the key reasons this works is modeling. Karen, my co-founder, and I openly share how we’re feeling — even if we’re struggling. By doing so, we signal that it’s OK to be honest, and that vulnerability is met with care, not judgment.

Our team sometimes gets creative with their responses. We often hear someone is “surthriving” or “thricelling” when they feel like they’re a little in between states on the wellness check. It’s a lighthearted way to acknowledge that emotions aren’t always clear-cut, and it keeps the process engaging and authentic.

What happens next?

When someone shares that they’re struggling, the immediate reaction is not to push forward with the agenda but to pause. We might ask, “Do you want to share more about that?” or offer time for a private conversation. It’s rare for someone to reveal they’re struggling in a group setting, but when they do, we take it seriously.

On the other hand, the wellness check also gives us opportunities to celebrate when someone is excelling or thriving. It helps us recognize not just the challenges but also the wins, big and small.

A continuous work in progress

This is actually the second iteration of our wellness check. We made changes based on our experiences and feedback from the team, and the current version has proven to be the most effective so far. We’re still exploring how to make the most of the wellness check. For example, we’d love to track trends over time to identify patterns, like how the seasons or external factors might affect the team’s energy. But for now, it’s enough to know that we’re fostering a culture of care.

When we reviewed our OKRs for 2024 and reflected on how effectively we supported and empowered our team, the feedback we heard from them was very encouraging and positive. They said they do feel supported, and we believe the wellness check is a key reason behind that.

To hear more about how this practice supports our mission and workplace culture, check out Karen’s interview on the Executive Wins podcast where she shares insights into why we adopted the wellness check and how it has helped our team thrive. You can also watch the interview below:

Supporting our mission

Taproot Edmonton exists to provide the most reliable intelligence about the Edmonton region. We inform, connect, and inspire our community to thrive. The wellness check is one of the tools we use to make that possible. By creating a supportive, resilient team, we’re better equipped to deliver on our mission and ensure that Taproot continues to be a trusted source of information.

Sharing the practice

If this resonates with you, we encourage you to adopt and adapt the wellness check for your own team. It’s a flexible tool that can fit a variety of workplaces, and it’s one small but meaningful step toward building a healthier, more connected workplace culture. We’d love to hear how you make it your own — feel free to reach out to us and share your experience.

Fostering a thriving community starts with fostering a thriving team. At Taproot, we’re committed to both, and the wellness check helps us live that commitment every day.

How Taproot Edmonton made an impact in 2024

Did you know Taproot Edmonton sent 1.3 million emails in 2024? That’s a lot of informing, connecting, and inspiring people with reliable intelligence about the Edmonton region. Here’s more on what our team has been able to accomplish this year with the support of readers, members, sponsors, advertisers, and other partners.

Informing with reliable intelligence

Every day, our team delivers useful, timely information that keeps you informed and engaged. From in-depth coverage of local news to bite-sized updates in The Pulse, readers rely on us for an accurate snapshot of what’s happening in Edmonton. “I start every morning reading The Pulse,” shares reader Jodi M. “I am always delighted by the news that it contains. By reading it, I feel better informed and more a part of the Edmonton community.”

Our emails saw an impressive 56.4% open rate and 8.3% click rate, showing that readers value the information we provide. We also saw a 7.3% jump in email subscribers and a 28.5% increase in paying members.

Saving you time

Since our inception, our approach has been to pay close attention to what’s happening so you don’t have to. In 2024, we curated more than 2,800 headlines in The Pulse alone, offering concise summaries and easy access to the full stories.

“I love the brief summaries with lots of links, enabling me to get the big picture and dive deeper when I want to,” says member Natalia K.

Connecting the community

We’re proud to connect Edmontonians to the many things happening in the community. In 2024, our team added more than 9,200 events to the Taproot Edmonton Calendar, making it a vital resource for those looking for things to do. “It’s easy to start my day reading an item or two from The Pulse or roundups and feel more connected to what’s going on and to the city itself,” says Thiago V., who recently moved to Edmonton. “The Calendar has been the cherry on top for me, as it always excites me when I find something cool happening in the city that I can go check out over the weekend.”

We continued to track Edmonton’s ever-changing landscape through our weekly roundups, which provide essential updates across a variety of sectors. Whether it’s the latest in local food, tech, arts, or business, the roundups deliver fresh, relevant information to help you stay connected. This year, for example, our Food Roundup highlighted nearly 600 restaurant openings.

Our podcast, Speaking Municipally, also continues to connect listeners to the conversations shaping the city. In 2024, we had nearly 50,000 downloads, with listeners tuning in to important discussions about housing, public transit, zoning, and more. We’re grateful to the dozen-plus guests who joined us this year, contributing valuable insights. “I listen to Speaking Municipally diligently and it has been an important part of my weekly routine in staying up to date about matters related to the city,” says listener and member Giselle G.

Inspiring through stories

The diversity of topics that resonated most with readers this year is particularly striking. Here are the top five most-read stories of 2024 on our website:

These stories don’t just inform — they spark curiosity and invite further exploration. And that’s just the tops of the waves. In 2024, we wrote about 4,000 unique entities, showcasing the depth and variety of Edmonton’s people, businesses, and initiatives.

Helping you take action

At Taproot Edmonton, we’re committed to providing actionable intelligence that helps you make informed decisions. In 2024, we summarized and linked to 493 different city council reports. We also highlighted 175 unique public engagement opportunities, giving readers the chance to contribute their voices to key issues. “Taproot has the pulse on current events and community engagement with promoting active citizenship in the forefront,” says reader Renée C. “Bringing awareness to the greater community amidst the noise is difficult, and Taproot is a credible and reliable source.”

We also continued to provide unique insights with our history pieces, publishing 47 “moment in history” articles that not only inform but also bring a bit of delight. Whether revisiting local milestones or uncovering lesser-known aspects of Edmonton’s past, these pieces have become a beloved part of The Pulse. “I love starting my day with The Pulse,” member Erin J. shares. “It’s a great way to feel connected to what’s happening across the city. It regularly contains a few things I already know and care about and a few things that are new to me and I become inspired to learn more.”

Join us in building an informed community

We are grateful for the support of everyone who has helped make this work possible. If you’d like to help us continue to inform, connect, and inspire people in the Edmonton region, please consider becoming a member.

Here’s to another year of growth and impact in 2025!

Taproot is now a Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization

We’re pleased to share that Taproot Publishing Inc. has officially been designated as a Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization (QCJO), effective Feb. 7, 2024. This milestone reflects the growth we’ve achieved over the past few years. It also brings a tangible benefit for our members: access to the Digital News Subscription Tax Credit.

When tax time rolls around in 2025, you can now claim a credit for your Taproot membership. (Mack Male/Flickr)

What does this mean for Taproot Edmonton members?

If you’ve been an active member of Taproot Edmonton at any point in 2024 — whether by joining this year or by making one or more membership payments in 2024 — you are eligible to claim the Digital News Subscription Tax Credit on your 2024 tax return. This means:

Annual members can claim the full $100 membership fee.
Monthly members can claim the total amount they paid for their membership in 2024.

To claim this credit, simply include the amount on Line 31350 of your tax return. For more details, visit the CRA’s guide on how to claim the Digital News Subscription Tax Credit.

The Digital News Subscription Tax Credit is “a non-refundable tax credit for amounts paid by individuals to a QCJO for qualifying subscription expenses.” As a result, it does not apply to business memberships.

Why did Taproot seek QCJO designation?

Designation enables us to provide this tax benefit to our members, which has long been requested by some of those who support our work. It is a recognition of our commitment to produce high-quality, original journalism for the Edmonton region, and it highlights how far we have come since our early days.

Being a QCJO also opens up new opportunities for Taproot to access additional funding and support. For example, we intend to claim the Canadian Journalism Labour tax credit. The designation also simplifies applying for other funds, such as the funding available under the Online News Act, which the Canadian Journalism Collective is responsible for distributing.

However, we still have reservations about the QCJO program. As we noted in 2021, the system risks delegitimizing valuable journalism organizations that don’t meet its criteria for reasons unrelated to the quality of their work. While we’re gratified to offer the tax credit benefit to members, we acknowledge the broader challenges the program presents within the media landscape.

Why does Taproot now qualify as a QCJO?

Achieving QCJO status is no small feat for small, independent news organizations like ours. The eligibility criteria include several straightforward requirements, such as producing original news content, focusing on general interest topics, and operating in Canada. While we’ve long met most of these requirements, one particular criterion stood out as a significant barrier: employing two or more journalists who are not freelancers and who work at arm’s length from the organization (i.e. are not the founders).

For many startups, this requirement is difficult to achieve. Small, independent news organizations often rely on freelance journalists or part-time contributors in their early stages. Building the capacity to hire multiple full-time staff takes time, growth, and money. Yet, these small organizations are often doing vital journalism that fills critical gaps in the media ecosystem. They cover stories that larger outlets overlook, provide context and nuance for local communities, and innovate with new ways of delivering news.

This criterion kept Taproot Edmonton from being eligible for QCJO status for years. But, thanks to the support of our members, other customers, and the growth we’ve achieved together, we’ve built a strong team that not only meets the QCJO requirement, but also exemplifies the kind of impactful, community-driven journalism we set out to provide.

Next steps

We’re in the process of being added to the federal government’s list of qualifying digital news subscriptions, so you’ll soon see Taproot Edmonton officially listed there. In the meantime, members can confidently claim the credit for their 2024 membership payments.

Join by Dec. 31 to claim the credit

If you’re not yet a member, now is the perfect time to join. Become a member before Dec. 31, and not only will you help make our work free for everyone in the Edmonton region, but you will also qualify for this tax credit on your 2024 return.

The Taproot Edmonton Calendar will transform how Edmontonians discover local events

We created the Taproot Edmonton Calendar to tackle a significant challenge within our community: the fragmentation and inaccessibility of local event information.

We have heard repeatedly that people struggle to know where to look for information about upcoming events. And when they do find out about events, it is often too late to participate. That’s a problem because events are a vital part of our community, bringing people together, fostering connections, and supporting local businesses and organizations.

We set out to address this challenge by creating a high-quality, comprehensive, and easy-to-navigate calendar of events taking place across the Edmonton region.

Taproot picks at the Taproot Edmonton Calendar on May 7, 2024.

Is it really that hard to find local events?

Despite the wealth of events taking place in Edmonton, many people do indeed struggle to discover and participate in them.

Last year, we surveyed 350 people in our community and found that 65% of respondents rated the current experience of discovering events to be either poor or fair. Just 9% told us the experience was very good or excellent. Additionally, 53% of respondents said they frequently or always discover interesting events too late.

Here are just a few of the responses we received:

“It’s difficult finding out what is happening in the city. Sometimes I find out the day it starts, and it’s too late to attend.”
“When I am looking for something specific, I can find things, but when trying to browse casually it can be hard to find anything.”
“I usually know about big events and events in my direct community, but often miss out on finding new things.”
“You have to search numerous websites and be very curious and have the time to do both.”
“It often feels like my knowledge of upcoming events is limited by whether I see it on social media or not.”

Our research revealed several other insights, too. Aside from friends and family, the most common way that respondents told us they discover events is through email newsletters. But email newsletters have their own discovery challenges, and the more you subscribe to, the harder it is to keep up. Facebook and other social media platforms were not far behind as a source, but with those tools, you’re at the mercy of the algorithm to surface events that might interest you in a timely fashion.

When asked about existing event calendars and listings, respondents told us they are often incomplete, difficult to navigate, and lack accurate information. Many people also expressed frustration with quality, noting that many sources are “noisy” and filled with irrelevant or uninteresting events.

How does the Taproot Edmonton Calendar fix this?

Our goal is for the Taproot Edmonton Calendar to be that single, curated, and accessible service that helps people discover and participate in local events.

We took an important step toward that goal by launching the calendar in beta in December 2023. We focused on building a solid foundation with a clean, user-friendly design, and some initial tools for categorizing and filtering events. The calendar builds upon our existing web platform to help ensure it is accessible and responsive, which means it works well on any device.

Here are a few of the features we’ve built into the calendar so far:

Rich event details: Every listing includes the essential information you need to know, such as the date, time, location, a brief description, and a link to learn more. Where possible we also include images, links to tickets and livestreams, pricing information, and more.
Categories and tags: We established nine top-level categories to help you find events that match your interests. We’ve also added tags to help you filter by more specific topics.
Related events: Most event listings also include a list of related events, so you can easily discover other events that might interest you.
Taproot picks: Our team curates a list of events we think are particularly interesting or relevant. These Taproot picks are featured prominently on the calendar.
Basic filtering: You can filter events by category, date range (such as “today” or “next week”), city, and whether the event is in-person or online. You can also see all events taking place at a specific location, or organized by a specific organization.
Flag for review: Despite our best efforts, we know that mistakes happen. If you spot an error or have a concern about an event listing, you can flag it for review by our team.
Event submission: We’ve made it easy for event organizers to submit their events to the calendar. All we need is a URL and our system and team do the rest. It’s free, quick, and easy.

We have lots of ideas for how to improve the calendar further. Based on feedback from early adopters, we’re already working on new layout options, search, more robust filtering, and personalization features, among other things.

One of the first improvements we made this year was to integrate the Taproot Edmonton Calendar into The Pulse and our weekly roundups. Now you can find a curated selection of upcoming events in each newsletter, and you can click through to the calendar to see more.

But most of our effort over the past few months has been focused on growing the number of events in the calendar. We now have thousands of events listed, and we’re adding more every day. About 20% to 25% of our listings are for events that will take place at least 30 days from now, to help you plan ahead.

Why Taproot?

We believe Taproot is uniquely well-positioned to tackle this challenge. Our mission to help people understand their community better perfectly aligns with the goal of the calendar. Over the past few years, we have developed sophisticated systems and processes to support the curation of local information, including events. And we have a growing team of talented individuals who are passionate about informing and connecting Edmontonians, including Debbi Serafinchon who is our point person for the calendar.

But perhaps most importantly, this is a challenge that we have experienced ourselves. We know how frustrating it can be to miss out on an event because you didn’t hear about it in time, and we know how hard it can be to find events that match your interests.

Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham wrote last year that “if you’re making something for people, make sure it’s something they actually want.” The best way to do that? “Make something you yourself want,” he wrote.

That’s what we’re doing. We’re building the Taproot Edmonton Calendar because it’s something we want, and we believe it’s something our community wants too (and our research backs that up).

We’re excited by the opportunity to boost our impact as part of the connective tissue that makes the city work. The calendar reflects our ongoing commitment to not only inform the city but to be an active participant in its story, weaving together the many threads that make Edmonton a great place to live, work, and play.

How can I help?

We encourage you to check out the Taproot Edmonton Calendar and start using it to discover local events. If you like what you see, please help us spread the word by sharing the calendar with your friends and family.

We are committed to keeping the calendar free for everyone to use, but there are real costs associated with building and maintaining it. If you’re in a position to support our work, we would love to have you as a Taproot Edmonton member. Your membership helps fund the calendar and our broader mission of supporting local journalism in Edmonton.

If you’re an event organizer, we encourage you to submit your events to the calendar. It’s free, quick, and easy, and it helps ensure that your event reaches a broader audience.

If you’re a business or organization that wants to work with us to support the calendar, we would love to hear from you. We offer a range of sponsorship opportunities that can help you increase your visibility while supporting a vital community resource. Please reach out to us to discuss how we can collaborate to keep Edmonton vibrant and well-informed.

Lastly, we welcome your feedback and ideas for how we can make the calendar even better. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with your thoughts.