Case Study: Institute for Catholic Education achieves province-wide engagement and strategic direction with Thoughtexchange

Harnessing collective creativity to shape the future of Catholic education across Ontario

The Institute for Catholic Education (ICE) supports English Catholic education across Ontario—working with seven partners, 29 districts and 1.5 million families—and was asked by the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario to plan a two-day, province-wide symposium. ICE needed to engage nearly 10,000 representatives across 37 school districts in two languages to surface priorities and inform a strategic vision for the future of Catholic education.

ICE partnered with Thoughtexchange to run a series of confidential, online "Advanced Exchanges" and to get expert guidance on question design and logistics. The exchanges delivered rich, analyzable data that revealed broad trends and local nuances, shaped district- and province-level discussions, informed symposium content, and helped produce direction-setting documents and a pastoral letter viewed as grassroots-driven and broadly representative.

Institute for Catholic Education

Mike Pautler

ICE Executive Director