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ULI Toronto is trending. We deserve to be proud and I’m going to take this moment to share our excitement.

Last week, we hosted the 7^th Annual Fireside Event at the Toronto Board of Trade with Mayor John Tory and Mr. John Duffy.

Our event was sold out with over 400 attendees.

Our guests engaged us with a myriad of topics ranging from the arts and culture to density, transit and the economy.

We were privy to an unexpected exchange between the Mayor and Chief City Planner Jennifer Keesmaat on affordable housing and the budget constraints at the City.

But what really stood out and what we should also be proud of, was how our audience was able to connect and be engaged. At the beginning of this year, we launched the #cityresolve campaign where we asked people to send New Year’s resolutions that benefited the city.

This campaign was a precedent setting success. We were overwhelmed from the enthusiasm and decided to carry forward the energy into a new campaign for the Fireside Event.

#AskMayorTO was a simple campaign with a simple question — “what do you want to ask the Mayor?” People from across the GTA sent us questions asking about everything, from his favourite restaurant or public space to how he intends to manage issues related to traffic, infrastructure and city building. Our audience was also given the opportunity to ask the Mayor a question through film.  (This will be a part of our next campaign so stay tuned!)

Simple worked! Here are some statistics from our event.

Statistics collected by SocialBro

Participants – 263
Tweets – 677
Exposure – ~874,000

Statistics collected by Twitter

@ULIToronto grew its followers 22x the normal rate
#2 Canada
#1 Toronto

We are trending. The Mayor’s statement on Toronto best sums up how I feel right now about our success. At the event he stated “Toronto may not be the biggest city, but it has become a global city and now is the time to show off to the world.”
I believe the same is true for ULIToronto. We may be a small organization but we have big, bold and ambitious ideas and we are focused on engaging the city to make an impact.
This is only the beginning.