The Volunteer Aid and Relief Fund Committee was established by Council Motion on April 13, 1885. The Motion provided an initial sum of $1000 to be used exclusively for the relief of the "wives and families of those volunteers" called to the front, and established a committee to administer the fund. The Committee consisted of the mayor and six aldermen. The Committee was assisted by a Ladies Association, the members of which found "cases of necessity among the families of the Volunteers". The work of the Committee concluded in October of 1885. An audit of their papers and books was approved by Council and forwarded to the newspaper for publication.

The Winnipeg Traffic Commission (WTC) was founded in 1954, with the passing of By-Law No. 17252. In 1970, By-Law No. 17252 was replaced with By-Law No. 19782, which contained all amendments made from 1954 to 1970.

The WTC consisted of the City Signals Engineer, City Traffic Engineer, Chief of Police or his representative, a representative of the City Engineer's Department, at least three members of Council, and two or three citizen representatives. The Mayor was made an ex officio member in 1959, and the Fire Chief became a regular member in 1967.

The WTC was authorized to investigate and consider all matters related to the control and regulation of traffic, and make recommendations to Council; make and enforce temporary regulations to meet emergencies and special conditions; direct and co-ordinate all operations of the City related to the regulation and control of traffic; receive recommendations related to traffic; test traffic control devices under actual conditions; and prepare and publish reports on traffic matters and carry out educational activities.

The City of Winnipeg was incorporated in 1873 by a charter granted by the legislature of Manitoba. At incorporation, the City established a committee system of government: while Council was the governing body for the City, it was in committee that civic policies were formed and executed. The initial task for the first and all subsequent Councils was to strike standing committees for the Council year. In addition to standing committees, Council established special committees to investigate and manage various projects, issues and questions placed before the City. Special committees were typically struck by a Council motion that outlined committee composition and responsibilities.

In 1920, the Women's Canadian Club of Winnipeg erected a temporary monument in front of the Bank of Montreal building at Portage and Main. When the temporary monument was taken down in November of 1923 to make way for the Bank's own war memorial, the question of securing a site and constructing a monument for the City to honor its war dead was again raised by citizens. Given that the City had an interest in the outcome of this initiative, Council appointed representatives to the Winnipeg War Memorial Committee by motion on February 21, 1927. The Winnipeg War Memorial Committee had representation from groups like the Canukeena Club, the Imperial Veterans, the Army and Navy Veterans, the War Widows Association, the Women's Canadian Club, the Rotary Club, the Trades and Labour Council, the Canadian Legion, the I.O.D.E., and Winnipeg City Council. The committee concluded its work in June of 1929 when it requested that the memorial it had unveiled in November of 1928 be transferred to the Parks Board for perpetual care and maintenance.

The Flood Record and Archives Committee was created in May of 1997 by the Chief Commissioner, Board of Commissioners of the City of Winnipeg, and was dissolved in [1998]. Its mandate was to collect records of all Winnipeg, Manitoba floods from City departments and to add to existing archives. Collecting focussed on records created by the City of Winnipeg administration, records collected from outside organisations for elected officials, and records existing in the City of Winnipeg Archives. The Committee was chaired by the City Clerk, and included the City Records Manager and Archivist, the Emergency Program Co-ordinator, and a Flood of the Century journalist from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The Emergency Preparedness and Co-ordination Committee was created in the early 1980’s, and managed the 1997 flood in Winnipeg. It co-ordinated the activities of all civic departments, outside agencies, the public sector, and volunteer groups during the State of Emergency. In April and May, sandbagging operations were undertaken along rivers in the city and in the flooded regions to the south as the Red River crested at 24.5 feet above normal. Rural and urban areas were evacuated, and the Provencher Bridge in Saint-Boniface was closed. The EPCC’s permanent provincial affiliate is the Inter-agency Committee for Emergency Preparedness, co-ordinated by the Manitoba Emergency Measures Organisation. The EPCC is supervised by the city’s Emergency Control Committee (Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Chair of Works and Operations, Chair of Protection, Parks and Culture, and Board of Commissioners members) which is responsible for implementing the Emergency Preparedness Program. The EPCC is chaired by the Commissioner of Protection, Parks and Culture and operates out of the Emergency Operations Centre in the City Hall Council building basement.

Winnipeg into the Nineties (WIN) was a volunteer group of citizens with a vision of how the City of Winnipeg should and could be developed. Created in January 1989, meetings were held bi-weekly at the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg offices and were chaired by Shirley Bradshaw. Members of the Founding Committee were: Shirley Bradshaw, Al Ducharme, Elizabeth Fleming, Mike Gidora, Barry Hammond, Marilyn Letts, Shirley Lord, Christine McKee, Evelyn Reese, Greg Selinger, Tom Simms and Donna Mae Yeo.

WIN was formed to oppose the so-called "Gang of 18", an informal group of councillors who held a majority on council and who met regularly before official council meetings to determine the city's agenda. The "Gang of 18" was a successor to the Independent Citizen's Election Committee, a right-wing municipal party that dominated Winnipeg's city council from the early 1970s to the early 1980s. WIN’s objectives were: to provide a vision for the City of Winnipeg and a future agenda based on clear policies for action; to promote open government and freedom of information in the interests of informed decision-making; to ensure accountability of elected officials on the basis of agreed, openly-stated policy positions; to promote ethical government and financial accountability through the open declaration of election contributions, individual statements of assets, and clear, conflict of interest by-laws; and to encourage citizen participation and consistent, reasoned decision-making that could be explained and justified to the general public. WIN worked to raise community awareness of municipal issues in Winnipeg, to facilitate the construction of a policy platform designed to achieve its stated objectives, and to field and support candidates who supported their objectives. WIN endorsed several candidates in Winnipeg’s 1989, 1992 and 1995 municipal elections, including future Mayor Glen Murray and future premier of Manitoba, Greg Selinger.

In the 1990’s WIN continued as a political organization in Winnipeg, under the name “Winnipeg in the '90s”. It was dissolved by members in late 1996.