Charities in Canada face a long-term crisis of financial sustainability. Their missions will become more challenging with continuing demographic and cultural change. There will be a growing gap between the needs Canadians expect charities to meet and the resources available to carry out their missions.[1] These fundamental social, cultural, and economic trends are leading to…
Three events over the course of one week in November 2017 shone a light on the past, present, and future of social innovation in Canada. At the Social Innovation Generation (SiG) Sunset event, 500 people gathered at MaRS in Toronto to celebrate the end of SiG. Originating in Tim Brodhead’s realization that philanthropy’s toolkit was…
Les organismes caritatifs canadiens font face à un défi persistant de viabilité financière. La réalisation de leur mission se complexifie au fur et à mesure que des changements démographiques et culturels continuent à s’opérer dans la société. De plus, l’écart entre les besoins auxquels ils doivent répondre pour satisfaire les attentes des Canadiens et les…
When the federal government released its Fall Economic Statement in November, it signaled what many in Canadian philanthropic circles would regard as a sea-change in Ottawa’s thinking about a sector that employs more than two million Canadians and accounts for 8% of the country’s GDP. After years of dealing with everything from outmoded legislation to…
This is the final article in our series about European philanthropy. The series is published as a collaboration between The Philanthropist and The Lawson Foundation. Early in 2018, well before Theresa May’s Tory government revealed its contentious proposal for splitting with the European Union, the Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros placed a £400,000 bet on an outspokenly anti-Brexit lobby…
Social Enterprise Law: Trust, Public Benefit, and Capital Markets, by Dana Brakman Reiser and Steven A. Dean. Oxford University Press. New York, U.S.A., 2018, ISBN: 9780190249786 How do you persuade social entrepreneurs and impact investors to trust one another’s commitment to impact? That’s the question Social Enterprise Law attempts to answer. Social enterprises (here defined…
This article is the second in a renewed collaboration between The Philanthropist and The Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada. The goal is to highlight Indigenous philanthropy and share Indigenous perspective and wisdom on reciprocity as well as Indigenous-focused work happening in the philanthropic community. In 2007, I wrote one of my first articles…
The non-profit sector plays a substantial role in providing programs and services that contribute to Canada’s social, economic, and civic health. The role of non-profit organizations in collecting and mobilizing evidence deserves more attention because the sector is a key pillar in building the evidence base for policy. What is evidence-informed policymaking? This approach to…
This is the fifth and final article in our series about the role of networks in the non-profit sector. The series is published as a collaboration between The Philanthropist and the Ontario Nonprofit Network. One of the most insightful and intelligent people I have known passed away recently, and she once told me that we can never go back…
Imagine that a couple has decided to remodel their kitchen. In preparation, they visit a tile store. A salesperson there works with them to choose the perfect backsplash. Everyone is happy with the final selection and the salesperson begins making arrangement for payment and delivery. Just then the husband pulls out a document from his…