On December 6, we need vision and bravery to end gendered violence
While much has changed since 1989, when 14 women were murdered at École Polytechnique in Montreal, we’re only at the beginnings of where philanthropy needs to go in Canada when it comes to ending gender-based violence, writes the president and CEO of the Canadian Women’s Foundation.
Ontario Trillium Foundation: Four decades of impact
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Ontario Trillium Foundation. To mark the occasion, The Philanthropist Journal examines the impact the foundation has had on grantees, the non-profit sector, and Ontario communities.
A how-to guide for solving Canada’s digital inequity challenges
There is an urgent need to improve access to critical internet resources in underserved communities across Canada, but the digital equity gap can not be bridged by the private sector and governments alone. There is a clear role for philanthropy, too, in addressing these challenges, and a new how-to guide offers a blueprint.
From Charity to Change: Inside the World of Canadian Foundations
Frequent Philanthropist Journal book reviewer Hilary Pearson’s new book profiles a selection of Canadian foundations that have evolved from static grantors to active participants in building capacity, strengthening community, influencing public policy, addressing climate change, and engaging in reconciliation through relationship.
Featured
Reimagining Philanthropy in Canada
How can we reimagine philanthropy for tomorrow?
Host Ratna Omidvar talks to Lucy Bernholz and Justin Wiebe about a way forward for philanthropy, including a broader understanding of the many ways people give and care for their communities.
Should we think of philanthropy as public money or private money?
Host Ratna Omidvar explores with Liban Abokor, co-founder of Foundation for Black Communities, the nature of philanthropic wealth – who it belongs to – and how to hold the philanthropy sector accountable to the communities it serves.
Diversity and Inclusion
It’s not you, it’s them: Women in Power’s invitation to fight systemic failings
Launched in July by Surabhi Jain and Saralyn Hodgkin, Women in Power is an “allyship leadership practice” that urges racialized and white women to turn away from polarization, turn toward discourse, and “stand in our power together” by sharing their lived experiences in the workplace.
Canada’s first foundation aimed at supporting Black communities takes non-traditional approach to philanthropy
The Foundation for Black Communities has a broad mandate to understand communities’ needs and to build trust and capacity so those communities’ futures are defined and stabilized in perpetuity. Doing so starts with a fresh take on governance.
Case Studies & Guides
Ontario Trillium Foundation: Four decades of change, challenge, and growth
The Ontario Trillium Foundation was formed in 1982 to provide grants to social service organizations in Ontario communities. Funded by the Ontario government, it began with a $15-million budget that has since grown to more than $100 million in funding across the non-profit sector. The Philanthropist Journal digs into the changes and challenges experienced by OTF on its 40th anniversary.
Five principles to get long-term, flexible funding into the hands of community-led organizations
A recent convening led the Stephen Lewis Foundation to issue a call to action for funders – outlining five anti-colonial funding principles to remove roadblocks for funding community-led organizations.
Decolonization and Reconciliation
Navigating the murky waters of responsible investing
Canadian foundations know that responsible investing can reap both positive impacts and benchmark-beating financial returns, but it isn’t easy – knowing where to invest, measuring social outcomes, even agreeing what to call it. It’s “tough, ongoing work,” says one foundation leader.
Clearing the path to ‘right relations’
The Right Relations Collaborative brings together community-rooted Indigenous change-makers and aligned philanthropic partners to break down the institutional barriers that define conventional philanthropy and, at the same time, find new ways of being in relationship with one another.
Series on Rethinking Philanthropy
Measuring and accounting for ‘success’ in the charitable and non-profit sector
The sector’s accountability relationships and how it defines and accounts for “success” are in need of an overhaul, says contributor Nancy Pole. In the fifth article in our Rethinking Philanthropy series, she argues that philanthropic foundations can play a leading role in this transformation – and in so doing, think differently about their own accountabilities.
Assessing the state of the relationship between philanthropy and youth
Youth have long fought at the front lines of social innovation and change, argues the ED of The Youth Harbour and the Foundation for Environmental Stewardship, but when they do receive funding for their grassroots movements, their work is often underestimated and undervalued. She offers some recommendations for how funders can better support youth.
Why moral organizations’ success is crucial to people and planet
It is past time that development NGOs prioritize ethics, argues contributor Robyn Waite: their legitimacy – and success – depends on it, the nature of their practice demands it, and people and planet need moral organizations to succeed.
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Analysis
How – and how much – women give is changing the philanthropic landscape
“Broadly, collectively, holistically”: with increasing awareness that it’s time to unlock the potential of women as a key demographic in fundraising strategies, and with women’s and girls’ organizations receiving just 2% of funding, research like that being done by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute aims to jump-start a more woman-friendly version of philanthropy.
The advocacy riddle
How do we ensure the sector has a significant voice in affecting public policy? New research shines a light on the sector’s advocacy efforts, the related challenges, and the structures needed to make that advocacy both broad-based and nimble.
Shifting the conversation: How the sector is using narrative change to advance social change
Changing the way people think about an issue is a precondition to mobilizing action on it. But which organizations have institutionalized narrative change practices as a strategic priority, and how is that playing out day-to-day? How many non-profits are doing the deep listening necessary to understand how audiences perceive their issues, and developing strategic messaging that can shift the conversation?
The laws governing gifts by will – and the pressures they put on executors
When a person dies, their executor has a maximum of 60 months to make any testamentary gifts to charities. For estates that are complex, that might not be sufficient time. Maria Elena Hoffstein and Stephen Hsia argue that extending the window could unlock more giving to the charitable sector.
More articles From the Archives
Charities and the rule against perpetuities
Charitable status is a legally privileged status. The law in numerous ways, ranging from the trivial to the noteworthy, confers legal advantages upon charities. These legal advantages are often misunderstood.
Charity and public welfare in history: A look at Ontario, 1830–1950
Several historical works have described 19th-century Ontario as lacking a conception of public welfare, where the poor were largely left to the benevolence of religious charities. This assumption, however, ignores the complex web of relationships that characterized the delivery of social services in Ontario and in many English-speaking regions across Canada.
Art, after virus: Seven questions for a sector on the edge
In 1999, the Metcalf Foundation collaborated with The Philanthropist to curate a series on the public value of arts and culture in Canada. Now, in the midst of the pandemic, there is a new urgency to the challenges facing the arts.
Strategies for a caring society
This article was developed from a paper presented at Investigating in the Whole Community: Strategies for a Caring Society, a conference organized by the Trillium
Featured Contributors
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Miles Morrisseau
Miles Morrisseau is a Métis writer, journalist, and multimedia producer from the Métis homeland in Manitoba.
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Christina Palassio
Christina Palassio is a non-profit communications professional and freelance writer. When she tweets, she does so at @mcpalassio.
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Angela Long
Angela Long is a freelance writer currently working on a book about rural journalism in Canada.
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Kareem Shaheen
Kareem Shaheen is a journalist based in Montreal. Previously, he was Middle East correspondent for The Guardian, based in Beirut and Istanbul.
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