It can be done: Catalyzing positive societal impacts through foundations’ invested assets
Canada’s charitable sector has a unique opportunity to help shape the leadership practices and related discourse about sustainable and responsible investment, argue contributors Chad Park and Greg Elliott. In doing so, it can leverage the sector’s significant invested assets to help meaningfully address some of today’s most pressing challenges, they write.
Hybrid organizations: The Canadian landscape
Should an organization be able to have social impact and generate profit? Sarah G. Fitzpatrick looks at the development of hybrid organizations in Canada – and how any further development would benefit from a comprehensive analysis of whether there is a need or space for hybrid organizations.
Governments shouldn’t push endowments into responsible investing
The concept of generating positive benefits beyond just financial returns is particularly attractive to grantmaking foundations that steward endowments. But the president of Max Bell Foundation argues that a number of concerns about “responsible investing” make it premature to advocate that government should push charitable endowments in that direction.
Philanthro-Lab: A new sanctuary in Paris could inspire others around the world
Only 15% of taxable households in France declare an annual donation, but a new venture aims to raise this figure to 30% by 2030. Located in Paris, Philanthro-Lab seeks to “democratize the giving reflex” by bringing together researchers, social entrepreneurs, patrons, and project initiators to grow the philanthropic community in France.
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
How an unusual small-loans program helped re-energize a rural Nova Scotia town
Grassroots organizations are an integral part of the non-profit sector, responding to community needs when governments and established organizations fail to do so. This profile, the second in a series, looks at a microlending program launched from one woman’s desire to live “in a town that still functions.”
Vélorution: Democratizing cycling
Vélorution’s leaders and volunteers believe that bicycles can transform lives. They want to drive a bike revolution by providing participants with bikes and teaching them how to ride and repair them.
Decolonization and Reconciliation
Investing in Indigenous philanthropy through reciprocity
Trust-based philanthropy seeks to transform the relationships between philanthropic organizations and non-profits by identifying systemic inequalities and addressing inherent power imbalances. In an Indigenous context, a trust-based approach centres Indigenous leadership, knowledge, and expertise.
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.
Series on Mission Transition
Mission Transition: Confronting the biggest challenge of the 21st century
With average global temperatures on course to rise by 3.6°C by the end of the century, there is an urgent need for worldwide action to ensure a sustainable future for the planet and its inhabitants. In this series, contributor Diane Bérard examines why organizations should make the socio-ecological transition a core driver of their strategy – and how to do it.
Solon: Citizen-led action for mobility, energy, and ‘third places’
Collective action happens when people meet, have fun, imagine, and share and test their ideas. Solon is rooted in a citizens’ movement that focuses on mobility, energy, and “third places” – spaces that are separate from the home (the “first place”) or the office (the “second place”).
Solidarité Ahuntsic: Mobilizing for community control of land and housing
The intersectoral and multi-network consultation table focuses on citizens’ quality of life and affordable housing.
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Analysis
Looking for ‘the good way’: Definity Insurance Foundation aims for systems-level change
A driving force behind the newly minted Definity Insurance Foundation was a determination to create a “responsive and relevant foundation that meets the needs of the people we’re serving” and to address the root causes of inequity.
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.
The cy-près doctrine: The court’s discretionary power to vary the terms of charitable gifts
This is the third in a series of articles focused on various aspects of charity law that have been a burden on the Canadian charitable and non-profit sector for 70 years. The articles are written by members of the Canadian Bar Association’s Charities and Not-for-Profit Law Section, who deal with these issues on behalf of their clients on a regular basis. In this piece, Anna C. Naud looks at the doctrine of cy-près.
And the winner is … Canadian prize philanthropy
Despite hefty logistics, Canadian foundations and organizations are turning to attention-grabbing prizes as a model to spark innovation, give back, and increase awareness on social and environmental issues.
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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