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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
With no shortage of gendered inequities to tackle in Canada and abundant research that demonstrates how equality benefits everyone, the CEO of the Canadian Women’s Foundation calls for increased investment in gender equality on Give to Women and Girls Day.
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.
