This column marks the introduction of a new editorial feature in The Philanthropist – a bi-weekly digest of news items from, and about, Canada’s charitable and non-profit sectors. It will appear on both the website and in this email to our subscribers. You can subscribe for free here. If you have tips or story ideas,…
It was a big number or, more precisely, a yawning gap. In 2010, parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a 10-year strategic plan with 20 targets, one of which called on signatories to protect at least 17% of all terrestrial areas and inland waterways, as well as 10% of marine areas, within…
Photo credit: Senate of Canada Just months after Ottawa set up an advisory body to look at the future of Canadian charities, a Senate committee this week released a 190-page report with a sweeping range of legal and policy reforms that, its members say, are necessary to ensure the health of a sector that generates…
When a group of Prince Edward County residents decided to establish a community foundation for the pastoral rural island region in eastern Ontario in 2008, they began not with an endowment, as is typically the case, but only a concept and, well, crossed fingers. The region has a few towns and an urban hub, Picton,…
Quand un groupe de résidents du Comté du Prince-Édouard ont décidé de constituer une fondation communautaire pour une région pastorale-rurale d’une île de l’est ontarien, en 2008, il n’a pas d’abord créé un fonds de dotation (habituelle façon de faire), mais uniquement un concept… et s’est croisé les doigts. La région comptait quelques petites municipalités…
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…
Three years ago, an anonymous donor approached Tides Canada program lead Wendy Cooper with some money and an open-ended request: find an innovative way to use the funds to support Indigenous youth. Cooper reached out to The Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada (“The Circle”), and a small steering committee of youth advisors…
Cet article est le premier d’une série consacrée à l’innovation sociale. En Colombie-Britannique, des douzaines de pêcheurs de la région du Lower Mainland qui utilisent des bateaux de pêche appartenant à leur famille ne peuvent plus capturer des prises de la taille exigée par les grossistes. Ils ont donc formé une association dirigée par ses…
This article is the first in a series on social innovation. In British Columbia, dozens of Lower Mainland fishers operating family-owned boats no longer have the size to sell to wholesalers. Instead, they band together to create a membership-driven club; subscribers can purchase fresh catch right off the dock. The result: sustainable food production, improved…