Philanthropic foundations can manage their investments to provide much-needed support on the most urgent issues facing the planet in a variety of ways: divestment, transition financing combined with shareholder engagement, impact/ESG investment – or even winding down and freeing up their endowments to accelerate work toward a net-zero Canada by 2050.
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.
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.
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.
Les valeurs de don, de partage et d’entraide sont profondément ancrées dans les cultures autochtones. Ces traditions séculaires de réciprocité, de responsabilité mutuelle et de
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.
In this first episode of the Reimagining Philanthropy podcast, host Senator Ratna Omidvar asks guests Kris Archie and Edgar Villanueva a big question that looms over the philanthropic sector: “If accumulated wealth comes from years of oppression, exploitation, and colonization, then is philanthropy simply an expression of atonement at best or a cover-up at worst?”
