Heading into what promises to be a complex year, we asked contributor Angela Long, who is also a poet, to write a poem to share with our readers as a way of putting a bow on our 2024 publishing. We love how she worked in voices from the interviews she’s done for us over the last few years.
Many in the sector are exhausted from the weight of living through a barrage of crises as a result of imperialism and colonialism – “there is a historic, cumulative grief we cohabitate with,” Lydia Phillip writes. “We are survivors of this grief, but it isn’t recognized on the job. It defies the boundaries of any workplace bereavement policy.”
Contributor Yvonne Rodney considers what has shifted in her own life and reflects on the impact of the pandemic on our values, motivations, attitudes, and priorities.
How can the charitable sector and government make better policy together? Hilary Pearson, outgoing co-chair of the Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector, suggests four structural elements that shape the effectiveness of these processes – but notes we already have the roadmap we need for deeper policy dialogue.
Contributors Inda Intiar and Njoki Mbũrũ offer tangible examples of how storytelling is enabling and catalyzing systems transformation within the philanthropic ecosystem – and some important lessons about the importance of relationships, slowing down, and self-awareness learned along the way.
In this reflection on Cannexus, the national career-development conference, Ashleigh-Rae Thomas wonders how she and another participant could have such contrasting reactions to discussions of diversity in the workplace. Black, Indigenous, and racialized people all know well the importance of DEI efforts. But what about decision-makers and people in positions of power who feel nonchalant toward, or even attacked by, equity initiatives in the workplace?
While many charities and foundations have made commitments to anti-racism, this insider’s look at the sector tells a different story of how systemic anti-Blackness, along with gender, religious, and other forms of discrimination, affects who gets funded and the well-being of the sector’s workers.
First Person, Personalities & Interviews
Janice Stein was the founding director of the Munk School at the University of Toronto (1998 to 2014). She is currently the university’s Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management in the Department of Political Science, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario.
