At the beginning of a new term of Parliament and almost a dozen years after former Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a historic apology for Canada’s residential schools policy, Marie Wilson has a simple but critical question: what’s happened to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action? As one of the TRC commissioners,…
Strategy: Leadership
In 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada heard an appeal that drove right to the heart of then-Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin’s philosophy about the role of the courts in society. The case involved a custody dispute between a BC couple. Facing a 10-day hearing, the mother found she’d have to pay a $3,600 court fee…
The Intrepid Nonprofit: Strategies for Success in Turbulent Times, by Tim Plumptre. Friesen Press, Victoria, B.C., 2019; 330 pp; ISBN 9781525505423 It’s become a truism that we are living and working in a time of extraordinary turbulence. The corollary is that leaders of organizations in such times face stiffer challenges. It’s never been easy…
Sophia Hanna is one of four winners of a 2019 writing contest for young women hosted by The Philanthropist and the Girls Conference. This article also appears in French below. At the Annual Girls’ Conference, hosted by Mount Saint Vincent University and the Alexa McDonough Institute for Women, Gender, and Social Justice, I interactively learned through both…
Damini Awoyiga is one of four winners of a 2019 writing contest for young women hosted by The Philanthropist and the Girls Conference. When I first arrived at the Alexa McDonough Institute (AMI) Girls Conference I noticed several groups of girls and women, but the group that really stood out to me were the…
Lily Brigham-Gale is one of four winners of a 2019 writing contest for young women hosted by The Philanthropist and the Girls Conference. I saw her sitting alone at a table, while all around her girls were talking and laughing in big groups of friends. I am a 16-year-old high school student from Bedford,…
The Alexa McDonough Institute launched the Girls Conference in 2012 to bring together girls and young women from across Nova Scotia to celebrate International Women’s Day (held annually on March 8). From its inception, the mission of the conference has been to help girls develop, appreciate, and celebrate their own abilities and talents – as…
This is the second article in our series about the role of networks in the non-profit sector. The series is published as a collaboration between The Philanthropist and the Ontario Nonprofit Network. From neighbourhood efforts to improve employment to national efforts to tackle climate change, non-profit organizations in Canada are increasingly turning to the science…
This article is the fourth in a series about European philanthropy. The series is published as a collaboration between The Philanthropist and The Lawson Foundation. Belgian visionary Raymond Georis created the Network of European Foundations (NEF) 40 years ago because he thought that foundations needed an instrument to facilitate the gathering of their forces –…
This article is the final piece in a series about intergenerational leadership. The series is published as a collaboration between The Philanthropist and Connect the Sector (CTS). The non-profit sector is in the midst of a leadership transition. We know that its future will rely on thoughtful strategy, succession planning, and change management. Strong data…