Publisher’s note: In November 2020, the Agora Foundation board of directors established an Editorial Advisory Committee whose members could provide input and insights into our evolving coverage of Canada’s philanthropic sector. We have drawn on their considerable experience in our reporting. This spring, we asked contributor Emily Mathieu to canvass some members of the EAC…
When Karen Ball stepped in as head of the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations (CCVO) last summer, she arrived bearing what might be described as a brimming advocacy tool box: years of experience running a consultancy whose clients included both provincial bureaucrats and elected officials, a keen sense of timing and leverage, and a love…
It’s official: the charitable and non-profit sector has a “home” in government in BC. The face of that home is Niki Sharma, elected in the province’s October election. The MLA for Vancouver-Hastings is now BC’s Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development and Non-Profits, joining a small handful of elected officials across Canada with the specific role…
An advisory committee on the future of the charitable sector has released far-reaching recommendations it believes could help Indigenous organizations better serve their communities and improve diversity within the sector’s own ranks. The second of three scheduled reports by the Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector (ACCS) highlights a spring in which the energy for…
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed many truths: Canada relies heavily on fragile global supply chains; social and economic status affects health outcomes; many essential workers are poorly paid; and data matters. Never before has our collective attention been so focused on data. Case counts, hospitalization numbers, test positivity rates, and the predictions of the latest…
La pandémie de la COVID-19 a révélé de nombreuses vérités : le Canada dépend beaucoup de fragiles chaînes d’approvisionnement mondiales; le statut social et économique affecte les résultats en matière de santé; de nombreux travailleurs essentiels sont sous-payés; et les données sont importantes. Notre attention collective ne s’est jamais autant portée sur les données. Chaque jour,…
For Canada’s non-profit and charitable leaders, the 2021 federal budget was significant and historic for many reasons. It made the “most promises” to the sector that Peter Dinsdale, president and CEO of YMCA Canada, has ever seen. It was the first time that Anjum Sultana, national director of public policy at YWCA, encountered a budget…
This is the third and final article in a series published as a collaboration between The Philanthropist and Century Initiative. *** The COVID-19 pandemic has affirmed an adage often attributed to management guru Peter Drucker: “What gets measured gets managed.” The latest COVID-19 case numbers and vaccination rates are not just frequent topics of discussion –…
This is the second in a series of articles published as a collaboration between The Philanthropist and Century Initiative. *** Willa Black is vice-president of corporate affairs and corporate social responsibility at the Canadian arm of IT and networking company Cisco. She has held executive marketing and CSR roles at Cisco Canada since 1999, leading strategies to…
This is the first in a series of articles published as a collaboration between The Philanthropist and Century Initiative. *** Canada is at a crossroads. Our population is aging, our fertility rates are below replacement levels, and our workforce is shrinking. As the non-working-age population grows, and as people live longer, the burden on our…