Impact Conversations

Impact Conversations is a show about change makers getting things done. Sally Fazal and Lynn Fergusson of Social Impact Advisors talk to NGO leaders, philanthropists, social entrepreneurs and environmental innovators about their goals and how they're reaching them.

Inclusion and Connection at Community Living Oakville with Alexandra Hoeck Murray 07/22/2021

Guest Podcast: A Young Newcomer’s Perspective on Settling in Canada: from Together Project - Makeway 07/08/2021

Building Welcoming Community: An update from our friends at Together Project 07/08/2021

Foundation for Black Communities and Generation Chosen: Breaking Through Together with Dr. Joseph Smith 06/24/2021

Foundation for Black Communities and Generation Chosen: Breaking Through Together with Dr. Joseph Smith In this engaging conversation, Dr. Joseph Smith shares his expertise and passion for equity and inclusion and the emotional intelligence needed for productive conversations between people of diverse backgrounds. He talks about the work underway to close the gap in philanthropy in Canada, in which the needs and assets of Black Communities have been overlooked. Dr. Smith is the co-founder of the non-profit organization Generation Chosen which focuses on Mental health and Emotional Intelligence within underserved communities. He is a founding member of the Foundation for Black communities, a non-profit organization designed to adjudicate grants, develop policy and liaise with government and the philanthropic sector to serve Black-led and Black-serving non-profits and charities. The Foundation’s report: Unfunded, was a catalyst for $200 million in federal government endowment funding in Canada this year and has prompted a transfer of endowment funds from traditional philanthropic organizations to the new Foundation to better balance investment in Black Communities. Dr. Smith is also a project coordinator the Black Experience Project through the Environics Research Institute; works as a facilitator and consultant in the area of Anti-Black Racism and Emotional Health at LifeWorks; and sits on the board of Operation Black Vote Canada as the Director of Youth Outreach. In today’s conversation, we talk about how change can happen and is happening through understanding how we got where we are, how institutions and structures keep us from moving forward, and how intentional and generous action in how we live our lives- from who we engage, what we buy and how we spend our free time can lead to a better future. Resources Joseph Smith LinkedIn: . Thank you for listening to Impact Conversations with Lynn Fergusson & Sally Fazal . Find out more about our work at Social Impact Advisors: . /episode/index/show/socialimpact/id/19590755

Catalyzing Social and Environmental Change: a conversation with SI Canada’s Andrea Nemtin 06/10/2021

Educational Success for Racialized & Newcomer Youth, with Leo Johnson, Founder, Empowerment Squared 05/27/2021

Making an Impact in the Restaurant Industry 05/13/2021

Uncovering & Addressing Mental Health Needs for Rural Youth 04/29/2021

Building a Business and Portfolio with Purpose, with Tim Nash, Good Investing Founder 04/15/2021

A Founder and Funder Creating Beautiful Music Together, with Astrid Hepner, CEO/Founder, Hamilton Music Collective and Board member and Funder, Carl Joosse 04/01/2021

Business with Purpose – Creating Indigenous Software Testers, with Denis Carignan, Plato Testing President 03/18/2021

Supporting the Black Social Services Sector with Agapi Gessesse, ED CEE Centre for Young Black Professionals 03/04/2021

Eating Disorders are Prevalent but Solvable, with Sonia Kumar, co-founder of Body Brave and the Body Peace Collaborative 02/18/2021

Rallying for a Human Connection Movement with Pete Bombaci, GenWell Project Founder 02/04/2021

Intentionally Designed for Meaningful Giving, with Kate Masson, Meaningful Work Foundation at Ian Martin Group 01/21/2021

Intentionally Designed for Meaningful Giving, with Kate Masson, Meaningful Work Foundation at Ian Martin Group As the co-owner and Community Manager for the Ian Martin Group, Kate Masson works to establish a community of belonging and shared accountability for staff through a self-managed operating system and a genuine spirit of care for those in the organization. You're going to get a sense of that in this conversation. We're focused here not on the staffing organization, the work of Ian Martin Group as a B Corp, but on their foundation. They have been intentional in creating a foundation. The structure reflects the impact they intend, which includes looking at the effect they don’t want to have. They are addressing a very relevant need that they understand because of their work in hiring people. They understand the barriers to work, the challenges that exist. So, the Meaningful Work Foundation is meant to address those barriers. They are avoiding the power imbalance that can often exist between a funder and those that it's looking to fund. They're aware that they are granting small amounts and that the organizations they tend to support are small organizations, so they avoid making onerous demands in terms of application and reporting. They are engaging employees in meaningful ways, leveraging their expertise. In granting, and within the individual team members, they are addressing personal biases that might exist, getting that upfront so that they can have conversations that are really meaningful in deciding where the grants should be given. They are a small foundation, a young foundation. But I think there are some big lessons that all funders can learn, whether your lens is that of a foundation or a corporate team making donations, perhaps even from a personal giving standpoint. Have a listen. Resources Meaningful Work Foundation : Ian Martin Group: Kate Masson: Ian Martin Meaningful Work Foundation Grant Recipients 2020: Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business: Home Suite Hope: Plan Canada: Windmill Microlending: Yonge Street Mission: Benevity: Mark Peterson’s book, Love Giving Well: . Thank you for listening to Impact Conversations with Lynn Fergusson & Sally Fazal . Find out more about our work at Social Impact Advisors: . /episode/index/show/socialimpact/id/17623838

Making Data Accessible to Address Inequities, through the Toronto Child & Family Network’s Raising the Village initiative 01/07/2021

Making Data Accessible to Address Inequities, through the Toronto Child & Family Network’s Raising the Village initiative In this episode, Social Impact Advisors Partner Lynn Fergusson interviews representatives of the Toronto Child & Family Network. Kelley Baldwin provides backbone support to the Toronto Child and Family Network, a network of about 100 organizations. Tamara Augsten, who’s had a lead role in developing the Network’s Raising the Village initiative shares the value of this database. This initiative has pulled together data from various partners’ sources, such as EQAO standardized testing, Toronto District School Board, and the census, and made 120 indicators easily accessible to anyone, in a way that allows for insights into the current state of Toronto and enables people and organizations to move to action. We hear how this easily enables a snapshot or comparison of a neighbourhood, and also enables an easy way to apply an equity lens to a community by disaggregating the data. Tamara shares how we often hear averages for Toronto. Great insights can be gained by segmenting the data by race, income or geography to identify and then move to address inequities. COVID has highlighted many inequities in our community. Here’s a tool to get a handle on them and mobilize action. This is particularly great information for organizations in Toronto serving children and families – principals, teachers, nonprofits, social workers, municipal councillors, parents and more - as you’ll hear how to easily access insights about your community. Outside of Toronto, we hope listeners take note of this model and begin to rally the partners and resources to ensure that insightful data is easily accessible in your community, as a first step to uncovering inequities and taking action. Resources Raising the Village: Toronto Child and Family Network: Tamara Augsten: Kelley Baldwin: . Find out more about our work at Social Impact Advisors: . Thank you for listening to Impact Conversations with Lynn Fergusson & Sally Fazal. /episode/index/show/socialimpact/id/17439452

Hope for the Homeless – with Proof, with Foundations for Social Change CEO Claire Elizabeth Williams 12/24/2020

Storytelling, impact investing and reshaping philanthropy, with Sadia Zaman, Inspirit Foundation CEO 12/10/2020

Capturing your Secret Sauce in a powerful Theory of Change, with Melissa Sariffodeen, CEO of Canada Learning Code 11/26/2020

Challenge 2025, with Jim Vanderveken of Mohawk College: Building community and opportunity through workforce development 11/12/2020

Philanthropy’s Transformational Change with Jean-Marc Mangin, CEO & President of Philanthropic Foundations Canada (PFC) 10/29/2020

Reinventing a purpose-driven organization and brand – the journey, with Joanna Kerr, CEO, MakeWay 10/15/2020

Reinventing a purpose-driven organization and brand – the journey, with Joanna Kerr, CEO, MakeWay Joanna joins our podcast as CEO of the newly named MakeWay organization. You might know it as Tides Canada. We hear about the journey and thinking behind rebranding. It's about getting clear about the purpose of the organization and as a result, determining some fitting branding to go with it. We hear examples of projects MakeWay supports and a snapshot of an organizational design and leadership pilot the organization is undertaking. Through this, we’ll see just how fitting “MakeWay” is for this organization. Along the way, we also hear a bit more about Joanna's background. She came to MakeWay in the last year. Prior to that, she led Greenpeace Canada. She had more international experience before that, particularly focused on women and tackling inequality. Along that line, we're also going to hear about her role as Board Chair of the newly formed Equality Fund. This is going to be a significant organization. It just received $300 million in funding from the federal government. We'll hear about the history and direction of the Fund. Finally, we hear about how all of these things fit together, that the issues we're facing in the world, affecting society and the environment, are not separate and distinct, but all overlapping. Joanna brings great perspective to the intersectionality of those issues and how we need to solve for all of these things together. There's a lot to take away from this. Have a listen. Resources MakeWay: Joanna Kerr: Teal/Reinventing Organizations: Digital Justice Lab: Northern Manitoba Food, Culture and Community Collaborative: Equality Fund: Jessica Houssian/Women Moving Millions: Sophie Gupta: . Thank you for listening to Impact Conversations with Lynn Fergusson & Sally Fazal . Find out more about our work at Social Impact Advisors: /episode/index/show/socialimpact/id/16327775

Seizing the Moment for an Equity Movement, with Michael Bach, Founder & CEO, Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion 10/01/2020

Seniors: Isolation, inclusion and system change with Glenys Currie 09/17/2020

Seniors: Isolation, inclusion and system change with Glenys Currie In this episode, Sally speaks with Glenys Currie, Director of Quality and Risk Management at Banyan Community Services about her work with the Hamilton Seniors Social Isolation Plan (HSSIP) and its legacy. While the funded program, which ran for three years, ended in 2019, it has fostered relationships and positive impact that continue through the current COVID emergency. With over 25 years of experience leading community Glenys is an authority on the issues faced by marginalized and vulnerable persons, including an excellent knowledge and understanding of exclusion, isolation and loneliness. The Hamilton HSSIP project was started by organizations answering a call from , through the New Horizons Fund, to build community wide population-level impact plans to combat seniors’ isolation. Hamilton was one of 9 communities across Canada to receive funding from that original call. The Hamilton project was focused on connecting older adults in various ways: hospital connectors ensured safe discharge to community, community connectors sought out isolated seniors, peer connectors worked with fellow seniors to support their social connection to community. Five agencies and institutions participated in this network of connector services. As well, the Gilbrea Centre for studies in Aging at McMaster University worked to educate the community on the causes of seniors’ isolation, and the Hamilton Council on Aging connected all of these organizations to track progress and uncover opportunities. As Glenys explains, HSSIP underestimated the complexity of what seniors were facing: mental health challenges, substance abuse, food insecurity, precarious housing were all factors contributing to isolation that couldn’t be solved through relatively short-term services to seniors. Even with those challenges, HSSIP achieved its goal of connecting 20% of isolated seniors, and on a systems level, the project has produced lasting benefits. The community learned more about the causes of isolation and supports for combatting it, some of the connector roles developed in HSSIP continued and have become part of regular service at hospitals in Hamilton. As Glenys explains change at the systems level takes longer than three years, so the community is continuing to build on this work and foster their new relationships. The Seniors-At-Risk in the Community Collaborative (SARC) is one legacy of this collective work, and it connects 34 agencies and institutions together to share information, uncover opportunities and drive toward policy change. Glenys explains that government and other funders investing in community impact projects should invest long term. When crises like COVID happen, funding should be directed to experts in community who can ramp up their work quickly. Working collectively in the long term, as SARC intends, can reduce the fragmentation in community and make responding to crises and navigating to expertise more effective. Glenys credits staff at all of the agencies in Hamilton who have responded to the COVID crisis. Many people delivering services to seniors are seniors themselves, and they continued grocery delivery and social connection for their most vulnerable neighbours in a challenging time. Glenys suggests that collective community impact projects like these should work more intentionally at a systems level on inclusion, rather than focusing only on lifting individuals from isolation. There is a world of difference: don’t create programmatic dependency, work on preventing the need for short-term programs. Organizations working directly with seniors know what changes are needed at the system level around adequate income and food security, transportation and health care, and including these voices at tables of power, where decisions are made, will make our communities stronger. Resources: . Thank you for listening to Impact Conversations with Lynn Fergusson & Sally Fazal . Find out more about our work at Social Impact Advisors: . /episode/index/show/socialimpact/id/16039490

Guided by Purpose, with Allison Gibson, Director of Impact & Operations, Paintbox Catering and Bistro, a Toronto employment social enterprise B Corp 09/03/2020

Guided by Purpose, with Allison Gibson, Director of Impact & Operations, Paintbox Catering and Bistro, a Toronto employment social enterprise B Corp As you might imagine, Paintbox Catering and Bistro in Toronto’s Regent Park has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Without gatherings, there have been no big corporate events to cater, to generate revenue for their social enterprise, which intentionally hires people from the local community who face barriers to employment. But Allison Gibson, Director of Impact & Operations, has ensured that they’ve made use of their space and model of doing good while making a profit. Alongside running the catering and bistro, Paintbox has been incubating local business start-ups, and Allison shares how, in light of the changing COVID-19 world, they have pivoted (or perhaps completely changed), to support one of their incubation businesses, taking on the operations of Nibbly, an online grocery service offering same day delivery. They’ve incorporated their B Corp ethos, and are hiring from the community. They offer special pop-up sales to the local Regent Park community at a discount and are providing places for neighbours to leave what they can and take what they need. Clients with compromised health have benefitted from the same day deliveries since the early days of COVID when traditional grocery stores’ delivery schedules were booked a month out. You’ll hear how purpose and contagious passion have driven Allison to take on this challenge, dedicating long days to learn a new industry and figure it all out, to help people in Regent Park gain food security in a difficult time. Thank you, Allison! Resources Paintbox Catering and Bistro: Nibbly: Allison Gibson: B Corp Canada: Additional B Corp Impact Conversations Podcasts: . Find out more about our work at Social Impact Advisors: . Thank you for listening to Impact Conversations with Lynn Fergusson & Sally Fazal . /episode/index/show/socialimpact/id/15795410

Rethinking a Foundation’s Impact, with Miin Alikhan, VP Impact & Accountability, Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation 08/20/2020

Hurdles, Opportunities and Systemic Change in These Times, with Neil Hetherington, CEO, Daily Bread Food Bank 08/06/2020

Successfully bringing Indigenous ways to a traditionally science-based culture at Sierra Club BC, with Executive Director, Hannah Askew 07/23/2020

On the COVID and Poverty Front Line- meeting the emergency and adapting to the new world with Shawn Bayes of Elizabeth Fry 07/09/2020

On the COVID and Poverty Front Line- meeting the emergency and adapting to the new world with Shawn Bayes of Elizabeth Fry In some of our recent episodes we have been speaking with leaders in the nonprofit and social benefit sectors about the changes and opportunities they anticipate at a system level as we adapt to the new COVID situation in Canada. Today, we are talking about the front line: what the Elizabeth Fry Society of Greater Vancouver did when the emergency started, how reaffirming their values and principles helped them make decisions, and what they have learned about the scope, influence and interdependence of their work with other nonprofits and the broader society. Elizabeth Fry supports some of our society’s most vulnerable populations – women, girls and children at risk, involved in or affected by the justice system. Their more than two dozen programs work to break the cycle of poverty, addiction, mental illness, homelessness and crime. Our guest is Shawn Bayes, the Executive Director of EFry, who has been on the podcast before, talking about strategy for impact. During her 35-year career with EFry, Shawn has led the creation of numerous initiatives and successfully pursued policy changes to help address deep poverty and homelessness, key risk factors tied to criminalization. She was appointed in 2019 to Canada’s National Advisory Council on Poverty. We were glad she agreed to come back to talk about what’s changed, and what hasn’t, and how EFry is thinking about adapting to the future. As you will hear in this conversation, COVID has pushed more people on the margin further from safety. Violence, hunger and homelessness are greater risks in the COVID emergency than before, and the possibility of a second wave could compound these risks further. Shawn describes how EFry is preparing for a larger role. For more about the principles that are the foundation of EFry’s work: Shawn Bayes on LinkedIn: National Advisory Committee on Poverty: EFry on Twitter: . Find out more about our work at Social Impact Advisors: . /episode/index/show/socialimpact/id/15145409

Bold new leadership supporting the National Housing Strategy, with Julia Deans, Habitat for Humanity Canada President & CEO 06/25/2020

Impact Conversations

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