Listen Now

On this episode, Christian sat down with three young black fundraisers; Adya Afanou, Camila Pereira Ph.D  and Melissa Leite to talk about their experiences in the sector. In the conversation, Christian discussed with Adya, Camila and Melissa a range of topics from how to recruit young people of colour into a variety of roles in your organization; why transparency in culture and compensation is critically important; how to set boundaries as a young professional and much more.

An extended cut of our episode with Nneka Allen, Nicole Salmon and Joy Gooding. three accomplished black women fundraisers who shared with me a message of hope for young black fundraisers, and young fundraisers of colour who work  in the charitable sector.  In our conversation, we spoke about sponsorship vs mentorship, filling our souls, living by our values and virtues, agency, and much more. If you’d like to learn more, as well as connect with  Nneka, Nicole and Joy, please visit our show notes for this episode on our website. While you’re there, I highly encourage you to take a look at the important work of the Black Canadian fundraisers’ collective, and also look at ‘collecting courage: joy, pain, freedom, love that is co-edited by both Nneka and Nicole.

On this episode I sat down with Nneka Allen, Nicole Salmon and Joy Gooding, three accomplished black women fundraisers who shared with me a message of hope for young black fundraisers, and young fundraisers of colour who work  in the charitable sector.  In our conversation, we spoke about sponsorship vs mentorship, filling our souls, living by our values and virtues, agency, and much more. If you’d like to learn more, as well as connect with  Nneka, Nicole and Joy please visit our show notes for this episode at www.btbs.ca. While you’re there, I highly encourage you to take a look at the important work of the black canadian fundraisers’ collective, and also look at ‘collecting courage: joy, pain, freedom, love that is co-edited by both Nneka and Nicole.

Logan Hussein had a complicated arrival on November 26, 2008 at the Queensway Carleton Hospital. He was born with a collapsed lung and was immediately taken to CHEO’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in a specialized incubator. Logan remained in the NICU for nine days. From the day Sue and Wael Hussein took Logan home from the NICU, they knew their lives would never be the same. Filled with gratitude on their son’s recovery, they wanted to find a way to give back to CHEO, help save the lives of other children and give families hope. Logan’s ultimate goal is to raise $200,000 for a Neonatal Transport Incubator. Logan is the youngest recipient of the CHEO Foundation’s ORDER of the GOOD BEAR. He also participates each year in the CHEO Telethon and his family participates in CN Cycle for CHEO. At the 2019 AFP Ottawa Philanthropy Awards, Logan was awarded the Youth Philanthropy Award.

David believes philanthropy’s power belongs to all – not just the 1%. Working with clients across Canada and internationally, he develops and executes successful strategies for annual giving and legacy marketing programs that build value through meaningful donor relationships and empower donors of modest means to achieve their philanthropic dreams. David is the founder of Western Canada Fundraising Conference, Canada’s only multi-award winning conference for professional fundraisers. In our conversation, David and I discussed Legacy Marketing Fundamentals Choosing the right story Not talking about death Getting your website legacy ready

Dave is Vice President of Advancement at ACHIEVA and an adjunct professor of informatics at Muskingum University’s Master of Information Strategy, Systems and Technology program. A certified Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Master Trainer, he received the Outstanding Fund Raising Executive Award from the AFP Western PA chapter in 2013, has had numerous articles published in professional journals and has written curriculum for The Fund Raising School® at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. Dave is a past president of the AFP Western PA chapter and has served in many volunteer roles for AFP International and his own chapter, where he is currently the Vice President of Resources. He is the current board treasurer for the Brentwood Athletic Association where he also coaches youth softball. He is also serving on the UpPrize Advisory Committee. Dave has served in leadership positions on additional nonprofit boards including the Pittsburgh Planned Giving Council, Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of Pittsburgh (YNPNPgh), APRA Western PA, PA Kiwanis, and Brewhouse Artists.

Meridian Swift was hired for her first volunteer manager job in 1995 because she was “nice.” Since that fateful day, she earned the CVA accreditation in 2005, has won several volunteer program awards and has presented workshops on the state and national level. She poured her passion for elevating volunteer programs into authoring two books, The Volunteer Shelf Life and The Disruptive Volunteer Manager. She blogs on her website, VolunteerPlainTalk.com, and because she can’t stop talking about volunteerism, she podcasts on the Volunteer Plain Talk podcast. She loves analogies and anything absurd and she never replaces an appliance until it can no longer be duct-taped together and then she cries while bidding her old friend adieu.

Nadia Lloyd is a Toronto-based artist and entrepreneur who is sewing and donating face masks for front line care workers in Toronto. Thanks to community support, and her entrepreneurial and artistic spirit, she’s been donating 60 masks/week. Nadia shared with me that her sewing skills and entrepreneurial spirit manifested themselves at age 6 when she started sewing pencil case in order to make money for herself. At age 36, her artistic pursuits took shape when she picked up a paintbrush for the first time...and the rest is history.

Tom Ahern is considered one of North America’s leading authorities on donor communications. Tom works with dozens of clients nationwide every year. They include brand names like the Sierra Club and Save the Children, as well as hospitals, universities, foundations, and local charities. He specializes in bequest marketing; donor communications evaluations; direct mail; newsletter interventions; and case statements for big-ticket campaigns. Each year, he delivers dozens of workshops on the techniques of (and psychology behind) effective fundraising communications. He is also the author of four well-received books Tom is also an award-winning magazine journalist, for articles on health, women’s rights and other social justice issues. He has his MA and BA in English from Brown University, and a Certificate in Advertising Art from the RI School of Design. His office is in Rhode Island. He writes his books at his second home in France. In our conversation we discussed How fundraising is about activity Why now, why us, why anyone would care How nonprofits and charities need authenticity 

Scott is an award-winning executive director who is passionate about helping not for profits and associations develop and sustain excellent leadership at the board, CEO/Executive Director, and key staff levels. In the last 15 years, Scott has raised over 25 million dollars with the multiple agencies he has worked with including the Ottawa boys and girls club, the Nanaimo child development centre, and phoenix human services. Scott has been recognized for his work with the Ottawa Boys and Girls club for over a decade of service with a united way community builder award and has also been recognized with the Queen’s Diamond jubilee award, the chamber of commerce non-profit of the year award, and multiple accreditations from the commission of the accreditation for rehabilitation facilities. He also has a music studio named after him for his work with the Ottawa Boys and Girls Club.

Leah Eustace, M.Phil, MInstF, CFRE, ACFRE. President, Blue Canoe Philanthropy Leah is an idea-generator and strategic thinker with a wide and varied background in charitable fund development. Over the past 25 years, Leah has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for organizations around the world. After many years as a practitioner, Leah now works as a consultant to the non-profit sector. She partners with her clients to help tell powerful stories through direct marketing, cases for support, legacy giving and social media. She has a particular interest, and extensive experience, in strategic planning and ‘looking under the hood’ of fundraising programs to help tune up revenue-generation activities and build stronger relationships with donors.  Leah’s volunteer work is extensive. She is Immediate Past Chair of the AFP Foundation for Philanthropy – Canada, a Board Member of AFP International, a member of the ACFRE Credentialing Board, and on the Board of the newly formed AFP Canada.   Leah speaks internationally in the areas of legacy giving, donor psychology, leadership, and philanthropic trends. As well, she’s a regular contributor to Advancing Philanthropy, Hilborn e-news, and many other publications. In 2014, Leah became the 101st person in the world to receive the ACFRE accreditation (and only the 8th in Canada). She was also honoured with the 2014 AFP Ottawa Chapter Outstanding Fundraising Executive Award. 

Rob Jackson has worked in the volunteering movement for more than 25 years, during which time he has led and managed volunteers and volunteering in education, advice, fundraising and children’s services settings at local, regional and national levels. We will be speaking with him about COVID-19 and its wide-reaching impact on the charitable sector, and what volunteer managers can do during this time!

As a professional fundraiser Sam works closely with generous donors to impact some of the most vulnerable people in her community. Sam’s extensive experience, for close to three decades, in fundraising, media and municipal politics has created an impressive network of community and business leaders. Over a 28-year period Ms. Laprade has raised money for important charities in her community such as: The Ottawa Hospital Foundation, the Ottawa Humane Society and the Ottawa Mission Foundation. Sam is the creator and radio host of “An Hour to Give” on 1310 News, Ottawa. This show highlights non-profit organizations in Ottawa, Canada.

In this episode, I sat down with Dwaine Taylor - a development and social impact professional with experience in strategic planning, program development, cross-industry impact partnerships, and major gifts fundraising. He recently returned to his alma mater, at Carleton University, to lead community partnerships and community engaged learning programs for students. Prior, Dwaine held several roles at WE Charity (formerly Free the Children), including most recently Associate Director of Business Development.

Alice L. Ferris, MBA, CFRE, ACFRE, founding partner of GoalBusters, has more than twenty-five years of professional fundraising experience. Alice was the 90th professional to receive the Advanced Certified Fundraising Executive (ACFRE) credential and is a three-time honoree as AFP-Northern Arizona Fundraising Professional of the Year. She currently serves on the ACFRE Credentialing Board, the AFP Northern Arizona Board, and the Bolz Center for Arts Administration at the Wisconsin School of Business Advisory Board, among other volunteer commitments.

Brett Tackaberry is a digital solution professional that uses his tech skills for the greater good. He has 15 years of experience helping people and companies do business online, starting with his co-founding 76design, a digital agency. Brett is currently the CTO at Rebel, where he is responsible for the technical team and product direction. In his mission to help people be great online, Brett runs Random Hacks of Kindness, a hackathon for social good; he assists in running Tech4Good, a community organization that bridges the gap between the digital and technology sectors; and contributes to great initiatives like Ottawa Civic Tech and Code4Canada. He has also been known to rock a pretty sweet mustache each November to raise funds for Mustaches for Kids. In our conversation, we discussed modern agile, tech for good, and complex problem solving.

Kate Bahen, CFA is the managing director for Charity intelligence and is a retired equity analyst. Some call Charity Intelligence a “charity watchdog”. We see ourselves as research analysts who help Canadian donors give better. Charity Intelligence researches Canadian charities for donors to be informed and give intelligently. Charity Intelligence’s website posts free reports on more than 740 Canadian charities. Today over 300,000 Canadians use Charity Intelligence’s website as a go-to source for information on Canadian charities reading over 1.3 million charity reports.

Michael Sangster is an award winning executive and community leader with over 30 years of experience. Michael has an unprecedented talent for activating change, cultivating relationships and rescuing troubled partnerships through skillful negotiation and consensus building.  Michael is currently the Chief Commercial Officer of PAL Aerospace: A global leader in airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) providing comprehensive and custom solutions.  Michael has worked for organizations in senior leadership roles at TELUS, The Waterloo Group, and C-COM Satellite Systems Inc to name a few where he’s delivered impressive business development results and motivated large teams to reach their goals.  In the community, Michael has raised over $1.5 million for children at risk through his founding of the Hill Charity Golf Classic tournament; Is a board member of OutCare foundation; is the community chair of the Ottawa Police Service Gala, and is one of the founders of the Ottawa Giving Group: A giving circle located in Ottawa. Michael has also been recognized for his volunteerism and philanthropy with the Ottawa Police Community Leadership Award; the Diamond Jubilee Medal Award; and Volunteer of the Year Award from the Ottawa Food Bank, to name a few.

Evan Patterson is the executive director of Kids Up Front Ottawa, an organization that distributes donated tickets for a variety of arts and sports events to children and youth who otherwise would not have the opportunity. As an avid skier and snowboarder; a Calgary 40 under 40, he helps create memories that last a lifetime, often planting seeds for a child’s future interests or career. For Evan, he’d love to see Kids Up Front become the Ticketmaster for non-profits.

Parvathi “Parv” Santhosh-Kumar is Senior Director of Impact at StriveTogether, a national movement of 70 regions working to advance equitable outcomes for children and families from cradle to career. She is a Results Count leadership practitioner who coaches teams of cross-sector leaders to dismantle structural barriers to opportunity and achieve impact at scale towards economic mobility for 10.5 million youth. She also serves as managing director for StriveTogether’s Chicago office. She is Curator of the Chicago Global Shapers Community and she was selected as one of 50 young leaders to participate in the 2018 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, where she contributed to dialogues with world leaders on creating a shared future in a fractured world.