Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People

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This week’s suggested read is one of my favourite books of the past year. Blindspot – Hidden Biases of Good People (2013) was written by Mahzarin Banaji of Harvard University and Anthony Greenwald of University of Washington to share their extensive research and learnings about “the hidden biases we all carry from ...Read More

The Mission of Intergroup Relations

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Contributed by Tessa Charlesworth (tet2113@columbia.edu) In our sector, group divisions – between government and community agencies, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people and organizations, as well as between “modern” and “traditional” experiences – have been, and continue to be, sources of misunderstandings and preju ...Read More

Strategies for Learning from Failure

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11/26/2015 – I am taking a course on entrepreneurial behaviour and practices and one of our key seminars has been entirely focussed on failure – imagine 8 days to explore all facets of and relationships to failure, with people from diverse backgrounds, organizations and cultures from throughout the world! I have loved it as ...Read More

2020 Reflections – October Alumni Gathering

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The Alumni gathering and social impact summit was designed by a small group of graduates and participants and we are grateful to them for their thoughtful ideas and contributions that made the event a success: Rebecca Ataya, Sheila Best, Maria Cargnelli, Connie Epp, Dayna Long, Lynne Mansell, Maureen Mackell, Wedlidi Speck and ...Read More

2020 Reflections – Bittersweet endings

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We have had an extraordinary 6 weeks of 2020 learning and connection. In October the Blended 3 and 4 cohorts completed their final residencies and graduated in style. The Blended 5 cohort launched in early November, and we also hosted our first Alumni gathering and social impact summit on October 21-22. The ‘endings’ of ...Read More

2020 Reflections – Finding Fellow Travellers

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This week I spent three hours with my friend and mentor, Al Etmanski. Al is a social activist and innovator extraordinaire, author of the recently published book Impact (see the weekly read below), world leader and connector in social innovation – and he will be with us for the 2020 Social Impact gatheri ...Read More

Impact: Six Patterns to Spread Your Social Impact

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Al Etmanski’s new book is Impact: Six Patterns to Spread Your Social Impact bring social innovation to life through stories and makes it accessible. He invites us in: social innovation “always begins with what you care deeply about” (p. 36). It “is the latest descriptor of the ageless human pursuit to make the world a better place. It is a bundl ...Read More

Forces for Good

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A note on terminology: The term ‘non-profit’ is familiar to us, but as someone who is curious about the impact of language, I wonder what the impact is of our field being defined in the negative? Terms such as ‘non-governmental organization’ (NGO) and ‘non-profit’ don’t tell people what our organizations stand for and what impact they ...Read More

Unsettling the Settler Within

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Inspired by the TRC report and my desire to live and act in ways that support reconciliation, I re-read Unsettling the Settler Within – Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling and Reconciliation in Canada (2010) by Paulette Regan. The author was an Indian Residential School (IRS) claims resolution manager for the federal gov ...Read More

2020 Reflections – The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report

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The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Report was released in the week just before the start of the Indigenous focus cohort 3 in June and I was both profoundly moved and disturbed by the findings. I was also anxious. The TRC report was a call to action, but how could we respond, and what did we need t ...Read More