As part of National Volunteer Week (April 23 to 29), the Governor General will host Working Together for the Common Good: The Governor General’s Conference on Giving at Rideau Hall, on Thursday, April 27, 2017.
Delivered in partnership with the Rideau Hall Foundation, this one-day national conference will focus on three major themes:
The conference will gather non-profit sector leaders, fund development professionals, representatives of corporate and government charitable initiatives, and members of academia focused on giving behaviour the opportunity to share their views on current trends in giving and how this behaviour can best be encouraged. It will also focus on increasing connectivity among sectors and exploring and informing on the development of a national approach to encourage giving behaviour through the Giving Behaviour Project, an initiative of the Rideau Hall Foundation.
State of the Nation on Giving
Marina Glogovac is a seasoned leader and visionary with over 20 years’ experience. From 2006 to 2009, she served as the CEO of Lavalife Corp., where she had also previously served as chief revenue officer. Prior roles included chief marketing officer of Kobo Inc., chief revenue officer of Dealfind, and group publisher for St. Joseph’s Media. Ms. Glogovac has contributed her expertise to the boards and advisory committees of a number of Canadian non-profit organizations. A graduate of the University of Belgrade, Ms. Glogovac also holds a master’s degree in education from the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, where she specialized in organizational learning and change.
In addition to serving as the editor of KCI’s online publication, Philanthropic Trends Quarterly, Nicole Nakoneshny plays a lead role in KCI’s specialty portfolio. She works closely with clients to develop highly customized strategic plans and integrated revenue generation strategies, both of which are essential to long-term organizational sustainability. She also conducts capacity assessments and program reviews that assist organizations in enhancing their activities and achieving increased fundraising results. An active volunteer, Ms. Nakoneshny has donated her time to many organizations and is long-time volunteer with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, where she has served as a talking books narrator.
Lili-Anna Pereša has been the president and executive director of the Centraide of Greater Montréal since 2013. From 2009 to 2012, Ms. Pereša served as executive director of ONE DROP. Prior to that she directed several community and humanitarian organizations, including Les Petits Frères, YWCA Montreal and Amnesty International France. Ms. Pereša’s involvement in humanitarian aid has earned her numerous distinctions, including a Meritorious Service Award for Community Service from the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, an honorary doctorate from the Université de Montréal and an Engineers Canada Fellowship. In addition to her degree in electrical engineering, Ms. Pereša holds a graduate degree in management from McGill University and a master’s degree in political science—with specialization in international co-operation and humanitarian aid—from the Sorbonne in Paris.
Conrad Sauvé has been the president and CEO of the Canadian Red Cross since 2008. Under his leadership, the Canadian Red Cross has strengthened its capacity in emergency management and health programming, and made significant contributions in the wake of multiple, large-scale domestic and international emergencies. For the past 20 years, Mr. Sauvé has been involved with several health and social service committees, associations and executive boards. He holds a B.Sc. from the Université du Québec à Montréal and is a graduate of McGill University’s International Masters in Health Leadership program.
Millennials, Values and Giving Behaviour
Ilona Dougherty is the managing director of the Youth and Innovation Research Project at the University of Waterloo. She co-founded the national charity Apathy is Boring, is an Ashoka fellow and, in 2015, was named one of the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada by the Women’s Executive Network. Ms. Dougherty is on the advisory board of Children’s First Canada. She has served on the board of directors of Volunteer Canada, the Sierra Club of Canada and Studio 303, and is a founding member of the Michaëlle Jean Foundation.
Krishan Mehta is the executive director, Campaign, at Ryerson University. He is also an instructor in Ryerson’s fundraising management program, and a Ph.D. candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, where he is conducting research on the philanthropy of high net-worth immigrants in Canada. He serves as president-elect of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Greater Toronto Chapter and was co-chair of AFP Diversity to Inclusion Series, which was the first phase of this exciting inclusion initiative in Ontario. Mr. Mehta is an active volunteer in the community and is currently a member of the Working Women’s Community Centre Patron’s Council.
Kirk Kristofferson recently completed his doctorate at the University of British Columbia. He studies the motivations and social factors that drive consumers to behave prosaically, and how impression management desires can affect subsequent consumer choice. Mr. Kristofferson's research has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research and the Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Psychology, as well as in many mainstream publications, including Fast Company, Time Magazine, Harvard Business Review, The Washington Post, Popular Science, and USA Today. His dissertation examined the effectiveness of token support campaigns in generating meaningful support behaviors and showed that observable token campaigns were not an effective means of generating subsequent support.
Sarah Roberton has directed much of the Aboriginal research conducted by Environics on behalf of such clients as Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada and Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, and was the project director of Environics’ North of 60º and Remote Community Monitor, Canada's only syndicated public opinion survey among Canadians who live above the 60th parallel. She was responsible for the questionnaire and sampling design for the Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study, and contributed to the reporting. Prior to Environics, Ms. Roberton worked at Decima and Ipsos-ASI/Tandemar Research. She holds a B.A. (Honours) from the University of Western Ontario.
The Personal Philanthropy Project: The Untapped Potential of Affluent Canadians
Manager of IMAGINE Canada’s Personal Philanthropy Project, Michèle Benoit has vast experience in the corporate, public and private sectors. Her background includes her most recent role as manager of programs at Innomar Strategies (the Canadian unit of a Fortune 500 company) as well as project lead with Ontario Parks where she initiated and managed the Bronte Creek Provincial Park Plan review. She has owned and operated her own health care business and recently created a charity campaign to raise funds and awareness for clean water in developing nations.
From having served as vice-president of marketing and subsequently as CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada for 10 years, Bruce MacDonald has led major change initiatives, and developed long and innovative partnerships with corporations and other charities. A wide and varied career, working with young people, older adults, sports and recreation and community service clubs in different parts of the sector led him to IMAGINE Canada. Mr. MacDonald holds a Bachelor of Commerce in sports administration and a master’s degree in management in the voluntary sector.
As the group head of U.S. Banking, TD Bank Group, Mike Pedersen is responsible for leading TD’s retail and commercial banking operations in the U.S. Prior to joining TD in 2007, he worked in London, England, where he was responsible for Barclays’ global private bank and two other international businesses. Before joining Barclays, Mr. Pedersen spent 12 years at CIBC, where he held senior executive roles in retail and business banking. He has a long and ongoing involvement with charitable organizations focused on strengthening disadvantaged urban communities and on sustainability and the environment.
Mr. Pedersen graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1984 with a Bachelor of Commerce degree, and obtained his Master of Industrial Relations degree from the University of Toronto in 1988.
Launch of Giving Behaviour Project
Scott Haldane is the president and CEO of the Rideau Hall Foundation, an independent and non-political charity established to strengthen the ability of the Office of the Governor General to better serve Canadians through a range of initiatives. Prior to taking on this role in January 2016, Mr. Haldane spent 39 years in a variety of senior leadership positions with YMCA Canada, including five years as its president and CEO. He has been engaged in a wide range of task forces, committees and boards within the charitable and non-profit sector, as well as initiatives with the public and private sectors. Notably, he chaired the National Panel on First Nation Education for Elementary and Secondary Students Living on Reserve in 2011–2012
Teresa Marques is the director of Strategic Partnerships of the Rideau Hall Foundation. She is an accomplished fundraising executive with extensive experience leading development teams in the health care and post-secondary sectors. She is an instructor at Ryerson University’s
G. Raymond Chang School and has been instrumental in major gift fundraising efforts at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Foundation, York University and the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from the University of Ottawa and York University, respectively, and has pursued post-graduate studies at Dalhousie University’s School of Continuing Education, with a focus on non-profit governance. Ms. Marques is seeking to drive social change through philanthropy and to contribute to the evolving discourse of the non-profit sector in Canada.
Workshop: Behavioural Insights & Giving
Elspeth Kirkman leads BIT’s North American office where her team is working on an ongoing program of work funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, which helps cities across the U.S. to build behavioural science and evaluation into their day-to-day practices. Other clients include the International Rescue Committee, the Canadian government, and the City of New York. Prior to setting up the New York office, she was BIT UK’s founding director of the Behavioural Research Centre for Adult Skills and Knowledge. During her time with the team, she has worked on a range of complex social issues, such as foster care, national school funding and employment.
Michael Sanders is the chief scientist and head of Research, Evaluation and Social Action at BIT. His team leads a series of trials encouraging charitable donations, volunteering and social action. Mr. Sanders is an associate fellow of the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, where he teaches behavioural science and public policy. He is also an affiliate of the Harvard Behavioral Insights Group. In the 2016-17 academic year, he will also be teaching field experimental design at the University of Bristol.
He holds an M.Sc. in economics and public policy, and a Ph.D. in economics, both from the University of Bristol. He previously taught public policy analysis at the University of Bristol and worked as a teaching fellow at the University of Bath, and has completed post-doctoral research at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Moderator
From 1995 to 2011, Tim Brodhead was president and CEO of The J. W. McConnell Family Foundation, a private foundation based in Montréal. Prior to that, he spent 25 years working in international development, first in West Africa and then as founding director of several non-governmental organizations. He co-authored the book Bridges of Hope? and, from 1987 to 1992, was the executive director of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation. Currently he co-chairs Canadians for a New Partnership and is on the advisory boards of various Canadian organizations. In 2001, Mr. Brodhead was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. He is the recipient of honorary degrees from Carleton University, Dalhousie University and the University of New Brunswick.
