Building Foundation Commitment and Capacity for Social Justice

CFC began exploring the role of foundations in promoting social justice in the fall of 2001. Initially, we:

• Conducted a survey of 70 organizations in Canada to assess and explore foundations' activities and interest in supporting social change;
• Held a consultation on Foundations and Social Justice where 40 participants explored the potential and challenges of granting with a social justice perspective;
• Commissioned the Centre for Voluntary Sector Research and Development (Carleton University and the University of Ottawa) to research two papers, "Social Justice Grantmaking: Finding Common Language" and "Potential and Limitations of Social Justice Grantmaking", as well as a compendium of tools for social justice grantmaking;

Following a Ford Foundation planning grant, CFC launched its Social Justice Initiative in January 2003. We:

• Researched, published and distributed a primer on the legislative and regulatory environment as it relates to social justice philanthropy in Canada;
• Developed the "Social Justice Spectrum" to help foundations understand the potential range of social justice action;
• Held a Social Justice Forum in Winnipeg in November 2003, bringing together key players in the social justice sector to help community foundation representatives explore their potential role and understand the implications of adopting a social justice lens;
• Convened the Social Justice Learning Group, a group of eight community foundation representatives who are developing and directing foundation initiatives from a social justice perspective. The group will learn from one another and from other resource people, and document and share their learning with the sector;
• Developed and delivered two sessions on social justice philanthropy at CFC's national conference in May 2004;
• Engaged Anver Saloojee, professor of political science at Ryerson University in Toronto, to write a paper on the key social justice issues in Canada and the role for community foundations in addressing them (under development);
• Developed a board discussion guide to help foundations explore how to use their three roles (endowment building/asset development, grantmaking and community leadership) to address social justice issues locally (the learning group is currently piloting the guide);
• Developed a formative evaluation framework for local community foundations and CFC.

Beginning in the fall of 2004, CFC continued to build the commitment and capacity of community foundations to undertake more of their work from a social justice perspective. More specifically, we:

• Broadened and deepened our learning by continuing the social justice learning group;
• Supported community foundations to develop social justice initiatives;
• Developed more tools and resources to support community foundations in this work;

In 2008, with the support of the Social Partnerships program of the Government Canada, CFC worked with a group of six community foundations engaged in various stages of work focused on poverty-reduction to develop a web- based framework and toolkit titled "From Good Causes to Root Causes" for community foundations.