PFC News Reflecting on 2024 to prepare for a tumultuous 2025 Jean-Marc Mangin PFC News 9 mins read January 10, 2025 News & Insights PFC News Reflecting on 2024 to prepare for a tumultuous 2025 Table of Contents The directions of PFC 2025-2028 PFC’s 2025-2028 Strategic Framework Plans for 2025 2024 was a year of milestones with PFC marking 25 years as a network. Over the past year I was also privileged to witness countless examples of foundations individually and collectively embracing new opportunities and facing complex challenges with laser focus dedication to the issues they are working so hard to move forward. PFC’s role in this work and in this context is staunchly rooted in advancing the goal of supporting the network. After all, our charitable mission is to strengthen philanthropy for a just, equitable and sustainable world. We take these commitments very seriously. To this end, some offerings and platforms towards capacity building, collaboration, and research and public policy that we poured our hearts into the last year included: Our Landscape Report: a brand new, comprehensive signature research initiative for our sector, and representing part of an important evolution of PFC’s research agenda, capacity, and contribution to our collective understanding of who foundations are, what they do, and how they make a difference. Productive Dialogue in a Polarized World: an emergent learning program we developed to respond to articulated needs, which engaged a range of experts to address increasing polarization and help build greater understanding and collaboration in the philanthropic community. Together 25 Ensemble – PFC’s 25th Anniversary Conference 2024 marking our 25th anniversary as a network: we convened our largest – and dare I say best ever? – national conference in Ottawa, together with 450+ network members and partners, and which culminated in a major cross-sector reception on Parliament Hill well attended by political leaders of all stripes. Indeed, 2024 illustrated the critical value of our shared purpose, and the importance of meaningful engagement and collaboration amongst Canadian foundations. But it’s no secret that the contributions – and untapped potential – of foundation philanthropy are not well understood by the public, the government, or the rest of the charitable sector. As sector good practices, public expectations, and policy and regulation evolve at a fast pace, it’s no wonder that many in our sector are frequently finding that they are needing to play catch-up. These challenges have been on our mind at PFC a lot, as PFC – as an organization – has been considering what our own next strategic framework must look like in order to strengthen philanthropy for a just, equitable and sustainable world in the best and most useful ways possible. The directions of PFC 2025-2028 Beginning in 2023 the PFC board spent considerable time reviewing its strategic framework, and struck a task force to assess progress and provide advice. We consulted with the greatest number of people and organizations possible to ensure our next framework represents the needs and aspirations of our network. Using surveys, focus groups, face-to-face and virtual meetings, approximately 80% of our membership was engaged. Many PFC members talked about the rapidly changing environment in which we are operating, the challenge of keeping up with the pace of change, and the increasing complexity in the work being undertaken for social good. Their efforts are often at the intersection of systems change on the major policy issues of our time: the climate crisis; affordable housing; fostering reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples; mental health; threats to democracy and civil society; entrenched racism; and other growing societal inequalities, to name a few. Most of these are overlapping issues and cannot be tackled in isolation nor alone by a sole actor – they require creativity, dialogue, and long-term collaboration often in partnership with other foundations. They also frequently include working with governments and the private sector, two very unique types of entities. Most of those who participated in the consultations also expressed appreciation for the work that PFC has done over the last four years to support their organizations and the sector during such an unprecedented period, and to provide critical platforms for sector leaders to share learnings and to inspire their colleagues on how to do philanthropy even better. Many members expressed wishes for PFC to gain even deeper capacity to bring people together and help forge stronger relationships. Through the consultation process, member feedback helped us to tighten up the definitions of our focus areas and what we mean by these in order to deepen our efforts. Our purpose and values remain, with more clearly defined approaches and strategic outcomes that we are seeking to achieve. Altogether, where we landed was less a big shift in strategy and more of a deepening and clarification of the areas of work in which PFC serves to help our network meet the challenges we face today and tomorrow. PFC’s 2025-2028 Strategic Framework Purpose: PFC strengthens Canadian philanthropy – in all its diversity – in pursuit of a just, equitable, and sustainable world. Values: Trust: we approach our work in a non-partisan, evidence-based, open, respectful and collaborative manner to have meaningful impact in serving the common good. Sustainability: we take the long view in addressing the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Justice: we strive to eliminate barriers in philanthropy that are preventing full participation by all – notably Indigenous Peoples and equity-deserving communities – in building a fair society. Approach: PFC works with members to strengthen their governance, programming, and relationships. PFC creates inclusive spaces for philanthropic organizations to engage in dialogue, learn and act collaboratively to amplify their collective voices and resources. PFC helps to translate evidence-based learning into actionable practice and policy. Strategic Outcomes: 1. Capacity Building – increasing impact of philanthropic organizations by enhancing their effectiveness. 2. Collaboration – providing opportunities for philanthropic organizations to work together and with community and government partners in supporting meaningful, scalable change. 3. Research and Public Policy – improving public understanding of philanthropic organizations, and the policy environment for philanthropy and the broader non-profit and charitable sector. Plans for 2025 Bringing this new strategic framework to life, this year we will be curating several opportunities for learning, sharing and collaboration across the network, including: Our affinity groups and other regular peer-driven programs – including some new affinity groups that are in the works. Stay tuned for details! This year’s CEO Retreat – being held in Whistler, BC May 20-22 2025, PFC member CEOs will gather to discuss key issues and important developments in the sector in an informal but facilitated format (registration will be opening shortly). Our new CEO Peer Support Group program, developed in response to requests coming out of last year’s CEO retreat. Launching this month, it is shaping up to be one of our most popular affinity group programs yet with over 50 registrants. A new learning accelerator program on governance primarily aimed at family foundations is in development and will be launching this spring. Regional events in cities across the country, using some tested frameworks for these gatherings, and testing new ones too. Details are coming soon. Our 2025 Compensation Report, to be released this year – results from PFC’s comprehensive regular survey of employee salary and benefits of the PFC network. It will also serve to inform a new report we will be publishing called Working in Foundations, set to be launched in 2026 and published every three years. It will focus on the internal dynamics of foundations – the humans that are the centre of foundation operations – namely staff and boards. Philanthropy is an integral component of Canada’s diverse and vibrant charitable and nonprofit sector, and the need for philanthropy is even more relevant now as it has ever been. It has the advantages of not being beholden to shareholders or election cycles, to make decisions and act swiftly, and to be able to patiently stay the course to work on some of society’s most intractable challenges. But being connected and learning from sector colleagues remains vitally important to achieve impact. And so building the network and bringing people and organizations together with purpose and intention to advance common goals remains PFC’s cornerstone. With the imminent Trump administration, Canada may soon be facing a refugee crisis while dealing simultaneously with a recession triggered by tariffs. Strong federal leadership is unlikely to be forthcoming until we have a national election. Philanthropy cannot replace political leadership. However, we may be called to use our nimbleness and scale up innovation as many foundations did during the pandemic. The PFC team and I look forward to working with you in these efforts. All the best for the new year ahead. Share This Article Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email
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