When I started my first formal fundraising role at Grand Challenges Canada in November 2020, it was a strange time. I had just moved back to Toronto. The world was still mostly closed due to the global pandemic, and interacting with others in person was not really something people were doing.

In this new role, I was tasked to help raise funds for our Indigenous Innovation Initiative. It’s an incredible program looking to use an innovative approach to support Indigenous communities to develop and scale ideas and support them to solve the challenges most important to their communities. The objectives were clear and compelling, so building a case for support was straightforward, but nothing in the past two years has been easy for anyone, especially fundraisers. [Read more…]