I have worked with many foundations during more than two decades of my engagement with philanthropy. I have found that the best way to understand them, and to share my understanding with others, is to tell a story about them. Stories about what they do in the present are compelling. But the story becomes even richer when it is also about the past, about how the foundation got started, what shaped it and how it evolved. My 2022 book From Charity to Change tells many such origin stories about foundations. Their stories were an entry point into understanding their impact. Looking back made it possible to see how far they had come but what also held true from their beginnings – in other words, what still mattered most to them or what drove their purpose and strategies.
New foundations are starting up in Canada all the time. Many if not most are small family funds. But some have a different origin – and one of these is the Definity Insurance Foundation. This public foundation started operating in late 2021 when it received funding from the proceeds of the demutualization of Economical Mutual Insurance Company (now known as Definity Insurance Company). The story of this demutualization and what it led to is already well told in a 2022 article in The Philanthropist Journal, ‘Looking for the Good Way’. This year, I developed a new case study tracing the evolution of this remarkable foundation, which the foundation has made public.
In late 2021, the foundation was capitalized with an endowment of $100 million provided through the Conversion Plan for the demutualization. Well before this time, a founding group of directors had begun to work on a vision for the work of the new foundation. These directors had all worked through the demutualization process and knew each other well. Although they did not have experience in the foundation sector (only one had direct experience in the charitable sector), I learned when I interviewed them for the case study that they were all very open from the start to learning as much as possible about philanthropic practice, including both grantmaking and impact investing. The directors quickly landed on a vision of a healthy, equitable and flourishing world and a mission of working with charitable partners across Canada to tackle inequity, barriers to good health and opportunity, and climate-related challenges.
By August 2021, the board had chosen three funding pillars: healthy people, thriving communities, livable planet. The directors further agreed that they wanted the foundation to focus specifically on the health and well-being of marginalized people and to help communities reduce the effects of social and economic inequality, as well as the inequitable impacts of climate change in communities and economies.
Importantly, from its inception the foundation was not a corporate foundation but an autonomous independent public foundation. The new company, renamed Definity Insurance Company, mutually agreed with the foundation to enter a partnership, the first of its kind, where they would share the Definity name, include company and community directors, and where the company would contribute additional funds to the foundation annually for the betterment of community.
In December 2021, the board selected Arti Freeman as the first President and CEO of the Foundation. This was a major turning point. The board chose a leader committed to doing things differently, building on her own deep experience but eager to try a new approach in philanthropy. Arti drew widely on advice and conversations with a range of philanthropic and social sector leaders. These open-ended conversations touched on the needs and trends that other leaders were seeing, about what and what wasn’t working, and what high impact initiatives the new foundation should consider.
In June 2022, after six months of hard work, Arti and the board agreed on a new community investment framework (CIF). Articulating the goal of the foundation as “addressing the roots of health, social economic and climate inequalities” and based on six principles (equity, diverse and inclusive, leverage resources, collaborative, community-led and shared learning), the framework connected the three original impact areas (healthy people, thriving communities, livable planet) to specific outcomes, strategies and priority populations. The framework also set out five granting approaches: partnership grants, program-related investments, research, convening and sector strengthening. Finally, the framework included a learning approach aligned with the six principles of the community investment approach: using stories, data and evidence provided by grantees and communities themselves to share, learn and adapt strategies as needed.
The board also moved to diversify its membership, adding directors who had engagement and experience with underrepresented communities or with the areas of priority to the foundation such as climate mitigation and adaptation, health equity, food security, inclusive economic opportunities or knowledge of impact investing. The new group of directors quickly formed a collegial bond with the first group around their shared boldness of vision and their commitment to supporting systemic change in communities. By late 2023, the board had adopted an even clearer focus on social justice and equity, with community at the core. It also had identified four strategic goals: flow capital to underfunded regions and communities; take a holistic approach; advance collaborative innovation; and support all of this through organizational effectiveness.
Arti and the board have shared this thinking and framework openly with their partners and with the broader public. As I learned from my discussions, the foundation is setting itself apart with a conscious approach to collaborative learning and sharing. The foundation demonstrates an unusual combination at this early stage in its development of trusting relationships among board and staff and a shared commitment to structured learning and public accountability, recognizing that community has many of the answers already, and the role of the foundation is to invest and support its partners in alignment with their intention.
What can we learn from the origins and early history of the Definity Foundation? The case study has attempted to highlight some of these learnings:
It’s an ongoing story for the Definity Foundation. But as this first stage concludes, Arti Freeman sums it up: "I am honoured to have been given the privilege and opportunity to lead a philanthropic organization with a blank sheet. This journey has been grounded in humility and purpose, listening and learning every step of the way. The relationships we’ve built—with our board, our team, and our friends, partners, and colleagues in the sector—have been the glue that helped this foundation find its legs. Together, we’ve worked to build an institution that is not only adaptive, but relevant and responsive to the needs of our communities."
In early April, the leaders of two relatively new Canadian foundations, Definity Insurance Foundation and Daymark Foundation, joined me at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Gift Planners to share their experiences and insights on the evolution of strategic philanthropy. Here is some of what we talked about...
We live in a better country than we did 20 years ago, even if the media paint a different picture. For example….
In every case, a Canadian grantmaking foundation provided the seed funds, the connections, the training or the advocacy support to make it happen. And most people don’t know about it.
Why not? Foundations don’t often tell their own stories. And they need to. Because there are many other stories out there not told by foundations.
Some are benign (foundations exist to help those in need). Some are aspirational (foundations are the risk capital for much-needed social innovation). But others are conspiratorial (foundations are anti-democratic vehicles for the wealthy), or critical (foundations sequester urgently needed resources for today’s problems).
It’s true, there isn’t a single story. Philanthropic foundations are as different as the sources and uses of their capital. At the core, all foundation stories are about charity, caring for others. But foundations can also fight justice and seek equity. To do this, they must support social change.
Strategic foundations can tell a story about bringing about social change, using models and theories to determine and measure specific social outcomes and impacts. But this isn’t a story about the solo foundation in charge. That model is not ideal for social change. Even if it is appealing for a foundation to run its own show, it doesn’t open the door to more collaborative approaches. And it doesn’t consider the complexities of social change.
A strategic foundation works hand in hand with community partners to achieve mutually agreed goals, using its capital creatively and committing to active learning along the way. Definity and Daymark are this kind of foundation. The diversity of their work shows us that foundations contribute more than just financial capital. They can support knowledge-building, social research and development, network creation and convening, organization and infrastructure support. They can influence and they can advocate. They act as signals to others around innovations that may be crucial to us five or ten years from today.
In all philanthropic stories, we must acknowledge questions of power and inequality. Foundations are privileged. Their assets give them power. Foundations in Canada are being called out, as they are elsewhere, for lack of urgency in a world of rapid climate change and increasing inequality. Foundations, just like other organizations, need to be more transparent. To be accountable, foundations need to explain what change, what social impact, they seek and how they are going about it.
Arti Freeman, Chief Executive Officer of Definity Insurance Foundation, and Vani Jain, Executive Director of Daymark, are foundation leaders who know this well. They and their boards share some essential qualities with other strategic philanthropic leaders:
The Daymark Foundation is a family foundation created in 2020 to focus on mental health in two specific areas: women’s mental health (with an initial focus on perinatal mental health) and bipolar disorder. The Foundation has clearly set out its theory of change to improve outcomes in its chosen areas, in an unusually open manner. It uses a “more than money” approach, deploying intellectual, social, human and financial capital to act on its priorities. The Foundation has eliminated its grant application process in favour of an open invitation to potential partners to contact the Foundation for a call to discuss the organization’s vision for systems impact. As Vani Jain puts it, “competitive grantmaking promotes self-interest and hinders collaboration. We want to help organizations see their role within a larger system and explore the contribution they could make alongside others.” Daymark uses convening as a tool to help orient stakeholders toward these higher-level goals.
Definity Insurance Foundation is an independent foundation established and funded through the demutualization of the Economical Mutual Insurance Company. Since its public launch in February 2022, the Foundation has been focused on the roots of inequality, working particularly with Black Indigenous and racialized populations. Like Daymark, it has chosen to work with partners to advance community-led solutions that further climate, health and socio-economic justice goals. Like Daymark, Definity thinks of its capital as more than simply financial. It is also boldly moving into seeding initiatives that catalyze more private capital for the social outcomes that it seeks. It is deeply committed to providing the funds for capacity building of the partners with whom it has chosen to work. For example, it provided a $750,000 multi-year grant to the Raven Indigenous Impact Foundation, an organization focused on improving the wellbeing of Indigenous peoples, co-creating financial solutions that will result in better outcomes in climate and health for Indigenous peoples by centering the needs and voices of Indigenous communities. The Foundation provided the seed funding to design and structure the fund, hire a CIO and raise capital through investor engagement. Once the fund was in place, the Foundation also made a commitment to invest in the fund. Arti Freeman notes that this investment has a multiplier effect that accelerates impact. “If we want to achieve our mission, we can’t do it just with granting dollars,” says Arti. “We use our relational, social, intellectual and financial capital to advance solutions, and we learn as we do, always in collaboration with others, because how we show up is as important to us as what we fund”.
These two foundations exemplify a strategic approach being taken by Canadian foundations featuring innovative uses of capital, collaboration and a clear focus on outcomes. The foundation story is evolving rapidly, and we will hear more of it directly from these new leaders as a new generation comes in to Canadian philanthropy.