A Gathering in Vancouver: The AFP Canadian Leadership Retreat

A week from today, over 80 AFP leaders will gather in Vancouver for the start of the 2019 Canadian Leadership Retreat, an annual meeting of senior leaders from across the country, organized by AFP Canada and the AFP Foundation for Philanthropy – Canada. Over the two days of meetings, leaders will dive into issues of importance to AFP and the fundraising profession across Canada.

Hosted in Vancouver, the theme of this year’s retreat is, fittingly, “Our Truth.” Presentations from guest speakers invited to join us reflect this theme.

Attendees will hear from Brad Marsden, Gitksan Nation, residential school facilitator and suicide awareness and personal growth advocate, on the impact of residential schools and colonization. His presentation will be followed by reflections and a conversation led by Kris Archie, executive director of The Circle, which transforms philanthropy and contributes to positive change with Indigenous communities by creating spaces of learning, innovation, relationship-building, co-creation and activation.

Ian MacQuillin of Rogare will then join us to share details of the new Narrative for Canadian Fundraising that he authored. This new Narrative is an important tool to help us to share “Our Truth”–the truth about our profession.

The attendees have generously volunteered to give of their time over the weekend—one of the few weekends in our short Canadian summer. They have committed to work hard, share their knowledge and to challenge each other to have difficult conversations. Additionally, they will be asked to support the profession by making a financial contribution to the national scholarship fund, which helps to make professional development more accessible for Canadian fundraisers.

For the last six months, volunteers from the Greater Vancouver Chapter, the Okanagan Chapter and the Vancouver Island Chapter have spent countless hours tending to all the details necessary for a successful event. We are extremely grateful for all their hard work and commitment to this important meeting.

Events like these would simply not be possible without the amazing support of sponsors. Thank you to the 2019 Canadian Leadership Retreat sponsors! And we’ll provide a full report on the retreat in a future issue of AFP Daily.