The Canadian National Fundraising Conference (CNFC), a one-day, national-scale event taking place October 23, 2025, in Toronto, is the perfect opportunity to reset, recharge, and realign.
This year’s action-packed agenda is built around five session tracks: Leadership Insights, Reimaging Fundraising, National Voices, Traditional Marketing and the Science of Donor Marketing and a panel on Donor Acquisition. Each session track has fundraising professionals from across Canada with sessions designed to go beyond theory—delivering real strategies, tested tools, replicable ideas and connecting practitioners from across the sector.
Marla Smith, Director, Foundation & Communications, at the Pathstone Foundation, will be presenting her session, Ethical Fundraising in Real Life: Navigating the Gray Areas with Confidence. Smith plans to get real about the everyday gray areas fundraisers face but rarely talk about. Using high-profile case studies, headlines from the sector, and practical decision-making tools, to unpack the nuances behind common ethical dilemmas and explore how to respond with clarity, courage, and professionalism. According to Smith, fundraising is rooted in trust—but real-life ethical decisions are rarely black and white. What happens when a major donor wants more influence than their gift should allow? Or when a restricted gift clashes with your mission? What if a board member oversteps with donor data.
Representing Canada’s east coast is Kathleen A. Provost, CFRE. As Vice President, Philanthropy at United for Literacy, Provost is bringing her experience to this year’s conference to present From City to Countryside – Enhancing skills for fundraisers: the Case of Nova Scotia. The charitable sector is shifting faster than ever. The role of the fundraiser is evolving more quickly than the resources and the donor–grantee relationships are being shaped by forces beyond their control—making it essential to adapt. These new challenges demand new, flexible approaches to learning.
Drawing on the non-traditional lessons from Nova Scotia over the past decade, Provost will share how to use informal learning to sharpen the soft skills that matter most to build stronger, more impactful relationships in today’s rapidly changing fundraising landscape.
Mike Kujawski is bringing his 20+ years of experience as a management consultant, trainer, and professional speaker for government, non-profit, and association clients across Canada and around the globe. Sharing his captivating presentation, The Current State of the Social Media Landscape and Its Impact on Organizations, provides a comprehensive overview of the ever-evolving social media landscape and its profound implications for organizations. The Managing Partner of the Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing (CEPSM) will share his insights into the latest trends, platforms, and user behaviours shaping the world of social media and the deployment of generative AI to drive growth, while simultaneously addressing potential pitfalls and ethical considerations.
As Chief Strategy Officer at Kenna, Stephen Shaw’s role is to guide clients on the adoption of customer management as a core marketing discipline and to serve as an advocate for marketing transformation. He’s coming to CNFC to present The Magic Matrix: How nonprofit organizations can master the science of discovering what really motivates people to become involved, where you’ll learn how you can use attitudinal segmentation to personalize your messaging, increase engagement and win over more donors to your cause. Fundraisers know that most people are drawn to a cause because it matters to them on a personal level. To convert these concerned citizens, fundraisers need to understand and appeal to those underlying drivers and emotions. Their demographics won’t reveal those affinities. Neither will their donor history. The only way to know is through attitudinal segmentation. By classifying donors into discrete, like-minded groups – people who share a common set of values and motivations – you have a better chance of connecting with them through your communications and messaging.
Since 2011, Lesley Heighway has dedicated her career to the healthcare needs of her community and the surrounding region through her leadership of the Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) Foundation. As President & CEO, she leads a team of passionate and dedicated professionals, and together with the community, they’ve raised $45 million over the last five years to ensure world-class health care remains the standard. At CNFC, she is presenting The Power of Leaders to Evoke Mission in Fundraising: My Real-World Experience where she will share how they engaged the donor community to bring the region’s health centre from a small-town hospital to a fully integrated regional hub for care that serves a population of 600,000 and how the $70-million Campaign for Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) is crucial to the future to bring the best patient care the world has to offer to our doorstep…and her plan to get there.
Richard Plummer of BNP inspire and Karen Milligan from Ontario 211 Services are co-presenting What’s Keeping You Awake at Night? Nonprofit leaders are increasingly kept awake by financial instability, rising demands, and staff burnout. With increasingly unpredictable funding, the pressure is to do more with less. Plummer and Milligan are coming to CNFC to discuss the results of BNP’s national survey of sector executives, the impacts and some of the key approaches that nonprofit leaders are taking to shift from a scarcity—to an asset-based approach that emphasizes strengths, relationships, and untapped potential, including strategic resource development and reframing fundraising as a proactive strategy for mission advancement.
To share how to engage corporate partners in your organization’s mission, Jess Brayne and Judi Steadman from the Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada are coming to CNFC to present Engaging Corporate Partners and Sponsors through Events & Campaigns. They will share how they create long-term, mutually beneficial partnerships with corporate sponsors with proven strategies to engage companies through signature events, partnership activations, and workplace giving campaigns. The team will share three case studies that showcase different models of success:
The landscape of donor acquisition is at a challenging point. Many are struggling to reach new supporters using traditional methods. The message is clear: it’s time to move into the digital fundraising space and expand on what’s possible from a cross-channel perspective. To find answers, Engage Fundraising is sponsoring Mastering New Donor Acquisition – A Panel Discussionto bring together experts who have successfully made the leap, sharing how to leverage advanced donor databases, implement smarter segmentation, and adopt digital tools that actually work.
Want to expand your monthly donor base? Lisa Smith from Keys Marketing Group and Karri LaJeunesse from Harvey McKinnon Associates will reveal the strategies behind a multi-channel fundraising success in their session Growing Your Monthly Donor Base: A Multi-Channel Success Story. Using a case study on how the Lions Foundation of Canada Dog Guides increased their monthly donors by 40% using an integrated approach with digital ads, direct mail, and telemarketing, boosting donor retention and revenue.
Presented by Foundation Magazine, Hilborn Charity eNews and Civil Sector Press. With lead sponsor Blakely Fundraising and session sponsors BNP Inspire, Next After, Canada Helps, and Engage Fundraising.
