This year I had the honour of sharing space with incredible young leaders from across the Greater Toronto Area at the Youth Funders Network Conference hosted by Laidlaw Foundation. This was a two-day, in-person gathering in Toronto where Black, Indigenous, and racialized youth leaders met with a variety of funders and peers for skills-building, and a pitch competition to access microfunding for their projects.
Gatherings like these are so important, not only to create connections between funders and people doing great work, but also to take a pulse check on what is needed at a moment in time. As ONN has been exploring nonprofit leadership and reimagining how leadership is seen and done, we came into the gathering with a few questions.
What do we need to nourish and pour resources into for our current and future generations of leaders to thrive? What is the leadership call to action for the nonprofit sector, at this moment in time?
As noted in ONN’s report, Leading our Future: Reimagining Leadership in Ontario’s Nonprofit Sector (also see below), reimagining leadership must go beyond simply changing leadership structures and approaches alone. Shifts in structure need to be accompanied by shifts in behaviour. In reimagining leadership, the sector must also ensure that new models and approaches are not rooted in the same pervasive systems of oppression.
Many young leaders of today do not need to be taught about what the roots of systemic issues are, and how they show up in their lives, as they are living them. It is up to those who are currently in leadership or positions of power to listen, understand, and shift behaviours accordingly. Words without action only go so far.
Here’s what young leaders are posing to the sector as calls to action for the future of leadership
Calls to action for funders:
- Abandon the mindset that providing funding means getting to influence the organization
- Provide funding that is structured specifically to support partnerships between organizations instead of competing for the same pool of money
- Offer sustainable funding to increase consistency, reliability, and less turnover
- Reduce the pressure to “scale”; just because something works in one place doesn’t mean it will in other places
Calls to action for nonprofit leaders:
- Embed generational succession into organizational planning, so that organizational leaders mentor young leaders proactively
- Model horizontal models rather than top-down hierarchies
- Actively incorporate youth into decision-making spaces and reduce barriers to attendance (e.g. keep it virtual, no-cost, limit bureaucratic language)
What the Most Recent Report Concluded
- Have mandatory seasons of rest that are not rooted in traditional holidays
- Implement zero tolerance policies for racism and lateral violence
- Adopt four-day work weeks
- Have equitable and sustainable salaries and/or more paid opportunities for engagement
- Explore unionization
The calls to action identified by the youth aren’t surprising, and many mirror existing ones within the sector.
One thing is clear though, and it’s something to take seriously: we need to actively break out of the status quo – whether it be in leadership, governance, philanthropy, or otherwise.
What the Most Recent Report Concluded
Nonprofit leadership must undergo a fundamental shift to address the systemic issues that have constrained the sector’s potential for equitable and transformative impact. The traditional, top-down leadership model, rooted in neoliberal and colonial structures, entrenches and perpetuates inequities. These models are not conducive to fostering the adaptive, people-centered, and innovative approaches needed to tackle today’s complex social challenges. Therefore, reimagining leadership requires more than individual efforts—it calls for a collective and systemic approach that prioritizes collaboration, shared decisionmaking, and relational accountability.
The metaphor of planting a leadership forest emphasizes the importance of cultivating an ecosystem in which leaders can support each other, share power, and grow together. Just as trees in a forest form cooperative networks for mutual survival, nonprofit leaders must work within collaborative frameworks that distribute responsibility and decision-making authority across organizations. This collective model fosters resilience, enables adaptability, and creates space for the kind of radical experimentation and risk-taking that drives meaningful social change. By embracing models of co-leadership, collective governance, and participatory decision-making, organizations can unlock the full potential of their teams and more effectively align with their missions.
Ultimately, organizations must invest in the growth and development of their leaders, particularly those from equity-deserving backgrounds. By providing the time, resources, and mentorship necessary to develop leadership competencies, the sector can dismantle urgency culture and foster environments where leaders thrive. Leadership transition planning, grounded in this same respect for relationships, values, and support, can become a powerful tool for transforming organizations from within. By making these shifts, nonprofit leadership will not only reflect the values the sector aspires to but also build a more equitable and sustainable future for the communities it serves.
Erin Kang is the Director of Network Engagement for the Ontario Nonprofit Network.
