CCNDR was the first deliberate collective effort to build digital capacity for Canada’s diverse nonprofit sector
The Canadian Centre for Nonprofit Digital Resilience (CCNDR) began with a casual conversation between leaders in the nonprofit sector, beckoning a call to go beyond a strategy or a launch plan. In the early months of the pandemic, sector leaders heard repeated concerns from the organizations they worked alongside to serve communities across the country. Almost overnight, nonprofits were being asked to transition to digital operations, without the tools, talent, or infrastructure to do so safely. The gap between organizations that could adapt to this demand and those that could not suddenly widened, and there was no national body positioned to close it.
From these observations, a simple question that the sector could no longer ignore began to surface: Who at a national level was responsible for closing that gap?
When the sector couldn’t find the answer, it built one for itself, and how it did so would prove as important as the question that prompted it.
Listening before action
What followed was nearly two years of listening, led by founding partners, including CIO Strategy Council, (now the Digital Governance Council) along with Tamarack Institute, Imagine Canada, NTEN, SETSI, Centraide du Grand Montréal, and the Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund. Through a development process involving more than 150 organizations, focus groups welcomed anyone who wanted to weigh in, action tables brought funders, frontline workers, IT managers and executives into the same room, and prototypes and reports were circulated, debated and revised. The intent was deliberate, reflecting the belief that; if CCNDR was going to claim a role on behalf of the sector, the sector had to shape its definition. To do this listening would need to come first, followed by something built to adapt.
By the time CCNDR officially launched in March 2022, it carried the weight of those consultations with it: 184 advisors, 156 supporters, 7 working groups, 16 prototypes, 14 webinars, more than 1,000 LinkedIn followers, and over $100,000 in-kind investment from the founding organizations. It was, at the time, the first deliberate collective effort in Canada to build digital capacity for the country’s diverse nonprofit sector.
With the consultation complete, the work of turning it into evidence began. The Centre published Canada’s first national report on nonprofit cybersecurity, then launched multi-year projects on workforce skills, a cybersecurity on-ramp for the settlement sector, and a national data governance standard. The findings told a consistent story around the gap between awareness and capacity. Fewer than 1 in 100 nonprofits include a technology role on their team, and while most workers know digital skills matter, only a small minority feel their organizations are fully equipped to act on that knowledge.
In 2024, CCNDR moved under Imagine Canada’s stewardship, a step that brought governance stability and the conditions to plan in longer arcs. An Advisory Council was constituted later that year, representing co-founders, funders, sector leaders, and the Imagine Canada Board. The Centre had matured beyond incubation and was ready to define what came next.
The direction is set
In April, the 2026 to 2029 strategic plan, “From Foundations to Impact: Advancing Nonprofit Digital Resilience,” was launched alongside a theory of change that names how CCNDR contributes to a more digitally resilient sector and how that contribution is measured.
The plan was shaped, fittingly, the same way the Centre itself was built; through listening. It reflects 156 bilingual survey responses, five facilitated workshops, co-founder interviews, and feedback from the Advisory Council. It is organized around four practices:
- Assess
- Access
- Act
- Amplify
It also focuses on three levers where national infrastructure makes the biggest difference: data management and literacy, cyber readiness and emerging technology.
At its heart, the story of CCNDR is about a sector that refused to wait. Nonprofits across this country named the gap, asked for something to be built, and then kept showing up to shape it. The chapter ahead is about meeting that effort with the kind of impact the sector can see, use, and rely on for the long-term.
Wilfreda Edward is the Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Nonprofit Digital Resilience (CCNDR), where she spearheads initiatives to enhance digital capacity across Canada’s nonprofit sector. With over a decade of experience in policy development, data governance, and open data, Wilfreda has made impactful contributions at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, serving as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Chief Information Officer of Canada and as an Open Data Specialist to advance data transparency and digital policy. Wilfreda brings a deep understanding of data-driven policy and remains dedicated to advancing equitable digital access across Canadian communities, driving positive change and resilience in the nonprofit sector.
