“Canada hasn’t seen this type of civic mobilization since the Second World War,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said to journalists on April 1, urging people across the country to practice physical distancing.

It’s been two months since his remarks so here’s a check-in. Seniors living in long-term care homes account for about 80 percent of COVID-19-related deaths. Rates of gender-based violence and domestic violence have increased by 20 to 30 percent. The unemployment rate hit a record high of 13.7 percent, topping the previous high set in 1982. One-third of closed small businesses aren’t sure they will ever reopen. Crisis Text Line powered by Kids Help Phone has experienced a 350 percent increase in young people reaching out with fears related to COVID-19. I could go on and fill up a page. 

To support vulnerable people across the country, social impact organizations mobilized fast, and frontline organizations, in particular, have been working together at a mindblowing pace, helping each other with extraordinary resourcefulness to serve the growing number of people at the margins. There is tremendous solidarity among organizations.

But solidarity alone is not enough to enhance lives post-pandemic — we also need critical friendship. 

It’s time to look in the mirror again. Black lives matter. Privilege, racism, unconscious bias — all of these exist in the social impact world. 

22 percent of philanthropic grantmakers in Canada have a formal diversity, equity, and inclusion policy. 51 percent of nonprofits in Canada don’t collect data on board diversity. 56 percent don’t collect data on employee diversity. Only 11.9 percent of Ontario’s nonprofit boards are people of colour when they comprise 49.5 percent of the Ontario population. 

I am an immigrant. My parents moved from India and I arrived in Canada when I was nine. I had a funny accent. I westernized the pronunciation of my first name because people ridiculed it. I was stopped and questioned by police more times than I have fingers. I experienced racism at school, at summer jobs, and to this day, in communities across Canada. 

I am also a person with privilege. I grew up in a two-parent household. My parents are university-educated. They own a home. I grew up with more than five books at home. I didn’t worry about where my next meal was coming from. No one in my family has been to prison.  

In the social impact world, our solidarity is a virtue, but it is also creating massive blind spots. Blind spots that we need others within our field and outside it to illuminate for us — specifically those that are currently excluded. Our solidarity gestures — the likes, hearts, claps, and praises for people we work with and those who fund our work have also made us less critical of one another’s inactions. The diversity and equity statistics above are case in point. 

If we genuinely care to enhance lives, to make an equitable and lasting impact, and to build back better post-pandemic, every social impact professional, entrepreneur, and board director needs a critical friend.

Critical friendship has its origins in critical pedagogy education reforms in the UK in the 1970s and arose out of the self-appraisal activity, where schools evaluated their own performance and strengths and weaknesses and gave themselves passing grades. The most widely used definition of a critical friend, by Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick, is a trusted person who asks provocative questions, provides data to be examined through another lens, and offers critique of a person’s work as a friend. A critical friend takes the time to fully understand the context of the work presented and the outcomes that the person or organization is working toward. The friend creates a safe space and is an advocate for the success of that work. A critical friend helps us change on the inside.

In the context of our work, the lack of a critical friend who takes the time to fully understand the causes for people we work with and those who fund our work has resulted in blind spots when it comes to one another’s inactions. The diversity and equity statistics above are case in point. 

Think about it: What questions might a critical friend ask you or ask about social impact organizations? Why are Canada’s federal prisons overflowing with Indigenous and Black people? Which organizations should advocate for race-based data during the pandemic to ensure equitable health outcomes? Why is there little transparency from funders on who decides and how they decide who receives funding? Why do a majority of non-profits not collect data on or declare the diversity of their boards? Why is it that through the pandemic, many charities have laid off staff but many funders have not? 

Organizations evolve in the direction of the questions that employees most persistently and passionately ask. It’s not just about the questions you ask today or have in the last week but what questions will you be open to listening to from a critical friend three weeks from now and three months from now when the dust settles. 

Change is the domain of all of us.

The last 10 days have been some of the best and worst of what humanity has created. We saw incredible advancements in science and technology with the launch of two astronauts to the International Space Station by the private company, SpaceX. Meanwhile, on the ground, we also saw protests following the murder of George Floyd due to structural, institutional, and systemic racism. 

This month is Indigenous History Month. Five years ago last week, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released 94 Calls to Action guided by the testimony of those who survived residential school. As Max FineDay, Executive Director of Canadian Roots Exchange recently noted, as the country turns its attention to recovery in the coming months, “I hope I’ll be able to say that we chose a recovery model rooted in reconciliation.” 

Canada’s social impact world is filled with extraordinary people who are pushing the boundaries of what they see and what they know every day. Together, we can forge an equitable and inclusive recovery. 

Find yourself a critical friend. Push for self-improvement as much as you are proud of our solidarity. 

To paraphrase Maya Angelou: Once we know better, we need to do better. 

Vinod Rajasekaran

Publisher & CEO

Tell us this made you smarter | Contact us | Report error