Series - Editorial Fellowship: Transforming Funding Models

How Greta Thunberg helped one Quebec foundation get hooked on funding social movements

Author Gabe Oatley
“It was inspiring. We felt invigorated…It reinforced the urgency of the climate crisis and reinforced the urgency to do more,” says Éric St-Pierre, executive director of the Trottier Family Foundation.

Why It Matters

Foundations have finite resources and big social policy objectives. A new report from the Broadbent Institute argues funders can make bigger strides on their social policy goals by funding social movements than they can through lobbying or research alone.

This independent journalism is made possible by the Future of Good editorial fellowship covering the social impact world’s rapidly changing funding models, supported by Future of Good, Community Foundations of Canada, and United Way Centraide Canada. See our editorial ethics and standards here.

On a warm Friday in September 2019, Éric St-Pierre and his family hit the streets of Montreal,  the unceded lands of the Mohawk Nation. 

St-Pierre, the executive director of the Quebec-based Trottier Family Foundation, was there, as were half a million others, to demand more aggressive political action on the climate. It was the largest protest in Montreal’s history, and remains, today, Canada’s largest climate mobiliz

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