2020 Award Recipients
TORONTO, ON (February 25, 2021) — The Greater Toronto Chapter Awards Committee and Board of Directors, we are pleased to announced the 2020 philanthropy award recipients.
The 2020 honourees are:
- Outstanding Philanthropists: Jim & Louise Temerty
- Outstanding Volunteer: Janice Fukakusa
- Outstanding Corporation: Metro Ontario Inc.
- Outstanding Foundation: The Barrett Family Foundation
- Mo Davies Outstanding Small Organization: Future Possibilities for Kids (FPK)
- Outstanding Fundraising Professional: Dr. Krishan Mehta
Outstanding Philanthropist: Jim and Louise Temerty
James (Jim) and Louise Temerty share a remarkable commitment to community.
Born during World War II in Ukraine, Jim Temerty came to Canada with his family after living in displaced persons camps in Germany and Belgium. With Louise, Jim then built Computerland into Canada’s largest chain of computer stores. He then started Northland Power, and grew it into a global leader in green and clean energy. With the resources they accumulated, the Temertys have always supported causes that align with their passion for education, health and cultural exchange. They have given generously in the hundreds of millions of dollars and thoughtfully, built a tremendous legacy in our city, across Canada and around the world.
On September 24, 2020, the Temertys set a new highwater mark for philanthropic giving in Canada when they committed $250 million to the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine—the largest individual monetary gift in Canadian philanthropic history. With this gift the Temertys have targeted long-existing inequities in medical education and the resulting disparity in representation and have earmarked significant support for bursaries and programs that proactively recruit and support Black, Indigenous, other persons of colour, with a focus also on embedding Indigenous perspectives in medical education.
At a time when many donors would have delayed their commitment, the Temertys only became more determined to reach the conclusion of discussions toward this ground-breaking gift. In April of 2020, they advanced $10 million of their $250 million gift to support the University of Toronto’s COVID-19 response—a signal of the importance of philanthropy in support of community need at a time of extraordinary crisis.
In addition to their groundbreaking gift to the University of Toronto, the Temertys’ have invested over $50 million to improve health care, cultural programs and initiatives including Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, CAMH, the ROM, the Royal Conservatory of Music.
Outstanding Volunteer: Janice Fukakusa
Janice’s leadership and as a diversity champion in Canadian philanthropy and business comes at a critical time. With a significant track record as a dedicated volunteer with great intellect and heart, Chancellor Fukakusa has advanced a culture of equity and inclusion through philanthropy and higher education at Ryerson.
During the current COVID-19 pandemic, Janice has helped to form the Responding to Hate Toolkit at a time of great need, as these tools are empowering people to respond to anti-Asian racism across the country.
As the Board Chair at Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, Janice has lead by example through her generosity, inspiration and encouragement of a team of 30 board members and nine active committees to participate in advancing the mission of the organization. Under Janice’s leadership, the foundation is on track to raise $150 million in net fundraising revenue by 2022.
In a year marked by crisis and uncertainty, Janice’s thoughtful approach to volunteer fundraising sets the highest standard for relationship building and philanthropy impact.
Outstanding Corporation: Metro Ontario Inc.
Joining with Feed Ontario, Metro Ontario Inc. developed a strategic and innovative program, One More Bite to support Feed Ontario’s mission and the local communities they collectively serve.
One More Bite is a retail food recovery program created in partnership with Metro Ontario. It is part of Feed Ontario’s effort to increase their ability to address hunger in Ontario by providing food banks with fresh food from their local Metro-banner grocery store to distribute to adults and children living with hunger.
The program ensures that good food that would otherwise would have been thrown away or composted is instead recovered by food banks across Ontario. Unsold products, including meat, prepared meals, dairy and baked goods are saved, frozen and redistributed to local food banks, who in turn distribute the food to people in need.
As part of the program, Metro works closely with local stores to onboard them into the program and supports Feed Ontario in building relationships between the locally matched stores and the foods banks. Metro also provides financial support to Feed Ontario to cover the administration costs of the program at the provincial level and purchase any additional equipment local foods banks may need to be able to participate.
The program, which began in 2017 as a pilot continues to be rolled out across the province. To date, 157 stores and 34 food banks participate and more than 2 million pounds of food has been distributed. Since COVID-19, Metro stepped up again – through both corporate donations and an in-store point of purchase matching campaign, Metro Ontario has raised more than $2 million for Feed Ontario and United Way to support the response efforts to COVID-19 and the economic impacts since the start of the pandemic.
Metro Ontario supported Feed Ontario’s COVID-19 Emergency Food Box Program and with Metro’s support, the program got off the ground and running in record time. More than 8.2 million days’ worth of food was distributed in the first few months of the pandemic. Metro’s donation provided the equivalent of 700,000 meals plus snacks. Metro has encouraged supporting local suppliers and they encouraged their suppliers to donate as well.
Outstanding Foundation: The Barrett Family Foundation
The Barrett Family Foundation is a leader in providing educational opportunities to Canadians. In 2018, they announced a $10M investment in Humber, the largest private donation in the college’s history. The donation supported development and operation of the Barrett Center for Technology Innovation.
In October 2020, they donated $10M to the Rideau Hall Foundation to support nation building work, connecting people, causes and organizations that share a common commitment to a better Canada for all.
They also recently announced a gift of $3.875M to the TSO, to support their Education & Community Engagement programs.
The Barrett Family Foundation has made leadership gifts to the University of Guelph, Trillium Health, World Vision Canada and TVO.
Mo Davies Small Organization for Excellence in Fundraising: Future Possibilities for Kids (FPK)
Future Possibilities for Kids (FPK) is a small-and-mighty (the words of the nominator) organization that believes in the power of fundraising to support their mission. FPK supports children in leading community service projects about issues they care about, with the coaching support of kind and caring adult volunteers and staff.
Children build confidence, resilience, grow their belief in their ability to make change around them and then achieve a tangible goal such as starting an anti-bullying campaign at their school or cleaning up a local park.The children develop skills and build their confidence so that they can be change makers in their communities for years to come.
In 2016, FPK launched, Leadership Amplified, a vision for the organization to grow and build their program. A large grant from the Trillium Foundation with equal support from corporations, individuals and foundations funded the new vision. FPK has doubled their fundraising revenue since 2014 and has doubled the number of children they impact annually during that time as well. They now work with nearly 800 children annually.
This success has given them the ability to begin important work in the broader community including producing a report in 2019 entitled, Middle Years Matter. This plan advocated for additional support for children between the ages of 6-12. Over the past number of years, FPK expanded its fundraising streams including corporate, individual, foundation and special events ensuring as they moved forward, they had a strong mix of revenue sources.
In 2018, a family foundation realized the importance of financial security for the organization and made a substantial gift over three years to hire a fundraising professional and invest in digital marketing platforms, develop a case for support and build a new website. Up until then, the Executive Director had been doing all the fundraising. The foundation’s investment has paid off beautifully for FPK. Its board of directors have helped to secure the financial health of the organization as well.
Outstanding Fundraising Professional: Dr. Krishan Mehta
Dr. Krishan Mehta doesn’t just believe in making the world a better place through philanthropy – he takes action to make it so. And in doing so, he inspires others to step forward and bring philanthropy to life.
His fundraising leadership, dedication to research and teaching, and commitment to growing the sector through volunteering makes him an outstanding recipient of this award. Dr. Mehta’s 20-year career in the sector is far-ranging through his incredible achievements in advancing philanthropy; research and scholarship; equity and inclusion; teaching and mentoring.
Dr. Krishan Mehta is not just a national leader on equity and inclusion, he is also recognized internationally. His incredible and tireless volunteerism, mentorship and leadership in the non-profit sector makes him an influential and reflective change-maker and has left an indelible mark on the non-profit sector in Canada and around the world!
The 2020 recipients were honoured at the Philanthropy Awards on Wednesday, December 2 from 5:00-6:00 p.m. at a special virtual ceremony, on Zoom.
About the Awards
AFP Greater Toronto Chapter has honoured leadership in philanthropy through its annual awards program since 1995. This year’s group of extraordinary recipients will join a long list of generous Canadians. These awards celebrate the outstanding contribution of time, leadership and financial support of a special group of Canadians who set new benchmarks of excellence in the acts of giving and volunteering.
About the AFP Greater Toronto Chapter
The AFP Greater Toronto Chapter is a recognised leader in promoting philanthropy and providing education, training and best practices for those in the fundraising profession. With more than 1200 members, the Greater Toronto Chapter is the largest of the more than 240 AFP chapters throughout the world.