This first episode of our election mini-series gives a sneak peek of fascinating stories of how nonprofits are getting innovative as they work together to get the attention of parties and candidates on critical community issues and solutions for Ontarians.
This first episode of our election mini-series gives a sneak peek of fascinating stories of how nonprofits are getting innovative as they work together to get the attention of parties and candidates on critical community issues and solutions for Ontarians.
This transcript has been edited slightly for clarity.
Sarah: Welcome to Digging In With ONN I'm your host, Sarah. I'm the Director of Communications and Engagement at ONN. Our podcast is about digging into public policy and systems change that impact Ontario's nonprofit sector and how we advocate together as a sector from Decent Work, re-imagining governance, public lands, data privacy, and more.
And this is for all nonprofits, sub-sectors across Ontario, big and small and in between. In this series of Digging In With ONN, we'll focus on the 2022 Ontario election and some great stories about collective advocacy happening across the sector.
So a bit about me, I'm a biracial second generation, Japanese-Canadian. I'm a settler and I'm grateful to live and work on Brant Tract Treaty 3 and 3/4. For my role at ONN, I love the connector work of our network, and I've seen the network grow in leaps and bounds since I first joined over nine years ago. That seems like the time before, when I used to ride my bicycle to our offices at the centre for social innovation in Toronto. And that was before two kids and a move outside the city.
Before I joined ONN, I worked for a women's rights network advocating across Asia Pacific, and I've worked for a film and cultural non-profit in Toronto. I've been lucky to volunteer for some incredible charities, and one of them was a social enterprise on the border of Thailand and Burma, where I learned a lot.
The purpose of this podcast is to speak to issues that matter to the nonprofit sector. For this mini-series, upcoming episodes will focus on collective advocacy for this provincial election, and the ways that nonprofits are working together to raise awareness of key issues for their work and their communities.
We're eager to hear from sector colleagues about why this election matters to their nonprofit, how they got started, and what tactics they use for organizing and for getting the attention of political parties and candidates. We're going to hear about the wins too and some of the learnings that they made along the way, plus one thing they want provincial party leaders and candidates to know.
By showcasing these awesome collectives we hope to inspire the sector to think about different ways they can work together, especially with unusual suspects and outside the silos at ONN. We know that we're stronger together as a sector.
So if you're new to ONN, welcome. The Ontario Nonprofit Network started in 2007 and is the independent network for the 58,000 nonprofits in Ontario, focused on policy advocacy and services to strengthen Ontario's nonprofit sector as a key pillar of our society and economy. We worked to create a public policy environment that helps nonprofits to thrive. We engage our network of diverse nonprofit organizations across Ontario to work together on issues affecting the sector and channeling the voices of our network to governments, funders, and other stakeholders. For ONN, our vision is a strong and resilient nonprofit sector for thriving communities and a dynamic product.
We're excited to dig in with you. Thanks for tuning in to our first episode. We hope that you'll join us for future episodes as we dig into the issues that matter to the sector. Please make sure to share, rate and subscribe. So you're the first to know when new episodes are live.
For the next episode, we'll be joined by Fae Johnstone, who's put together a historic coalition, the first-ever queer vote, Ontario. Fae shares some inspiring stories and realness about how the group will hold parties and the next government to account with their election asks.
These conversations are part of ONN's work to build relationships with nonprofits and the people of the sector, and with you tuning in. This relationship-building is at the centre of what we do.
We want to acknowledge that ONN's office is located on the unceded territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and Wendat peoples.
We know many folks may be joining from different areas in Ontario, and we encourage you, if you identify as a settler, to learn more about whose land you're on to build those relationships, using an excellent resource called Native-Land.ca,