A note from our Executive Director
Dear friends,
I hope you are all taking time to get outside, enjoy nature and spend time with family and friends.
This summer, the Houssian Foundation is embarking on a review of our first five years of impact. As most of you know, measuring social and environmental change has real challenges and limitations, but it also comes with a set of opportunities that can often be missed. For us, that includes gathering stories from our grantee and investment partners, learning about the elements of our work that have gone right, and where things may have gone wrong. We intend to share our findings and how they shape our work going forward.
This year, we also set a goal to learn about projects in our own community that have had an outsized impact. We learned about an impact investment fund that prioritizes benefits to local communities and the environment through new ownership models that distribute value to more people. We also heard about an Indigenous-led real estate project, Sen̓áḵw, and the ways in which it is restoring cultural connection and inspiring our urban environment.
It’s made me realize that equally important to learning is sharing what we have learned, because each talk or walk shapes our thinking as a foundation staff and board.
With that in mind, I want to share a research report we conducted on participatory-grantmaking for family foundations, written by Emira Mears. The findings in this report gave us the confidence to launch our own participatory-grantmaking committee through the Daylight Fund. The Fund is now in year two and announcements about grantee partners were made earlier this month.
Our work is shaped by those we learn from. We have been fortunate to learn with and from Karen Tam Wu, our former Director of Climate and Nature Programs, who has transitioned out of her role to spend more time in nature and focus on other work. Karen made significant contributions at the Foundation and will be missed. Speaking of learning and sharing, read her summary of the Canadian Climate Institute’s “Climate Policy in Changing Times,” event that took place in Ottawa this past spring.
If you have learned something recently you would like to share, please be in touch. We want to hear about it!
In community,
Mira
Climate & Nature Portfolio Updates
Addressing affordability with transit
Movement YVR published a great op-ed that highlights how transit can address issues of affordability. “Public transit needs to be viewed for what it is: a tool that can save someone up to $15,000 per year. There is no other cost saving tool at any government’s disposal as powerful as public transit. To save an equivalent amount, rent or mortgage costs would need to decrease by more than $1,000 per month.”
Federal climate and energy policy news
Pembina Institute and Stand.earth expressed concern about the use of public dollars to fund further fossil‑fuel expansion, following the federal government–Alberta announcement earlier this month. And our newest grantee partner, Georgia Strait Alliance warned that the proposal for a new southern Alberta‑to‑B.C. pipeline corridor adds to the mounting industrial pressures on the Salish Sea: “This is the slow conversion of the Salish Sea from a living ecosystem to an industrial corridor. Put simply, we are paving over one of the most biologically rich marine ecosystems on the planet.”
Earth Day in Ottawa
This past Earth Day, Youth Climate Corps BC (YCCBC) hosted a special event in Ottawa to raise the profile of their work with MPs, and our executive director Mira Oreck was there to support them. YCCBC also received an important boost from the B.C. government – $1.4 million in additional funding to support this great program. We are thrilled to see this work continue to scale across the province, and hope to see a national investment to scale across the country.
Gender Justice Portfolio Updates
The cost of inaction
With the support of the Houssian Foundation, the YWCA BC released a powerful report, “The Cost of Inaction” on the economic costs of gender-based violence in B.C. For decades, the anti‑violence sector has highlighted the profound human costs of gender-based violence, but these calls have not been met with the response or investment required to address the scale of this crisis
Countering harmful narratives
In order to better understand people’s vulnerability to trafficking during the FIFA World Cup in Vancouver and Toronto, B.C.-based Daylight grantee, the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) Canada is leading a research project that will examine the approaches taken by various stakeholders to address these real or perceived concerns. They will explore how responses can be evidence-informed, proportionate, and protective of the rights, safety and well-being of all affected communities. The project is funded by Houssian Foundation and the Vancouver Foundation.
Supporting collective care
Urgent Action Fund released an in-depth report on supporting collective care and centering this care when dealing with crises. Read “Putting Out Fires Till We Burn Out: Feminist Funding Lessons for Supporting Collective Care from the South Caucasus and Western Balkans.”
Landmark Supreme Court ruling
In February 2025, Rise Women’s Legal Centre and West Coast LEAF jointly intervened in a Supreme Court of Canada case, Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia, focused on the myths and stereotypes about intimate partner violence in family and tort cases. The court released its decision in May, confirming that existing torts were not enough to address the unique harms caused by intimate partner violence. This marks a fundamental shift in how the Supreme Court of Canada legally recognizes a claim of intimate partner violence and allows victims to seek financial compensation in civil court.