We Are All Fundraisers

By Kathryn Dingle, Fundraising Program Manager

Inter Pares staff are co-managers, but we also all consider ourselves fundraisers. While that is a role that makes many people cringe, it’s one we embrace! We know that our counterparts’ crucial work costs money – so generating financial support in Canada is an important role we can all play in creating change worldwide. We take pride in raising funds for our counterparts.

Jack and I take the lead on fundraising with individuals. We love our job: it allows us to be connected to 6,000+ marvellous people who share Inter Pares’ values. We build relationships. We thank people. We answer questions. And yes, we ask for money. In turn, we often get thanked by our donors for giving them a way to support change-making organizations in Canada and around the world.

Fundraising from the Canadian government pulls in the whole team. This makes sense considering the scale of support: in 2016, Inter Pares raised more than $4 million from Global Affairs Canada. We deeply believe that it is part of our mandate to help ensure that tax-payer funded, foreign aid dollars are going to organizations driving social change around the world. 

We are also fortunate to have the generous support of ongoing annual grants from over a dozen foundations, unions, and religious organizations. Relationships with these allies are deep and strong, and some date back decades. We are honoured to be able to, through our programs, help these groups to fulfill their mission for social change.

Our fundraising work would all be for nothing if it weren’t for the people who choose to say ‘yes’ when we ask for support. For this we are truly grateful to all our supporters and allies.