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LEAP: The Centre for Social Impact | Pecaut Centre
Bridging Business and Philanthropy: partnering to achieve massive social impact
Venture philanthropy describes a strategic funding approach bridging business investment and traditional giving that enables non-profits to create transformative social change. In partnership with LEAP: The Centre for Social Impact, Child Development Institute (CDI) has adopted this model to take SNAP’s award-winning, evidence-based program to 140 new communities across Canada.
As the inaugural investment of LEAP – an organization inspired by the late David Pecaut and incubated by The Pecaut Centre -- The SNAP® National Expansion Campaign has benefited from close to $3 million in pro-bono, hands-on support to scale up SNAP across Canada.
With the support of LEAP and its private sector partners – The Boston Consulting Group, EY, McCarthy Tétrault, Hill+Knowlton Strategies, the Offord Group and Cossette -- CDI’s SNAP team has built the foundation and infrastructure for SNAP’s coast-to-coast expansion, and, at the time of writing, has secured 98% of its initial $12 million fundraising goal. This unique combination of business and philanthropic investment has driven the success of the Campaign, helping us take SNAP’s life-changing model to children and families in Canada’s most vulnerable communities.
“It all began in 2012 when we heard one of LEAP’s sector partners present on how to bring an innovation to scale,” says Dr. Leena Augimeri, Director of SNAP Scientific and Program Development at CDI, “I could only imagine what they could do with SNAP, and after an extensive application process, we were selected as their inaugural charity partner. We are really delighted and honoured to be LEAP’s first social innovation, and wouldn’t have been able to come this far without them.”
LEAP’s Co-Founder, Sam Duboc, says his team was quick to recognize SNAP’s potential to scale for national impact: “SNAP had a lot of the characteristics we were looking for in an investee: a passionate and driven social entrepreneur, a proven product with a strong social return on investment, and excitement about scale. From our perspective, we were lucky that we ran into SNAP as early as we did.”
CDI extends a sincere thank you to LEAP and its sector partners for believing in our vision and helping us achieve significant social change through SNAP.
LEAP: The Centre for Social Impact received Child Development Institute’s 2016/2017 Corporate Partner of the Year Award at our Annual General Meeting on June 13, 2017.
Members of LEAP’s Board, Advisory, and Staff at their Toronto office (left to right): Joe Manget, Helen Burstyn, Narinder Dhami, Gordon Baird, Tara Gruhn, Ava-Dayna Sefa, Killian Berz.
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“We are really delighted and honoured to be LEAP’s first social innovation, and wouldn’t have been able to come this far without them.”
Dr. Leena Augimeri, Director, SNAP Scientific and Program Development