OTF’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

It has been a year since the tragic deaths of Black community members here in Canada and the United States. Amidst this, we were struggling with a global pandemic that has had a disproportionate impact on Black and other marginalized communities. These events drove a wave of unprecedented and widespread response for action to address anti-Black racism and all racism across our communities and accelerated our work.

A year ago, we made a commitment to listen, learn, and act in ways that address anti-Black racism. We embarked on a journey of self-reflection and action, building on our Framework for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and I am pleased to provide an update on the progress we are making in this work. 

As part of our process, our employees came together to bring forward recommendations for us as an organization - on actions we can take and embed in every aspect of our work at OTF. Some examples of the work we are doing include:

• Organization wide learning on anti-Black racism and anti-oppression
• Learning from the experiences of our Black employees and adjusting our practices to better support them 
• Activities that ensure our work is inclusive, such as our public communications, hiring approaches and granting practices
• Expanding our data collection to better understand where grant funds are invested and to better inform our outreach and granting processes

These are just a few of the actions we are taking, and there is still much to do. We remain committed to building an organization that is truly inclusive of everyone, and part of this work includes addressing anti-Black racism and racism of any form. We continue to listen, learn, and move forward with an imperative to make positive change so we can build healthy and vibrant communities across Ontario.

Katharine Bambrick
Chief Executive Officer