Our Portfolio
We carefully select groundbreaking social ventures and create a cohort of organizations to address different aspects of an issue. To date we have partnered with 25 impactful organizations in every province and territory.
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APPLE Schools
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Arctic Eider Society
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BC Children's Hospital
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Black Health Alliance
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Canadian Red Cross
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Challenger Baseball
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Food Banks Canada
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Fresh Routes
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Global Medic
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Green Iglu
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IYMP
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MyHeartCounts Canada
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Keepers of the Circle
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Newcomer Women's Services Toronto
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NPower Canada
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PeaceGeeks
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Rumie
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Second Harvest
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Smart SAVER
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SNAP
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STOP
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Teach For Canada
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The Forum
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TRIEC
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Up With Women
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Victoria Hand Project
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WoodGreen
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World Wide Hearing
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Youth4Change
Paul Bailey
Executive Director
Black Health Alliance
Improving the health and well-being of Black communities in Canada.
Driven by groundbreaking research, strong partnerships and people, BHA builds innovative solutions to improve Black health and well-being, and mobilizes people and financial resources to create lasting change in the lives of Black children and families.
- Paul Bailey
Jenn Flynn
Executive Director
APPLE Schools
An innovative school-focused health promotion initiative.
APPLE Schools partners with schools in traditionally low socioeconomic communities to transform the culture around mental health, physical activity and healthy eating to improve students’ lifelong health habits. APPLE Schools’ vision is healthy kids in healthy schools, and their mission is to inspire and empower school communities to lead, choose, and be healthy by recommending and supporting measurable and sustainable changes.
[My team's] focus on implementation has allowed me to work on organizational development with LEAP in so many key areas including financial modelling, fundraising, technology and board development.
- Jenn Flynn
Lorena Pucia
CEO and Founder
iamYiam
Vision: improve the life quality of one billion people
iamYiam is an award-winning preventive health partner which empowers people to take charge of their health via its platform, syd, which provides both a virtual companion app for employees and an analytics dashboard for organizations. Combining big data, AI, genetics and deep scientific research, syd helps individuals live healthier lives, while reducing insurer and employer costs and improving overall life quality.
We are looking forward to improving life quality with one million members across vulnerable populations in Canada!
- Lorena Pucia
Jules Porter
Director, Programs
Robert Witchel
Executive Director
Challenger Baseball
Providing programming to children and youth with disabilities.
Challenger Baseball is an adaptive sports program designed to empower and include people living with disabilities. Challenger Baseball is run in partnership with the Jays Care Foundation, Little League Canada and Baseball Canada.
This year, despite the pandemic, we were able to coordinate virtual programming, safe in-person programming and respite programs for families of children with disabilities all across the country, and train more than 5,000 educators in virtual programming best practices. LEAP partnership with us has already translated into incredible action.
Jules Porter
Lourdes Juan
Co-Founder
fresh routes
Vision: for everyone to have dignified access -- defined through choice, convenience, and cultural relevance -- to affordable, nutritious food.
Fresh Routes works with communities
that have been historically marginalized,
including people living on low-incomes,
new immigrants, single parents, seniors and
Indigenous communities. Its Mobile Grocery
Stores offer fresh food at affordable prices,
ensuring choice, maintaining dignity, and
building community.
Operating year-round in over 40 communities
in Alberta and First Nations, Fresh Routes
serves over 2,000 food-insecure Canadians
by making healthy, culturally-relevant food
safe, accessible, and dignified.
This year Fresh Routes has experienced an organizational acceleration at a time of crisis which is exceptional. With support and coaching by LEAP, we have evolved tremendously. LEAP has made a profound impact on how we look moving forward
Lourdes Juan
Stefany Nieto
Founder
Raygan Solotki
Executive Director
Green Iglu
Providing communities with increased access to fresh food.
Green Iglu strengthens food sovereignty across Canada by equipping communities with greenhouse infrastructures. Green Iglu’s integrated, community-focused approach promotes food sovereignty across Canada through educational programming that enables remote communities to grow fresh and nutritious food.
COVID-19 prevented us from doing what we do best, being on the ground with communities. Despite these hurdles, LEAP continued to support us in our transition to digital training with communities and in raising gap funding. They continue to amaze us!
Stefany Nieto
Brian Torrance
Executive Director
Kate Storey
Associate Professor, School of Public Healthy
Heather McRae
Director for Indigenous Engagement
Indigenous Youth Mentorship Program (IYMP)
Youth-led after school mentorship program in Indigenous communities
The Indigenous Youth Mentorship Program (IYMP) is a research-based, youth-led after school mentorship program that builds children’s wellbeing and addresses health disparities in Indigenous communities. The program is community-led and is co- developed with Indigenous Elders, youth, educators, and researchers.
“What brings me pride and joy this year is our investment in relationships and people which has led to better support for communities and addressing their needs. Also, by working with LEAP, the staff is closer knit with strong connections.”
Brian Torrance
Dr. Abhinav Sharma
Director MyHeart Counts Canada
MyHeartCounts Canada
Get Canadians Moving!
MyHeartCounts Canada is an AI-driven mobile application in development stage, that will use personalized behavioural nudge strategies to encourage individuals to move more. In addition to encouraging healthy habits, daily health and lifestyle information will be transmitted to researchers at McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) as part of a national study into improving the cardiovascular health of Canadians.
I am extremely proud of how the team is building the critical foundation for MyHeart Counts Canada. LEAP’s support has enabled us to access more funding, improve our infrastructure organization, and opened the door to numerous networking opportunities.
Dr. Abhinav Sharma
Lori Nikkel
CEO
Second Harvest
Vision: No Waste. No Hunger.
Second Harvest is Canada’s largest food rescue charity with a dual mission of hunger relief and environmental protection. It recovers nutritious, perishable surplus food from more than 4,600 donors and redistributes it to a broad network of 3,100+ social service organizations across Canada. This free and essential service helps nourish people through school programs, seniors’ centres, shelters, food banks, regional food hubs and more.
“The pandemic has created an incredible increase in demand for our services. We appreciate both LEAP’s strategic partnership to help us work through the growth as well as the unrestricted funding that can be hard to find for new projects.”
Lori Nikkel
Dr. Peter Selby
Founder and ED
Smoking Treatment Optimization Program (STOP)
Goal: Treat over two million patients over the next 20 years.
The Smoking Treatment Optimization Program (STOP) provides smoking cessation treatment and counselling support to people across Ontario who want to quit. These supports are available free of charge, through partnerships with community health care organizations and internet-based direct to patient approach. The program is delivered through an innovative technology-based solution and is housed in CAMH, a leading research hospital for addictions and mental health.
Throughout the pandemic, the STOP team has been incredible. I am very proud of how our team has adapted quickly, pulling together with incredible productivity to create STOP on the Net, a fully virtual model designed to continue serving patients without reliance on clinics that were overwhelmed to provide care beyond acute needs. We consider LEAP as an integral member of our team.
Dr. Peter Selby
Jennifer May
VP, the Lung Association of Saskatchewan
Apeksha Heendeniya
Project Coordinator
Youth4Change
Targeted intervention to empower the First Nations youth to quit smoking.
Youth4Change Healing Tree Project is a community-led health and education initiative conducted through a partnership between The Lung Association of Saskatchewan, Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, and The Students Commission of Canada, with the aim of reducing harms caused by commercial tobacco and vaping use among Saskatchewan First Nations youth. Within each community, youth and adult allies come together to increase their knowledge, and design culturally relevant action plans towards cessation, policy advocacy, prevention and education.
Thank you from the bottom of our lungs for these partnerships and new developing relationships. We are excited to connect with our communities in- person and create impactful long-term change.
Apeksha Heendeniya
Tariq Fancy
Founder and CEO
Rumie
Bringing the surge of online learning content to communities least likely to access it but with the most to gain.
The Rumie Initiative (Rumie) works with the world’s most influential organizations to create, organize and distribute free micro- learning courses on 21st century life and career skills, designed to meet the needs of the economically-displaced, smartphone- first modern learner.
The potential for growth at Rumie is incredible given increased interest in micro- learning. I am really proud of the team’s ability to navigate this exciting time and appreciate LEAP’s advice to inform our fundraising strategy.
Tariq Fancy
Leena Augimeri
Co-Founder / Director, SNAP Child Development Institute
Stop Now and Plan (SNAP)
A comprehensive children’s mental health and crime prevention framework
Stop Now And Plan (SNAP®) is an evidence- based, trauma-informed children’s mental health and crime prevention model that teaches children aged 6-11 with disruptive behaviours and their families how to stop and think before they act and make better choices in the moment.
Even in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, CDI SNAP was able to pivot to help its SNAP Affiliates deliver SNAP virtually and achieve many significant milestones over the last year. LEAP has been instrumental in every aspect of our ambitious expansion plan, from strategy to implementation and ongoing consultation to ensure we were set up for success.
Leena Augimeri
Ken Sanderson
Executive Director
Teach For Canada
Supporting student success by recruiting and developing committed educators in partnership with First Nations.
Teach For Canada works with northern First Nations to recruit, prepare and support committed teachers, making education more equal by tackling the systemic inequalities between First Nations and non- First Nations communities.
This year we were proud to introduce some of our new initiatives with great success, despite the pandemic. LEAP’s support has been invaluable as we move into our next phase of growth.
Ken Sanderson
Lia Grimanis
CEO and Founder
Up With Women
Enabling at-risk women to exit poverty and achieve financial self-reliance.
Up With Women provides at-risk women with a unique, in-depth and intensive program of career coaching, group support sessions, emotional assessment tools, and soft skills development to support their clients in building sustainable, prosperous careers and businesses to become fully financially independent.
We’ve only had two years working together and I am blown away by how we’ve transformed as an organization.
Lia Grimanis
Audra Renyi
Executive Director
World Wide Hearing
Mission: To enable better hearing around the world through the provision of affordable hearing aids and services.
World Wide Hearing provides access to affordable hearing aids to children and youth, primarily in developing countries, and has impacted over 80,000 children since its founding in 2011. Over the last three years, WWH has conducted over 30,000 hearing screenings, expanded its Canadian presence by partnering with Indigenous communities, and strengthened relationships with its new Sub-Saharan African field partners. WWH is also developing an open-access platform to empower technicians to provide remote diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation for children with hearing loss.
Debroy Chan
Interim CEO
Margaret Eaton
Ex-Executive Director
TRIEC
Supporting the integration of newcomer professionals into the labour market by matching job-ready immigrants with established Canadian professionals in their field.
Newcomers bring talent, innovation, and international expertise, but face many barriers to meaningful employment in Canada. LEAP invested in TRIEC Mentoring Partnership (TMP) based on its effective and scalable approach to overcoming these barriers. Furthermore, TRIEC has recruited new employer partners to address the mentor-mentee pool imbalance and offer much needed mentors in priority fields for skilled immigrants.
LEAP was drawn to our program because it’s successful and it can be scaled. Our goal is to improve the program and support more skilled immigrants—LEAP is providing the strategy and the know-how to get us to that point.
Margaret Eaton
Luke Connell
Executive Director, Omega Foundation
Smart SAVER
Strengthening the ability of lower-income Canadian families to save for their children’s post-secondary education.
Across Canada, a drastic disparity in post-secondary enrolment between children of the top income bracket and the lowest income bracket exists, 79% to 47% respectively. SmartSAVER partners with a network of champions to make it easier for low-income families to access the CLB: government money available for education after high school. Since the time of our partnership launch, the number of children accessing the CLB has grown from approximately 900,000 recipients to more than 1.3 million children.
All children, regardless of income have a right to an education. Working with LEAP to highlight this issue and bring attention to our work has been a remarkable experience.
- Luke Connell
Joel Heath
Executive Director
Arctic Eider Society
Indigenous-driven solutions for thriving communities
The Arctic Eider Society develops Indigenous-driven solutions for thriving northern communities by building capacity for self-determination in research, education and environmental stewardship. AES is the creator of SIKU, the Indigenous knowledge and social network, which provides a wide variety of tools and services to improve safety, climate change adaptation, language preservation, and knowledge transfer while respecting Indigenous approaches to knowledge stewardship.
Kirstin Beardsley
Chief Executive Officer
Food Banks Canada
Ending hunger in Canada.
Food Banks Canada provides national leadership to relieve hunger today and prevent hunger tomorrow in collaboration with the food bank network across the country. Food Banks Canada is implementing two technology solutions: one to address food waste by connecting farmers, manufacturers and retailers; and one to create standardization around client intake processes to enable better service and support models as well as real-time data.
Dr. Mark Ansermino
Director, Centre for International Child Health
BC Children's Hospital: Pocket Doc
Pocket Doc for Pneumonia
BC Children’s Hospital’s Pocket Doc is a low-cost smartphone diagnostics tool being designed for use worldwide, allowing for the remote diagnosis of pneumonia in children. The Pocket Doc team developed a clinician dashboard and communication system to send triage data from the Pocket Doc app.
Rahul Singh
Executive Director
Global Medic
Providing disaster relief and life-saving humanitarian aid
GlobalMedic addresses barriers in the humanitarian sector by providing critical information to individuals on the ground through unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Through the Google Impact Challenge support, Global Medic has improved the imagery, mapping and information captured by UAVs, and partnered with local governments and emergency offices to address their specific needs for emergency aid response.
Conrad Sauvé
President and CEO
Canadian Red Cross
Mission: Help people and communities in Canada and around the world in times of need and support them in strengthening their resilience.
The Canadian Red Cross Society is part of the largest humanitarian network in the world. The Google Impact Challenge has supported the Red Cross’s enhancement of their Emergency Management Information System, which will allow the organization to better assist up to 500,000 people affected in a single event, and work more efficiently with response partners and the Canadian government.
Michael Peirone
CEO
Victoria Hand Project
Prosthetics Within Reach
Victoria Hand Project produces customized upper body prosthetics for amputees in low/middle income countries through 3D printing. VHP has provided prostheses in Cambodia, Ecuador, Haiti, Guatemala and Nepal, and has recently expanded to Egypt and Uganda.
Jennifer Freeman
CEO
PeaceGeeks
Building digital tools to strengthen communities in the pursuit of peace
PeaceGeeks builds digital tools to empower communities in the pursuit of peace. PeaceGeeks recently launched Arrival Advisor, a free mobile app that helps refugees and immigrants in British Columbia find information and services to plan their settlement journey.
Bertha Cormier
President
Keepers of the Circle
An Urban Indigenous hub operated by the Temiskaming Native Women’s Support Group (TNWSG)
Keepers of the Circle offers Indigenous women pathways to meaningful careers in a variety of sectors including mining, green construction, food and agriculture, entrepreneurship, early childhood education, hospitality, and community support work through multiple programs. All participants receive an individualized assessment to receive wrap-around supports to support their engagement and fair employment.
Paulina Cameron
CEO
The Forum
Forum is committed to making sure self-identified women entrepreneurs feel equipped to achieve their business visions in order to promote strengthened economies and thriving communities.
The Forum meets the needs of women entrepreneurs at various stages in their entrepreneurship journey, offering supports on-demand through synchronous, live, and self-paced programming as well as its nationwide community of over 40,000 women to support entrepreneurs and amplify successes.
Julia Blackburn
Founding CEO
NPower Canada
NPower Canada launches Canada’s underserved youth and adults into meaningful and sustainable digital careers.
NPower Canada bridges the gap between job seekers and employers by equipping individuals with technical and skills training, industr y certifications, career guidance, mentorship, and access to in-demand job opportunities with Canada’s leading tech employers. Programming is guided by industry needs and in-demand skills, with various industry certifications offered, including Google IT Support, Project Management, Data Analytics & Microsoft Azure Fundamentals.
Sara Asalya
Executive Director
Newcomer Women's Services Toronto
Newcomer Women's Services Toronto (NWST) empowers newcomer women and their families in building a life in Canada.
NWST offers programs spanning settlement, english language, employment, youth job connections, and social justice labs - all of which come together to offer valuable and meaningful experiences to women of all backgrounds
Anne Babcok
CEO
WoodGreen Community Services
Woodgreen enhances self-sufficiency, promote wellbeing and reduce poverty through innovative solutions to critical social needs. They also deliver integrated programs (physical, mental health), disability services, affordable housing, and pathways to employment.
The Homeward Bound (HB) program is a 4-year program that leads homeless or inadequately housed women and their families out of poverty and helps them achieve lasting economic self- sufficiency. The program provides single mothers access to transitional housing, affordable childcare, free 2-year college education, an internship with industry partners and sustainable employment with career growth opportunities.