About

Governance for Our Kids Climate began here in British Columbia in September 2021, after a challenging year of pandemic, extreme heat, massive wildfires and the sudden destruction of the town of Lytton by a wildfire.

Michael Davis read an article by Heather Schofeild that drew attention to a Liberal Party of Canada campaign promise to force publicly traded companies to disclose climate change related risk in their annual financials. This seemed to signal a major change that would broaden the climate change conversation out from a small number of activists, government politicians and regulators to virtually all publicly traded companies, investors, investment funds and the general public.

We began to research the work that had been done on financial disclosure related to climate change risk and the governance work that underpins it. 

It occurred to us that, while government actions and big business are critical to the fight against climate change, civil society was being ignored and had the potential to make a huge impact if the creativity and passion of community benefit organisations and smaller corporations could be mobilised.

Governance for Our Kids Climate is run by a small group of volunteers. We finance our operations through workshop fees and small donations.

Our Vision

In 2100, our kids and their kids live in a climate less than 2C warmer than pre-industrial levels.

Our Mission

We help small to medium sized organisations—community benefit organisations (CBOs), corporations, strata councils and co-ops—incorporate fighting climate change into their governance. We seek out and nurture cross-sectoral conversations and action.

Collaborators

Michael Davis

Michael is a Principle at PublicAffair, a communication, government relations and stakeholder engagement firm in Vancouver. He has been on boards since 1996, holding a variety of positions including president, finance chair, governance chair and a contracted executive director.

Michael has been doing governance training for boards since 1999, first with Volunteer Vancouver, then as a consultant facilitating strategic planning sessions and as a knowledge philanthropist for Vantage Point.

He has done this work in multiple sectors and organisations including a maritime museum, a social service agency, a pan-provincial umbrella organisation of social service agencies, a political party, a seniors housing association and a refugee resettlement charity.

Michael provides research assistance regarding our energy transition to a low-carbon economy at the Behaviour Energy Environment ResearchLab at Royal Roads University.
 

Leslie Welin

Leslie’s career in education and social services spans more than 30 years in Alberta and BC, with roles including coach, teacher, counsellor, board member, professor, and community leader. Leslie was part of a team that wrote the BC Foster Parent Education Curriculum, served on the BC Parent Visioning Working Group, and the Vancouver Island Child Welfare Advisory Committee.

Leslie is committed to bringing community-based social services together to find innovative ways to meet increasingly complex community needs and is on the organising committee of her local Community Boards in Action.

As a director of Board Voice since 2012, Leslie serves on the Advocacy Committee and worked with communities across BC to produce Thereis a Better Way: A BC Framework for Wellbeing. She is helping to develop the Building BetterBoards initiative focused on strengthening and bringing together the volunteer boards that govern B.C.’s community social service organisations.

Leslie is the Board Chair at Clements Centre for Families and Co-Chair of Board Voice.

Brad Beattie

Brad is the founder and CEO of POP The People Agency and specialises in collaboration solutions to enhance social impact, with over 25 years experience bringing people and ideas together.

 
As Executive Director of ARC Foundation, he amplified grassroots voices and facilitated partnerships that quickly became SOGI 1 2 3, a collaborative educational initiative that grew from a pilot program to include all 60 BC school districts, first nation schools and independent schools in less than three years. The success of the program hinged on innovative collaboratives between all education partners and stakeholders at the provincial, district and school levels. With this foundation, SOGI 1 2 3 grew beyond government education to become a true cross-sector collaboration, also engaging mission-aligned NGOs, corporations, and community stakeholders.

Brad worked with Reconciliation Canada, implementing a landmark truth and reconciliation march of 70,000 participants and 1000 volunteers. He worked with the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association to re-imagine internal collaboration models, VANOC 2010 and the Canadian CancerSociety.

It’s always been clear to Brad that great things happen when we play well together. He naturally sees the potential people power trapped in competitive, parallel or siloed relationships. He has developed a sophisticated set of skills for initiating breakthrough conversations and activating existing leaders to co-innovate solutions that transform outdated landscapes for social change.
 

Sylvia Davis

Sylvia worked for RBC across four provinces from 1971 to 2001, rising up the corporate ladder to assistant regional manager assigned to head office. She managed several branches in Vancouver. 

Sylvia has been a lifelong learner, always exploring new ways of helping people reach their full potential. She brings a lifetime’s worth of knowledge of finance and financial markets.

For the last several years Sylvia has been on the strata council of a large condominium with two towers, two councils and over 260 suites. Like all residences, they are beginning to feel the effects of climate change.

Sylvia is an instructor with the Canadian Tai Chi Academy and a director of the South Burnaby Garden Club.
 

Lynda Gerty

Lynda Gerty is a Professional CertifiedCoach, group facilitator and organizational consultant who serves not-for-profit and social change clients. She specializes in catalyzing individual learning and leading participatory group processes that increase the health and effectiveness of human systems. Lynda is passionate about supporting people to navigate change and uncertainty, and address seemingly intractable issues together. Her consulting approach is informed by her long-standing commitment to anti-oppression and social justice, and deep expertise in the fields of adult learning, participatory process, and systems change.

Lynda brings over 15 years of leadership experience in the not-for-profit sector, including previous roles as the Public Engagement Manager at the David Suzuki Foundation, Engagement Director at Vantage Point, and Board President at ArtStarts in Schools. Lynda is a Certified Executive Coach through Royal Roads University, and a Professional Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation. She holds a Master of Human Systems Intervention through Concordia University and Bachelor of Arts in psychology and women’s studies from Simon Fraser University. 

As a 5th generation settler of Irish, Scottish, and French ancestry, Lynda was born in Tiohtiá:ke/Montréal and now lives within the occupied territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən and WSÁNEĆ people, who remain the original and rightful stewards of this land. 

Organizations We have Worked With