Funder Focus: Dianna Waffle and the Prairieaction Foundation

By Elisa Birnbaum
December 1, 2008

This month in our Funder Focus we feature the Prairieaction Foundation, an organization established in 1997 with the mission of funding community-based, result-oriented research and education that find solutions to violence and abuse. CharityVillage spoke with president Dianna Waffle about the history of this unique foundation, and its struggles and achievements in the ongoing battle against violence and abuse.

CharityVillage: Who launched the foundation? What is the history behind it?

Dianna Waffle: We are now in our 11th year. On December 6, 1989, 14 women lost their lives at Montreal’s École Polytechnique. Three years after that the federal government, in their wisdom, established a network of five research centres in Canada to conduct research into the cause of family violence and violence against women. They also agreed to provide the funding for five years.

In 1996, Dr. Jane Ursel, director of the Manitoba research centre, met with Senator Sharon Carstairs. They discussed long-term plans for funding at the research centres and decided it important to leverage the impact of the Manitoba centre. They decided to set up a partnership among the prairie provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. They then had a milestone meeting in Calgary in February 1997, whose purpose was to determine if there was sufficient interest and commitment from three provinces to establish a tri-provincial research network on family violence. Participants included representatives from First Nations, universities, community workers in the field of family violence, police, the provincial and federal governments, and the corporate community.

That meeting resulted in the creation of the Praireaction Foundation. The purpose was to establish and raise a $5 million endowment fund called the Legacy Fund. Initially, that fund was strictly set on providing stable funding for RESOLVE - a research network that stands for "research and education for solutions to violence and abuse." We didn’t create RESOLVE, it was part of the program the federal government started after the massacre. But Prairieaction was founded to fund it. The founding members were Margaret Newell, Sheila O’Brien, Carolynne Boivin, Ora Zabloski and Sharon Carstairs. And in December of 1997, they were granted charitable status.

Aside from our main purpose of providing stable funding for RESOLVE, we also support community-based research into solutions for violence and abuse through our CARE Grants Program. As well, we support education and awareness and the dissemination of research results, since what often happens is that the community isn’t made aware of the results of research, though researchers know and share amongst themselves.

CV: How did it evolve since those founding days? Where is it today?

DW: The first fundraising goal, our Legacy Fund, was to raise $5 million dollars. The campaigns were mostly focused in the three provinces but were also nationally activated. At the end of 1999, we had raised 75% of the $5 million and in 2002 we reached it. Then in 2003 we had a strategic planning session and decided that, due to increasing costs and the need for more research, we couldn’t fulfill our goals with just $5 million. So we increased it to $7.5 million, calling it the Momentum Campaign. We knew if we raised the endowment fund by $2.5 million, we would be able to increase our funding to each of our three projects.

As for where we stand today, well, as of this month, we’ve raised over $800,000 toward an anonymous donor’s challenge to raise one million dollars prior to June 2009; it’s a huge deadline. If we raise the million, he will make an anonymous gift of $250,000. Since 1997, Praireaction paid out over $1.7 million. And at our year-end this past August, the total market value of our investments was at $7,285,000.

CV: The foundation has a very unique structure. Why did you decide to create a pan-prairie initiative? And why/how did the academic community get so involved?

DW: The idea of a tri-provincial network has lots to do with the sharing of information. If every province, country, city, etc. is doing the same research, we’re reinventing the wheel. In this situation, the project could be done in Regina and information would be shared among all seven centres. And we share with the East Coast too; we have very good communication with all of them and there’s lots of national research going on as well. But we wanted to make it big without being too big, so it’s more manageable to be tri-provincial. Even as a board, we still have our challenges with meetings. We try to have two face-to-face meetings a year, but it’s not easy.

The academic community comes into play because they’re the research part of the foundation. They are very involved. The professors are based out of universities. And RESOLVE has seven partnerships at seven different universities. We actually have meetings once a year with all the people involved in all those universities. In the early years of projects, they were mostly local or regional in scope. But as the researchers’ reputation and knowledge have grown, RESOLVE has been doing a lot of national and international projects too. Speakers come from all over - Australia, the UK, US and across Canada. It’s amazing. They all appreciate the sharing of information. And I think everything we do here, whether at the university of Regina or within the three provinces, has value both nationally and internationally.

CV: Tell me about the types of funding you provide (RESOLVE, CARE Grant Program, Education and Awareness Grant Program)

DW: Our basic mission is to fund RESOLVE. The money we give them allows them to have stability as far as administration costs go. And that’s really important because most people who give grant money won’t give it for operating costs.

Back in 1997, we were able to give them just over $10,000. Now, we give $200,000 every year and we are trying to increase that because costs have gone up. Our CARE grant program - Community Action, Research and Education - was started in 2003 and it supports community-based research. Our first awards totalled $23,500. And this year we awarded over $81,000. We started our Education and Awareness program in 2005, awarding $13,500 in total. The first one we funded was Manitoba Young People’s Theatre, which was putting on a play about date rape. It had nothing to do with research; it was really about awareness. We were quite moved by it, so we gave them $3,000. We’ve done that twice now, with another project too. So that’s the type of thing that our Education and Awareness Grant Program funds.

CV: What’s the status of violence and abuse today, as compared to when the foundation began? What are some of the challenges the foundation faces in meeting its mission?

DW: Violence has absolutely reduced - not just in the prairies but nationwide. Statistics show that violent crime against women, particularly family violence, with women and children, has reduced. Another thing that heartens us a lot is that it used to be seen as a woman’s issue. And in just the last two to three years, because of a couple of programs that our board members were involved in, we have found that men are now seeing it more as a people issue, one that they cannot not address.

One of the biggest challenges for RESOLVE is maintaining contact with their participants. For example, there’s a tri-provincial study called the Healing Journey that’s been going on for three to five years and is just wrapping up. Its participants are women who are afraid, don’t want to be found, don’t have stable homes, forwarding phone numbers or addresses. So in order for the researchers to do a good job, they have to keep in contact with the participants over a lengthy time and that’s very difficult. The other challenge is confidentiality. You can’t use the normal course to try and find them. You can’t go to shelters and ask for them, for example.

"A donor can understand building a shelter, feeding children, all of those real basic things, but they may not understand how researching will help eliminate the problem."

As for the Prairieaction Foundation, one of our biggest challenges is that people don’t understand research. That’s why the education and awareness part of our program is so important. A donor can understand building a shelter, feeding children, all of those real basic things, but they may not understand how researching will help eliminate the problem. So it’s a tough sell. All we can do is tell them stories. But, again, because of confidentiality, that, too, is hard.

CV: What do you look for in a grantee? Are there specific criteria they must meet?

DW: Overall, funding goes to charities and nonprofits in the prairies. When it comes to our CARE program, they need to be involved in research into violence and abuse. And when it comes to RESOLVE, we give them money and it goes to Manitoba and they disperse it, so it’s a bit different.

CV: Does the foundation align itself with any particular groups, corporations or government agencies to help it achieve its mission?

DW: I wish I could say we were really well-aligned with government and corporations. It’s one of the things we really need to do. Large corporations as well as small businesses should be really interested in supporting what we do because, from their standpoint, it’s about dollars and cents. Every time someone has to stay home from work because she has a black eye - or worse - from getting slapped around, it’s costing the employer money. Millions and millions of dollars every year, through our healthcare and justice system etc.

We have received money from all three governments, though it hasn’t been easy. We’ve gone through the justice route as well as the health and social services route - they each have links to what we do. The truth is, we wouldn’t be where we are today without the support of governments. And I would really like corporations and unions to understand that they should be supporting us too. They are always concerned about their employees so this would be something they could benefit from.

CV: What is the next 5-year or 10-year plan of the foundation?

DW: Building awareness is certainly part of our plan, while we continue to raise money. Once we have the $2.5 million, we will have to re-evaluate. Because, at some point, the idea is that the foundation will be able to just manage and disperse money. The awareness will be built, the funds will be there. But who knows how long that will take.

Last year we had a strategic planning session and our three to four-year goal was to complete the Momentum Campaign. After that we would determine a long-term strategy. We haven’t come up with a final number. With $7.5 million, if the market is in a better place, we would be able to probably give RESOLVE $250,00 a year, $150,000 to CARE grants, and substantially more to the Education and Awareness program. So $7.5 million may be it, but we’ll look at that when we get there.

From the arts to sports and from museums to education and hospitals, Dianna Waffle has certainly garnered her fair share of experience in the sector, whether as a volunteer, board member or chair. So when she got a call in 2002 to join Prairieaction, Dianna’s full plate gave her some pause. But after learning more about the foundation and its significant mission, this self-employed financial planner knew she couldn’t say no. "I felt very blessed my life had never been touched by violence and I just felt obliged to try and help those who weren’t as blessed."

Elisa Birnbaum is a freelance journalist, producer and communications consultant living in Toronto. She is also president of Elle Communications and can be reached at: info@ellecommunications.ca.

Next week: Donor recognition trends and strategies.

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