“During one particularly mind-numbingly boring finance meeting I had a very clear thought: ‘there’s got to be another way’”.
At the age of 19, Annabelle White (Bella) unexpectedly became the beneficiary of a trust fund. Due to the terms of the trust, she would not have any control over its distribution or investment until she turned 35, and she was searching for a way to give that aligned with her own values. “I knew I was eventually going to be involved in managing my own wealth,” she explains, “and a few weeks before my 35th birthday I met Carol Newell, one of the co-founders of what was then Tides Canada [now MakeWay] who shared her financial story. The values of working together for a just and healthy Canada through collaboration and deep community relationships resonated with me. ‘Here was the other way!’ I thought.”
In 2008, Bella decided to open a Donor Advised Fund (DAF) at MakeWay called The Dragonfly Fund and use it as an entry point to start her philanthropic journey. Almost 15 years later, The Dragonfly Fund has granted over $10.7 million to initiatives working on issues ranging from protecting Canada’s water resources, to toxics elimination, to mental health and wellbeing, and much more. And now they are getting ready to transition into their own foundation.
We sat down with Bella to talk about the last 15 years, the things she’s most proud of, and lessons she is taking with her into the next chapter of Dragonfly.
I am most proud of my support of Ilisaqsivik, an Inuit-led community hub offering programs and services steeped in Inuit culture and language in Clyde River, Nunavut. I began funding Ilisaqsivik first as a result of a MakeWay (then Tides Canada) arctic scoping project. And when they decided to build Tukumaaq – a social enterprise and hotel that creates long-term and self-sustaining income for the community – it was my first entry into truly integrated capital. The programming they offer is very highly respected and is benefitting participants at all stages of their lives from across the entire Arctic.
I am also deeply proud of the support I have given to many other Indigenous groups across Turtle Island. My funding has varied, from helping remote communities wean themselves off carbon related energy sources, to seed funding to develop the Ontario Indigenous Youth Partnership Project (OIYPP), to supporting entrepreneurship through EntrepreNorth, and many other projects supporting Indigenous revitalization. These relationships, often facilitated through MakeWay, have given me an incredible learning curve to see the world through a completely different set of eyes, approach life with a deep curiosity and tap into the beauty of different spiritual ways. I am so deeply grateful for these other ways of knowing and being.
I am also deeply proud of my support of clean energy and toxic elimination. I initially funded research and policy work which led to the foundation of Clean Energy Canada, now a nationally recognized think-tank and policy leader. My toxic elimination work is ongoing, and I’m supremely proud of the creation of the Coalition for Action on Toxics. It is a coalition of funders and environmental and health NGO’s working together on long overdue policy updates to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA). I feel the toxics work is very connected to climate change and a huge opportunity as very few groups are tackling toxics, especially at the policy level. It can be deeply disturbing and depressing to do this work, but with so much potential to make huge leaps forward in preventing environmental contamination and human and animal disease. This story is currently evolving and has a lot of chapters to follow…
- Building close relationships takes time but is key in creating long term change.
- Listen carefully to the communities you are financially supporting. They know best what they need.
- There’s a fine line between pushing past your comfort zone and listening to your intuition. Be brave, but if something keeps feeling ‘off’, slow down until you can identify what that is.
- Do your due diligence up front, and when you finally make that transfer, let all expectations go. Miracles do happen!
- Mistakes happen too, so remember that dollars circulating in community are never misspent. Turn it into a learning opportunity, pivot, move on.
- Intuition Intuition Intuition! Listen. Feel. Question. Stretch. Trust. Debrief. Relax. Repeat.
When I started my DAF at MakeWay fifteen years ago, I deeply resonated with the organization’s values and focus. For personal reasons I also felt the need to stay relatively anonymous as a wealth holder. With my initial transfer into the DAF, and in my conversations with MakeWay, I realized very quickly that it was a highly professional, ambitious team and a safe intermediary. It would have taken me a decade to build the expertise and relationships that already existed at MakeWay to move those dollars as effectively. Now fifteen years later, I’m feeling a lot more confidence in my own professional team and my mission/vision/values, alongside a lesser need for anonymity. I can’t thank MakeWay enough for the learnings and wisdom you have given me, and I know we will continue to team up and leverage our donation dollars!
What’s next is a continuation and deeper dive into the toxics work, more direct connections with communities who are closest to the land and water, and deeper support of women and BIPoC.
Well, I’ve almost given up on books! I’m generally too tired at the end of my days to read, but two podcasts and one book every changemaker should listen to are:
Easily done while driving or folding laundry!!!
The book I recommend focuses on social entrepreneurship, very appropriate for Investment Committees:
This is a tough question because I’m answering from the perspective of a donor, not a professional. I think that today there are a lot more conversations being held openly around white privilege, white supremacy, and settler-colonialism. This is good and a huge step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go when it comes to actions being taken. There is certainly more talk within foundations about shifting investments to match their mission/vision/values, but again a gap in timing to actually make that happen. There seems to be a lot more bubbling up as well when it comes to non-qualified donees, and how to address those needs. Thank goodness the donation requirement has increased to 5% this January but it still blows my mind that intended charitable dollars are allowed to sit in for-fee accounts. There needs to be a lot more done to get foundations to roll out the dollars, and a lot more relationship building within the communities that those dollars are intended for.
Argh! I think about this a lot, but I think about a table for 10…choosing one is next to impossible!
The woman I would invite is Christiane Amanpour. She would be the perfect guest because her skill set in asking questions would drive conversation, but also her life experiences and storytelling would drive conversation! She is smart, powerful, and a truly incredible role model for me, for women, and for men who give a shit. I might be a little intimidated by her, and I might also stop using my words around her, but being at the same dinner table as her would be just simply incredible!
Star Wars. Not just the single movie but the whole series. I’m a cosmic science & sci-fi nerd. I love the aliens. I love the thought of interplanetary travel. I love the spaceships. I love the concept of a galactic senate. I love the force. Don’t you think that eating interplanetary foods would be completely mind-blowing?!
