PurposePhil is a partnership between Vancouver Foundation, one of Canada’s largest community foundations, and a small social design organization called InWithForward. Since 2019, we’ve been on a journey to address entrenched inequality by applying systems thinking to ourselves.

On PurposePhil, you can

• Gain exposure to big ideas behind philanthropy
• Reflect on underlying values, beliefs, and logics
• Probe alternative assumptions and philanthropic models
• Find case studies, reflective prompts, and tools to bring to your own context

We are steeped in a productivity focused culture with little time or space to ask big questions and experiment with big ideas. “Less talk, more action” is a common refrain. We’ve come to see learning as action, and have designed PurposePhil as a learning resource to strengthen our individual and collective capacity for critical thought and active imagination: two conditions for deep systems change. Why do we believe systems change is necessary? Here’s our logic:

• Inequality is systemic.
• Philanthropy is itself a system.
• The system of philanthropy is intertwined with systemic inequality.
• Systems don’t just live out there, but within each of us.
• Systems change requires critical thought and active imagination.