Tides Canada’s founding donor, Carol Newell, asked herself this question in 1989 as she took a serious look at the state of the world and its direction. She would soon come into a substantial inheritance from her family, whose company would later become the Newell Rubbermaid Corporation, and resolved to direct this wealth to change the world.

Carol decided to deploy the majority of her resources to advance an environmentally sustainable and socially just world with a focus on British Columbia, a region she loved. She assembled a team to help take her wealth to its greatest capacity to stimulate change. From this came the vision for a national public foundation that would work across Canada and focus on environmental and social justice issues. In December 2000, with a gift from Carol and a small group of philanthropists, Tides Canada Foundation started its operations.

What began as an experiment is now a Canadian leader in strategic philanthropy.  To date, Tides Canada has granted nearly $45 million to innovative environmental and social justice causes and continues to grow charitable resources for positive social change. Our goal is to help donors activate their wealth by connecting them with social entrepreneurs and innovative projects as we work towards making Carol’s vision a reality.