We Help Leaders Find the Power to Make Change

Seniors’ care first. Bickering later.

We are calling for a true national plan for seniors’ care. 

Celebrating 10,000 Stories of Change: ICL's 2022 Annual Report

Learn about the incredible impact that ICL has made this year in our 2022 Annual Report!

Rahat's Story

Rahat's Story

Learn about Rahat's amazing story of health justice and equity!

Upcoming Courses and Events

Passion to Action: Learn How to Advocate for Social Housing

Passion to Action: Learn How to Advocate for Social Housing

Brick by brick, learn how to advocate for social housing. 

Are you involved in the housing sector and passionate about making positive social change? This course is for you.

During this 8-week zoom workshop from the Institute for Change Leaders and the Douglas Coldwell Layton Foundation, lead instructors Melanie Matthews and Robb Johannes will teach you how to:

  • Tell your story to motivate others
  • Recruit and keep volunteers
  • Structure your team to avoid burnout and facilitate growth
  • Design a strategy that gets the change you want
  • Choose tactics that move decision-makers

You will learn through lectures and small group activities that will allow you to practice the skills we teach. You will work with an experienced organizer, who will facilitate your group and help you plan your organizing project. You will finish the course ready to tell your story, with a developed organizing statement, and tools to plan your organizing project's strategy and tactics.

This training will be held every Tuesday between April 11th to May 30th from 6pm-8pm ET. 

Crafting Narratives and Taking the Lead

Crafting Narratives and Taking the Lead

Join Sarah ElRaheb-Dagher, an educator and coach who specializes in teaching public narrative, organizing and leadership, for an in-depth series on the public narrative.

This training will take place over zoom, on April 5th, 2023. The session will be 3 hours long, from 6pm-9pm ET. 

Session Breakdown: 

Session #1 - Introduction to "Leading Through Disruptive Change": In this introductory session, participants will learn, experientially, how narrative responses in moments of disruptive change can either enable your "us" to act with agency, or inhibit the agency of your people. Public narrative is about exercising leadership by translating your values, and those of others, into the emotional capacity to respond to challenges with strategic agency, as opposed to reacting with avoidance or fear. In this part, we focus on how to meet the leadership challenge of building an empathetic bridge through which we can enable others to respond with agency to four key forms of disruption: loss, difference, power, and change.

Since launching in 2015:

Supporting people taking action
For a just and sustainable society

I recommend this training to everyone who wants to take action to speak out against the injustice they are facing.

~ Rebiya, Newcomer Women’s Services

Supporting people taking action | For a just and sustainable society
United Way Greater Toronto
Newcomer Women Services
Toronto Ward Museum
Supporting people taking action | For empowered workers

Supporting people taking action
For empowered workers

With Olivia’s energy and expertise, we trained and launched teams of early childhood educators who have in turn engaged thousands of childcare workers and reached tens of thousands of parents and voters.

~ Lyndsay Macdonald, Early Childhood Educator

Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario
TYRLC
USW

Supporting people taking action
For thriving Indigenous communities

I learned so much, and I will utilize my newly acquired knowledge to create change in my home community.

~ Andrew, Aboriginal Health Initiative

Supporting people taking action | For thriving Indigenous communities
Inuvialuit Regional Corporation
OSHKI-WENJACK
We Matter
Supporting people taking action | For a healthy and strong democracy

Supporting people taking action
For a healthy and strong democracy

A great experience to be able to engage in thoughtful, skill-building training and get to hear the inspiring stories of badass change leaders.

~ Emily, Young Women’s Leadership Network

Fair Vote Canada
Toronto Youth Cabinet
Young Women's Leadership Network

We've trained dozens of organizations, including:

YWCA
Greenpeace
United Way
AMAPCEO

Take action

Get Trained
Contact Us

The Institute for Change Leaders is a Canadian registered charity that can issue official donation receipts (no. 763310679 RR 0001). ICL is brought to you by the Faculty of Community Services at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Toronto Metropolitan University