Barbara Laskin specializes in governance, strategy, and communications, including outreach and engagement. She is a former senior manager at the Canada Council for the Arts, where she developed an interest in the complex multi-stakeholder environment of the nonprofit sector. She has extensive experience in granting and adjudicative systems, policy and program development, fundraising, and public relations.
She is a long-standing public member of the Law Society of Ontario Tribunal, where she works with lawyers to hear and decide regulatory cases concerning Ontario lawyers and paralegals. She was for 12 years a member, and more recently a Vice-Chair, of Ontario’s Consent and Capacity Board, serving with lawyers and medical members in the adjudication of matters of capacity, consent, civil committal and substitute decision making, balancing the rights of vulnerable individuals with public safety.
Since 2003, much of Barbara’s consulting career has focused on governance and strategy issues in the nonprofit sector. She is an experienced facilitator and presenter and has led or participated in many projects in strategic planning and governance reform. She has also been involved in research in governance-related areas, such as membership and change management, and has participated in developing strategies to strengthen key functions or to effect organizational change.
She is adept at working with boards of directors, committee chairs, and task forces to identify challenges and opportunities and to forge a consensus on future directions.
An articulate and experienced public speaker, Barbara is a strong writer and a trained editor. She is the author or co-author of a number of articles and publications, including Governance Works! A Guidebook of Governance Essentials; also “From Jeans to Jackets: Navigating the Transition to More Systematic Governance.” She has edited a major federal government policy paper on the future of transportation in Canada; she also edited The Dance Gods, an autobiography by Canadian dancer, teacher and artistic director Kenny Pearl. More recently, she was the final editor for The Intrepid Nonprofit: Strategies for Success in Turbulent Times by Tim Plumptre.
Barbara has led or served on the board of many nonprofit groups, including the Canada Dance Festival, PAL Ottawa, the Ottawa Arts Court Foundation, the Crichton Community Cultural Council, Studea Musica Institute, Ottawa Refnet, Connecting Communities with Counsel, and the New Edinburgh Community Alliance. She currently chairs 10 Gates Dancing and serves as Director responsible for revenue generation with the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women.
In addition to her consulting responsibilities, Barbara is Executive Director of the Sylva Gelber Music Foundation, a charity that provides grants to top young Canadian classical musicians on the threshold of a concert career.