Announcements

Community Grants Program Notice

We are pleased to announce that we are making improvements to the Community Grants Program to align grantmaking priorities with our new strategic plan. We anticipate that we will be dedicating significant time to the planning and communication of these changes, including the provision of detailed grant guidelines.

At this time, we would also like to announce that we will not be offering a fall grants program this year. The deadline for the next round of applications is February 1st, 2009. Please note that an information session will be offered in November 2008 to provide detailed information and assistance to registered charities interested in applying for the 2009 cycle.

CFO Investment Committee attracts high-caliber new members

The Community Foundation of Ottawa is proud to announce the addition of two new members of the Foundation’s Investment Committee. Joining us in 2008 are Gordon Thiessen and Tom Valks.

Gordon Thiessen’s 35 years of service at the Bank of Canada culminated in a seven-year term as Governor between 1994 – 2001. Mr. Thiessen holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and has been awarded honourary doctorates from both the University of Ottawa and the University of Saskatchewan. He is the recipient of the government of Sweden’s Order of the Polar Star in recognition of the assistance provided by the Bank of Canada to the Swedish central bank, and was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2003. Mr. Thiessen serves on a number of corporate and other boards and is the founding Chair of the Canadian Public Accountability Board (CPAB).

A senior investment manager with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Tom Valks brings close to 20 years of experience to CFO in the investment management of domestic and international portfolios for a wide range of institutional investors. In his role at CMHC, Mr. Valks manages the external investment mandates for the Insurance and Pension Fund portfolios, which amount to almost $14 billion in total assets. Tom is a graduate in economics from the HEAO-School in The Netherlands. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and a Certified Management Accountant (CMA).