This October, The Discovery Pod launched its first ever Women’s History Month series, highlighting leaders whose work centers women’s rights, health, and safety. Amy Flood of Women’s Health Collective Canada, Heather Odendaal of WNORTH, Lauren Ravon of Oxfam Canada, and Donna-Lynn Rosa of Atira Women’s Resource Society shared insights on feminist leadership, systems change, and the courage required to challenge entrenched inequities. These conversations are particularly timely, as each of these organizations exists because women’s needs have been historically overlooked, underfunded, and misunderstood. Their leadership reveals a common thread: transformative change demands both tactical responsiveness and strategic vision, grounded in the lived experiences of the communities being served.
Strategic Partnerships and Policy Advocacy with Amy Food, Women’s Health Collective Canada
Amy Flood confronts a staggering reality: only 7% of Canada’s national health research funding targets women’s health, dropping to 2.5% when oncology is excluded. This inequity isn’t just ethically troubling, it also carries enormous economic consequences. Amy reveals that unmanaged menopause symptoms alone cost the Canadian economy $3.5 billion annually, yet Canada ranks 63rd globally on the women’s health index.
What makes Amy’s approach powerful is her refusal to accept the “awareness” trap that catches many advocacy organizations. She’s evolved Women’s Health Collective Canada beyond fundraising into a three-pronged strategy: building strategic alliances, providing evidence-based education, and advocating for measurable policy change. When policymakers ask “where will the money come from?” she answers with data demonstrating that investing in women’s health isn’t charity, it’s an economic necessity. Her message to other sector leaders is to make it personal. Everyone has a mother, sister, or colleague affected by these inequities, and connecting policy to lived experience cuts through bureaucratic resistance.
Women Redefining Leadership Success with Heather Odendaal, WNORTH
Heather Odendaal’s WNORTH has spent ten years connecting senior women leaders, but her most important evolution has been language itself. She’s shifted from talking about “getting to the C-suite” to helping women “redefine success”, recognizing that leadership isn’t always a straight ladder up.
Heather observes a significant migration of talented women from corporate environments to the social profit sector, driven by the desire for purpose over paycheques. These leaders bring sophisticated skills but seek meaningful impact and flexibility. Her advice for mid-career professionals? Diversify your skill set through lateral moves, not just vertical climbs. Take the assistant role after being a director if it teaches you something essential. Build peer networks, not just mentor relationships (things are moving too fast for traditional mentorship models to keep pace).
What’s particularly valuable for social profit leaders is Heather’s observation about donor behavior: women increasingly control family philanthropic decisions, and they ask different questions than previous generations. They want to understand how their donation will benefit the community, they’re drawn to social profit leaders who can articulate vision compellingly, and they’re willing to get involved beyond writing cheques.
Connecting Local Programs to Global Policy with Lauren Ravon, Oxfam Canada
Lauren Ravon leads Oxfam Canada through what she describes as a moment of defending ground rather than advancing it. Yet her approach offers crucial lessons about working simultaneously at multiple scales: providing clean water in humanitarian crises while advocating for arms trade treaties; supporting community development while calling out Canadian mining companies for human rights violations.
Lauren’s feminist leadership shows up not just in issues but in methods, by prioritizing women’s rights organizations as partners, bringing gender analysis to every policy proposal, and maintaining a grassroots fundraising model built on thousands of small monthly donations rather than dependence on major gifts. This movement-building approach creates resilience: when Oxfam speaks out on Gaza or other contentious issues, they’re supported by donors who see activism and giving as interconnected.
For sector leaders facing their own crises, Lauren’s wisdom is clear: you can’t address symptoms without tackling root causes, and you can’t advocate credibly without being present in communities before, during, and long after emergencies strike. The complexity of overlapping crises demands organizations that refuse to oversimplify.
Scaling Impact While Staying Human with Donna-Lynn Rosa, Atira Women’s Resource Society
Donna-Lynn Rosa challenges conventional leadership wisdom by arguing that hope isn’t just motivational fluff, it’s strategic. At Atira Women’s Resource Society, which houses over 2,500 people fleeing violence, Donna-Lynn has learned that pausing before reacting is the most powerful tool a leader has. When everything feels urgent, discerning true emergencies from perceived ones becomes critical.
Donna-Lynn’s approach to strategic planning offers a masterclass for new executives: when she joined Atira during organizational transition, she told her board honestly, “I don’t know what the strategic plan should be yet.” Instead of rushing into a 3-5 year plan, they created an 18-month bridge plan focused on stabilization. Only after meeting 85% of frontline staff and understanding their lived experiences did she feel ready to guide longer-term planning.
Her leadership philosophy, shaped by her time working with the Squamish Nation, centers on humility over hierarchy. She actively catches herself sitting in judgment and uses that awareness to pause and regulate. For an organization serving people in crisis, this modeling of self-awareness projects through teams. Donna-Lynn’s advice: focus on the faces you can help rather than being paralyzed by all you cannot change. That focus sustains the work.
These four leaders demonstrate that feminist leadership in Canada’s social profit sector isn’t about checking boxes or softening edges. It’s about fundamentally reimagining how organizations operate, who gets centered in decision-making, and what success actually means. They’re building economic arguments, diversifying pathways to leadership, connecting local action to global advocacy, and leading with vulnerability rather than bravado. We’re proud this Women’s History Month series showcased their vital work.
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