Your starting point for social change™

Alex Gill | Idon Byron | Janet McCausland | Richard Bowring | Natalia Villegas |  Karan Malhotra

OUR TEAM

Alex Gill is the founder of Mendicant Group. A former Vice-President of Marketing and Communications at the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, Alex held a variety of senior positions in a number of nonprofits prior to founding Mendicant. In addition to a Masters Degree in Communications, Alex has completed post-grad programs in Change Management (Rotman School of Management) and Marketing Management (Schulich School of Business). Alex also holds appointments at Ryerson University in the Graduate School of the Department of Politics and Public Administration and at the Institute for Corporate Social Responsibility, where he teaches nonprofit management, advocacy, governance, social marketing and corporate citizenship. Alex is the co-author of the upcoming book from Wiley and Sons, AIM: Achieve, inspire and make a difference.

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Idon Byron is an expert in board governance who had pioneered the adaptation of rigourous governance methods from financial companies for use by nonprofit organizations. Formerly with Meritis, one of Canada’s leading governance support firms, Idon regularly works with a variety of nonprofits to analyze and address their governance challenges.

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Janet McCausland is a results-oriented communicator and social marketer with a solid background in the environmental and nonprofit field, developing programs such as the Green Toronto Awards, working with the Natural Burial Association, as well as launching of several products for corporate and non-profit clients. Janet has been quite involved with Toronto’s Now House Project, which turned a 60-year-old WWII bungalow into a near zero energy home that produces almost as much energy as it uses.

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Richard Bowring is a seasoned nonprofit professional with considerable experience in restructuring nonprofit operations, including program design, costing and accounting. While his regular job as Director of Administration and Programming at a large national foundation keeps him busy, he still finds time to work with Mendicant to help nonprofits turn their ideas for community impact into effective, measurable programs. Richard is a master at dissecting balance sheets, program budgets and fiscal plans in order to find the best match between an organization’s mission and its operational footprint.

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Natalia Villegas is an internationally-experienced management and communications professional who is a graduate of the Master Degree in Communications Management Program at McMaster’s DeGroote School of Business. She brings considerable experience in corporate citizenship, project management and strategic communications to Mendicant’s roster. Prior to beginning her career in Canada, Natalia worked for several years in Washington for the Organization of American States and in South America for Citibank.

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Karan Malhotra is a consultant at Mendicant Group and an MBA candidate at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. He has more than four years of consulting experience with a diverse set of industries. Prior to beginning his MBA, he worked at Fidelity Investments as an internal consultant and contributed to several initiatives across a wide spectrum of the organization’s functions. At Mendicant, Karan works on various social enterprise and business planning projects.

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The Mendicant Capacity Collective

We know that charities and nonprofits need suppliers they can trust for a variety of services. Mendicant has strategic partnerships with the following organizations with whom we have worked in the past:

Chris Ward is an experienced brand strategist and communicator who has worked with numerous charities and trade associations to build effective marketing strategies and brands. He has helped many establish a market position that resonates with their audiences and gives them a competitive edge. Mendicant partners with Chris to offer RaiseReady! to our clients to help them optimize their fundraising capabilities.

Solstice Public Affairs is a professional, service-oriented public affairs consultancy providing comprehensive government relations services, with a special emphasis on offering full service in both French and English. Mendicant partners with Solstice and its President, Stewart Kiff, when our projects require operational expertise in the French language.

Ethical Host is a green web hosting and design company with a difference. John MacKenzie has dedicated his firm to serving – and supporting – community organizations. John donates 10% of his firm’s pretax profits to a range of charities and offers socially-responsible organizations high-quality web services at rates that are considerably more affordable than comparable firms.