How scaling community impact helps achieve collective societal progress

Leap Pecaut Centre for Social Impact selects, supports and scales breakthrough social ventures to unleash the potential of collaboration. This registered charitable organization was founded in 2012 to help individual leaders and organizations tap into much-needed strategic technical expertise and resources. Put simply: “Leap scales what works”, fostering collaboration to help social ventures transform communities and influence systemic change.

This approach resonates with EY teams. More than a decade ago, we explored Leap’s portfolio of opportunities and asked: where can our unique skillsets influence positive change?

Over the last 10 years, people across the EY organization have volunteered with Leap’s portfolio of social ventures. This includes supporting Leap directly with pro bono due diligence services, internal operations and leadership work to strengthen the organization overall. Contributions also span dedicated volunteerism for the ventures that Leap supports.

For example, 20 EY volunteers have contributed more than 1,000 pro bono hours to the Child Development Institute, the first social venture in Leap’s portfolio. Advising on technology enablement, we helped the group scale its Stop Now and Plan (SNAP^©) learning framework for children, and their families, who struggle with behavior issues, emotional regulation and problem-solving. Our work enhanced capacity, enabling the program to surpass its initial goal of reaching 100 communities — and thousands of families — across Canada to now impact more than 10,000 children in 200+ communities.

EY volunteers have also contributed 90 pro bono hours at Up with Women, a registered charity dedicated to helping recently homeless and at-risk women build sustainable careers and ultimately move out of poverty. By helping the organization triple its caseload, EY volunteers enabled a 1,500% increase in client full-time employment. Some 57% of those participating in programming no longer need social assistance within 6 to 12 months of joining.

At Teach for Canada —dedicated to recruiting and supporting teachers to improve First Nations education — EY advised on tech enablement to scale programming. The outcome? Through more than 700 pro bono hours, EY volunteers identified and implemented actionable solutions that helped the organization become more efficient, scaling to recruit, prepare and support more committed teachers to work in northern First Nations communities.

Bringing their knowledge and professionalism, EY people also volunteered 75 hours with the Indigenous Youth Mentorship Program (IYMP), where high school students design and deliver a weekly program for younger elementary students. Working alongside IYMP leadership, volunteers created a technology strategy roadmap to expand the program’s online presence, improve collaboration and generate metrics that can guide future planning.

At EY, our decade-and-counting alliance with Leap has enabled our people to contribute more than $600,000 in pro bono services to the organization itself, as well as 12 distinct social ventures.

When EY Ripples launched across Canada in 2020, our work with Leap moved under this overarching umbrella program dedicated to aligning people from EY — and our clients — with nonprofits and social enterprises in Canada and around the world.

Now, we’re scaling our work with Leap to build on that momentum and currently piloting our Leader as a Coach Program with the Leap leadership team, as Leap continues to scale its impact and the collective impact of its portfolio across Canada.