INCLUSION VANGUARD AWARD

BY MARY TERESA BITTI

Three days into her role as President and CEO of Women’s College Hospital Foundation, Jennifer Bernard called the CEOS of Canada’s two other women’s research hospitals in Canada. Her goal: to bring everyone together to advance research in women’s health care right across the country. Those calls led to the Women’s Health Alliance Canada and the potential to change lives now and well into the future.

That’s exactly what Bernard, recognized as one of the leading fundraisers in Canada and one of the very few Black women in executive leadership in this or any sector, has done throughout her career in philanthropy. This is by design. “The career choices I’ve made have been very intentional, very personal to me, and always aligned with my values,” she says. “As I started to ascend in my career, giving voice to people who didn’t have a voice became important for me. I knew there were a lot of people left out and I had to make sure I used my agency to include them.”

Her commitment and many achievements advancing equity and inclusion are why Bernard is the recipient of the 2020 WXN Inclusion Vanguard Award, presented by Accenture. “This award is an incredible honour. Jean Augustine, last year’s recipient, is one of my childhood heroes,” says Bernard. Bernard’s focus on inclusion was subconscious at first. Growing up in Mississauga, Ont., having emigrated to Canada from the West Indies with her family when she was still a toddler, Bernard says she benefited from the diversity of her community. It wasn’t until she went to university in Toronto and then started working that she confronted stereotypes, biases and racism. “People would often say, ‘So where are you from?’ As though I could not be Canadian; that I had to qualify my ancestry,” she says. “I was told, ‘You’re such a credit to people from your part of the world.’ And they would mean it as a compliment. Toronto is one of the most diverse cities on Earth but I realized that diversity didn’t penetrate up, it penetrated down.”

To change that, she planned to become a lawyer and fight for people. Then she landed a fundraising job at the Ontario Science Centre that showed her the power of philanthropy to make positive change. “That’s where I learned getting people together who had the resources and who wanted to make a difference could solve a problem much more quickly than in many other ways,” she says.

As the Director of Major Gifts and Development at the Royal Conservatory of Music, Bernard helped fund a national program for Indigenous youth called Learning Through The Arts. The program was designed to help teach basic curriculum in Indigenous populations. When she was Vice-president of Development at Mcmaster Children’s Hospital, she fought for the right to fundraise to build an outdoor playground for its child and youth mental health unit. “It was one of my most important achievements because it gave these patients the ability to be children and not be stigmatized by the fact they had mental illness,” says Bernard. “It’s important to remember that inequity isn’t just about how you look or your gender. It can even be based on your disease type.”

Mcmaster Children’s Hospital is also where Bernard saw up close how economic social inequities impacted health. “I realized children coming from very poor neighborhoods had very poor outcomes and this was compounded by race.”

She brought all of this experience and understanding to Women’s College Hospital Foundation. “One of the reasons I joined Women’s is because it is an organization that is focused on equity. I thought there was an opportunity to take on an even bigger role in bringing equity to other under-repesented groups.”

When she joined the foundation in 2018, Bernard immediately turned her attention to the LGBTQ+ community and funding the hospital’s transgender surgical program-the only such program in Canada. “We struck up a relationship with Pride, hosted a night of education with experts and helped fund Marci Bowers, the world famous surgeon coming to Women’s to perform three gender reassignment surgeries.”

This March, Bernard established the Emily Stowe Society. Named in honour of Dr. Emily Stowe, Canada’s first woman doctor and the founder of Women’s College Hospital, the organization is focused on addressing the inequity in research by helping advance researchers from diverse communities.

In the face of the inequities laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic and the racism exposed by the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota and the abuse and death of Joyce Echaquan in Quebec, Bernard spearheaded the Black Healthcare Summit to try and solve the issues that plague Black and Indigenous communities in health care. “This whole moment in history has re-energized me to help people understand equity is a living thing. It has to constantly expand so that it truly covers everyone.”

Accomplishments like Bernard’s are what make Accenture’s Zahra Jadavji proud that her firm sponsors the Inclusion Vanguard Award. “The award aligns very well with how we feel at Accenture about inclusion and diversity,” said Jadavji, Managing Director for Health and Public Service Business in Canada and Managing Director for Inclusion and Diversity in Canada.

“At Accenture we acknowledge each person’s uniqueness, skills and contribution and embrace diversity to help drive our innovation, growth and performance, she said. “We’re proud to be part of the celebration and recognition of Jennifer Bernard, who has committed her life to achieving a more inclusive society and has made a tremendous impact for so many charitable and not-for-profit organizations as a fundraiser and passionate volunteer.

“We all prosper when there is equality in our workplaces here in Canada,” she said, “so it’s important to properly recognize and appreciate Canadian leaders like Jennifer Bernard who demonstrate and promote what inclusion and diversity truly mean for our communities and our country.”