WOMAN OF COURAGE DOMANIQUE GRANT

Domanique Grant was supposed to be another statistic; another Black woman limited by circumstances out of her control. This included coming from an under-served, low-income neighbourhood and being told by educators at age six that she had a learning disability and would not graduate high school — that is, if she managed to survive Toronto’s era of the gun; a time that would see her sing at three funerals before she was 13.

Instead, Grant chose to erase the narrative and the labels to grow into and fully inhabit the name her mother called her, Queen Dom, embracing all the opportunity and responsibility that came with it.

Today, Grant is a 2023 WXN Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 honouree in the Women of Courage, presented by Richardson Wealth category. She is also an award-winning singer/songwriter, humanitarian, community-builder and founder of Grant Creativity Inc., a unique for-profit music label and social enterprise. On the music label side, Grant Creativity produces music and events to create opportunities for and raise the profile of underserved artists. On the social enterprise side, it is a female-founded BIPOC-LED entertainment and wellness community development agency.

Throughout her life and her career, she has turned challenge and adversity into opportunity, “turning glass ceilings into glass stepping stones.” Her latest album, Queen/dom, explores courage, self-love and generational healing, and earned Grant recognition as an artist and entrepreneur to watch by Women in Music Canada and Spotify. “The idea of a crown, of a queendom, is a space in which we can be our most authentic,” says Grant.

She credits her mother, a teacher who immigrated to Canada from Jamaica, and who has a disability, with helping her to never accept someone else’s perceptions or expectations. She credits her community – the same one that was supposed to hold her back – for helping set her on the path to social entrepreneurship.

“It’s all interconnected,” says Grant. “Because the education system told me I learned differently from everyone else and I needed an outlet to express myself, my mother put me into the arts. Because of the community I grew up in, I became interested in community development.”

That neighbourhood, Alexandra Park, is also one of the city’s community housing co-operatives, Atkinson Housing Cooperative, which means its residents have a say in how it is run. Grant was elected board president when she was 19. At 21, she became the president of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Toronto, which represents 45,000 people living in more than 160 nonprofit co-operatives. “I didn’t know then that leading a board of directors would translate to running my own company or speaking at the United Nations about housing and the arts and wellness and gender and equality.”

But it did, largely because Grant looks at each challenge and asks, ‘What am I supposed to learn from this? What is this experience moving me closer towards and what is it helping to create in my life?’ She also had people in her life who reminded her that she could be so much more than the adversities she faced. She points to the executives on the co-operative housing boards who encouraged her to pursue a university degree in international development. That led to Grant being paired with a non-profit agency in Uganda that used the arts and wellness as a tool to help improve and elevate communities.

“This all seems random but if you go back to the foundation of my story, being told I had a disability, being told I didn’t learn the same way as others, being put into the arts, on boards, on stages it all comes back to ‘What was the purpose of all these experiences?’ It was to help people understand there are alternative ways to create social enterprises, there are alternative ways to use the arts in community development, there are alternative ways to address learning challenges and there are alternative ways to see the world.”

As an artist and as a social entrepreneur, Grant takes inspiration from lived experiences, the pain people experience in communities that are limited and the opportunity that can come from making these same communities stronger and healthier.

It was this empowering mindset that led Grant to create The Imagine Summit, Canada’s first mental wellness and professional development summit for creative entrepreneurs. Earlier this year, in partnership with RBC and the Toronto International Film Festival, the event brought together 500 creative entrepreneurs, up from 25 in year one.

“We brought together thought leaders from across Canada and spoke about how they could imagine a bigger vision for their organizations, how they can make more money but also how they can improve their mental health to move through adversity,” says Grant. “I think it’s important for the next generation to have access to tools to be their best, and to never be limited by others.” Grant is already at work planning The Imagine Summit 2024.

What I'm proud of in my career 1. Navigating an unconventional career and turning glass ceilings into glass stepping stones.

2. My album QUEEN/DOM which really helped me explore courage, self-love and generational healing as an artist and for my fans. I was honored by Women in Music Canada and Spotify for the EP and as an artist to watch, which In really proud of.

3. Expanding the Imagine Summit from 25 Entrepreneurs in year 1 to over 500 in year two.