Beyond Welcome: Reimagining Safety and Inclusion in the Nonprofit Sector
Beyond Welcome: Reimagining Safety and Inclusion in the Nonprofit Sector was a full-day community forum held on June 27, 2025, at Ortona ArtsHub in Edmonton. The gathering brought together nonprofit professionals, community organizers, educators, trans and gender-diverse leaders, and allies to reflect on how systemic transphobia and exclusion show up in nonprofit organizations. The event aimed to unpack harmful organizational practices, learn directly from trans survivors and advocates, and build shared commitments to justice-rooted models of safety and inclusion. Through keynote addresses, participatory workshops, and story-sharing, participants engaged in conversations about structural harm, visibility, and the urgent need for systemic change across sectors.
The forum drew a wide cross-section of individuals from across the nonprofit sector. Participants included frontline service workers, researchers, youth educators, union representatives, faith- and community-based organizers, and queer and trans newcomers. The day consisted of a keynote speech by Ravyn Wngz on abolitionist storytelling, trans liberation, and collective forms of creating safety within community without relying on colonial institutions. This was followed by a workshop by the John Humphrey Centre on how the non-profit sector can be complicit in perpetuating the harm they want to address. It focused on developing programming and systems within the non-profit sector that disrupts existing ways of doing things and committing to learning, self-reflection, and systemic change. Finally, the day was wrapped up by a roundtable discussion from RARICANow! that brought together trans leaders who were both refugees and racialized community members. They shared their stories from the frontlines of advocacy and activism and reflected on the barriers that still exist in Canada for trans people.
Overall, the day emphasized the importance of moving beyond performative inclusion. It advocated for spaces where community works collaboratively together to ensure safety, to centre those who are most marginalized, and to fund and sustain trans-led organizations and programming.
You can now read the full report of the day and the calls to action that came out of Beyond Welcome.
We want to thank contributions from Women and Gender Equality Canada and the City of Edmonton for their support in helping us host this important forum in Edmonton.