Meet Our Team
Our passionate and experienced team is ready to be an extension of your team. Let’s expand our impact and rise together for systemic change.
Dawn Sands
Managing Partner
Dawn Sands has 12 years of executive management experience specializing in the community economic development sector. Originally from Nipigon Ontario, she completed her education in Social Work and Human Resources Management at Confederation College of Applied Arts and Technology in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Dawn has extensive experience leading non-profit organizations that focus on project management, building effective networks and administering government funds. She is skillful at facilitating and participating in multi-stakeholder boards and committees that focus on strategic planning and social innovation projects that build communities in a sustainable way.
As an Indigenous woman, she values collaboration and is passionate about community building by fostering respectful relationships and utilizing grassroots community-led development principles. Her experiences have taught her that this approach is fundamental to the success of effective community building.
Kierra Ryner
Marketing & Communications Coordinator
Kierra Ryner is the co-founder of UniTea, a youth-led organization providing programming, resources, and community events for over 100 women, trans, non-binary and 2S students. She was selected by the Government of Canada to take part in a Global Skills Opportunity Pilot Program where she lived abroad in Glasgow, Scotland for 6 months as an intercultural mentor.
Kierra recently graduated from the University of Winnipeg, with a degree in human rights & conflict resolution studies. Her love of storytelling, fuelled by her passion for change has allowed her to work for Manitobans for Human Rights, Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and Shaun Loney’s mayoral campaign. She utilizes her creative skills in marketing and communications to see tangible results towards systemic change.
Kalen Taylor
Senior Partner
Kalen Taylor is currently the General Manager of Purpose Construction. Kalen is also co-founder of Aki Energy, winner of the 2016 Start-Up Canada Social Enterprise Award. Kalen was elected a Fellow of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies in 2018. Kalen sits on the Board of Directors for Peg City Car Co-op. Kalen has been trained in mission measurement at Oxford in England and has a LEAN Green Belt, a Masters in Project Management and an B.A in International Development.
Meet Our Collaborators
Darcy Wood
Darcy is the CEO and co-founder of both Aki Energy (Canadian Start-Up of the Year) and Aki Foods. Former Chief of the Garden Hill First Nation, Darcy is proud Oji-Cree. Darcy has 30 years policy and governance experience in national and regional First Nation political organizations. Darcy was recently appointed a Clean50 Fellow.
Sean Hogan
Sean is the Executive Director of BUILD, Manitoba's keystone trades-based Social Enterprise. BUILD trains and employs individuals with multiple employment barriers, preparing them for long-term, meaningful careers in the trades. He’s recently retired from his side gig as children’s entertainer in Seanster and the Monsters.
Melanie Oliviero
Melanie is a strategist for social change. She works at the intersection of community, government, philanthropy and the private sector in collaborative arrangements. She applies her skills as senior researcher and analyst in active ways, forging alliances among diverse groups. Her experience derives from being a frontline NGO leader of nonprofit organizations (Panos Institute, Comparative Constitutionalism Project of the American Council of Learned Societies) and advisor to others (Circles for Reconciliation, Islamic Social Services Association), as well as working with philanthropic and government donors (MacArthur, Ford and Soros Foundations, UN agencies and US foreign aid). Melanie earned her degrees from Georgetown University, USA (Ph.D., M.S., Sociolinguistics) and teaches online and in person at academic institutions and in the community.