Grounded in Mission

The core identity of the Atkinson Foundation has remained fundamentally unchanged over nine decades. At the same time, how we understand and communicate the “core” has deepened and evolved with the times. It anchors us when external events overtake strategies and plans. It also means we have timeless, moral obligations, calling for sustained action that may not align with a time-bound organizational strategy.

We are mission-based. Joseph Atkinson’s vision for his endowment started with a single idea, “humanity above all.” He believed love is the foundation of a good society: respect for the inherent dignity of each person, care for each other, and creative opposition to narratives and systems that reinforce inequality and reproduce hardship over generations. In 1942, he established the Atkinson Foundation “to promote social and economic justice.”

We are values-driven. Three values drive Atkinson’s behaviour as a justice-seeking philanthropic organization. The value of kinship that calls us to recognize and repair our relationships with each other and the planet; the value of equity that shifts power to Indigenous, Black and racialized communities; and, the value of accompaniment that enables us to work alongside communities with respect.

Every strategy begins from a place of principle. The Atkinson Principles help turn these aspirations into pragmatic action. They capture what mattered most to Joseph Atkinson: a strong, independent and united Canada, civic engagement, individual and civil liberties, the necessary role of government, and workers’ rights. Taken together, they keep us rooted in Toronto and engaged in a global, intergenerational movement for human rights and democracy.

In addition to the Atkinson Principles, we created strategic guardrails to act as a buffer between our core identity and our organizational strategy at the start of this new decade. They guard against mission drift and enable timely responses in a fast-moving context. We have identified three principles to serve this purpose: stoking moral imagination, defending human and economic rights, and participating in movements for justice.

We live into right relations. Atkinson continues to acknowledge and actively respond to historical evidence of harm caused to justice-seeking (and deserving) communities. We’re committed to learning through action about the persistent concentration of economic power outside Indigenous communities, rooted in colonization, and reinforced by generations of exclusion from ownership, capital, and financial infrastructure.