Daniel Bernhard

The Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) is Canada's leading organization in the areas of immigration and citizenship, serving more newcomers than any other organization. Our main program is the Canoo Access Pass, an award-winning app which gives newcomers free and discounted access to over 2,000 of Canada's very best culture and nature experiences.

• Increased revenue by 230% in first two years
• Managed explosive team growth (9 staff to 33 in first two years)
• Oversaw the redesign and overhaul of the Canoo Access Pass, leading to a dramatic increase in App Store ratings (1.6 stars to 4.8 stars) and explosive growth in membership (15k adults to 360k) in two years, generating up to 3,000 free experiences for newcomers every day.
• Launched a new public policy reseach department which unearthed previously unseen declines in the uptake of Canadian citizsenship and conducting Canada's first study of immigrant retention. These studies have yielded hundreds of millions of media impressions and sparked a national debate about Canada's immigration performance.
• Implemented a major governance transition which saw the organization's founders leave the board after 16 years as co-Chairs.
• Bolstered the organization's media presence with dozens of intervviews (print, radio, and TV) and multiple op-eds published in Canada's leading papers

FRIENDS is an independent citizens' group, national in scope, that champions Canadian culture and democracy on air and online. I spent most of my time designing communications campaigns of various kinds, be they targeted at our existing supporters, the public at large, government, or the media. I also played an active role developing public policy research (including CRTC interventions) and supervising internal technology projects. And there's obviously fundraising by voice call, SMS, postal mail and email.

• Took over from founder after 33 years.
• Brought about strategic evolution from an organization which most people know as a CBC fan club into a modern movement with expertise in matters of digital media governance and Canadian cultural sovereignty more broadly.
• Increased FRIENDS' public and media profiles, especially on Big Tech issues, and successfuly influenced key legislative projects and regulatory decisions.
• Completely overhauled payment and advocacy technologies, including several significant in-house dev projects.
• Tripled Francophone communications and activism capacity.
• Led two grassroots, volunteer election pressure campaigns. The first resulted in favourable platform promises by four major national parties. The second is still underway!
• Grew monthly donor base by 5% during pandemic of 2020.

Strategy consulting, operational improvement, and software development services for the public benefit sector. Clients include:

• Ontario Trillium Foundation (Canada's largest grantmaking foundation)
• Canada Council for the Arts (Canada’s public arts funder)
• Royal College of Dentists of Canada (certifies all dental specialists)
• Equestrian Canada (>85,000 members)

Pre-aquisition modelling, forecasting, and due diligence for private equity clients. Stratgic growth planning for prominent Fortune 500 companies.

Youth-focussed civic engagement in partnership with nonprofits, universities, and municipal governments.

MPhil. - Political Economy

BSc. 1^st Class - International Relations with History

Certificate - Social Return on Investment Analysis