About iCi - The Compassion Innovation Lab

Compassion is our mission

In a world that has witnessed so much pandemic-related suffering at every level, all organizations are called on today to reimagine their compassion agenda and tap its empowering promise. Employees expect it. Stakeholders applaud it. The public demands it. Long an undervalued asset in most organizations, building new ways of delivering the support and healing people need — and avoiding unintended harms — is fast becoming a hallmark that defines our best universities, municipalities, health care providers, governments and private corporations.

Helping to make compassion the new normal where it counts most is our goal at The Compassion Innovation Lab.

Innovation is how we deliver it

We partner with and advise universities, health care providers, municipalities, public institutions and private corporations to expand the reach and depth of compassion to where it is most needed and makes the biggest difference. More than that, we turn compassion into a core value that builds capacity for innovation, caring and inclusiveness. Our extensive work in the media, through op-eds and national news interviews, promotes compassion literacy, fosters trauma-informed awareness and infuses the values of dignity and respect into national discussions.

Building on Decades of Survivor Experiences in Health Care, Sexual Misconduct Trauma and Mental Health Gaps

With a survivor-driven knowledge base of thousands of interactions that span two decades of work by our advocacy clinics, we bring a unique focus to our consultations with boards and key decision-makers. Our signature approach combines unparalleled narrative skills, cutting-edge expertise and solution-vaulting innovation in ways that are making a transformative difference in the workplace, in the health care setting and in the university community.

Recognizing the painful lessons from the pandemic and its disproportionate social impacts, Ci has called for a national commission into the future of the most vulnerable — to ensure they actually have a future. Chief among Ci’s recommendations to the Senate of Canada is the need to revisit the creation of a universal basic income program that was first proposed in Canada by the Croll Committee, and later by Quebec’s Castonguay-Nepveu Commission, half a century ago.

An Impressive Record of Firsts

Our robust policy and advocacy work has been a force for groundbreaking legislative firsts in mental health support, in creating safer health care and combating gender violence and sexual harassment. In 2022, our media advocacy and parliamentary outreach resulted in the restoration of GIS income supplements (Bill C-12) that were clawed back from low-income seniors who received CERB benefits. Our 18-month campaign of media interviews and op-ed columns in 2020 and 2021 resulted in the federal government adopting our flagship recommendation to bring new mental health and suicide prevention technology to Canada using a three-digit 988 national hotline system (#Bring988toCanada). In health care, our long-established advocacy for the healing powers of compassion has seen the creation of clinical protocols for implementing trauma-informed care and elimination of the antiquated deny and defend culture in the handling of medical errors.

Bringing Innovation to an Unfinished #MeToo Agenda — and ESG in the Boardroom

Our recommendations to the House of Commons in 2018 and appearances before committees of the House and Senate saw the government’s anti-harassment legislation (Bill C-65) amended to require disclosure of sexual misconduct statistics involving complaints of gender violence and sexual harassment. Ci has also been consulted by officials of the Canadian military in transitioning to a culture of institutional compassion following an epidemic of sexual misconduct scandals. Boardrooms looking to comply with ESG values in the workplace, in the community and on gender issues are also turning to Ci for guidance.

In 2022 and 2023, Ci was called on to consult and advise on landmark legislation (Bill S-261) to restrict the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), a cause which Ci founder Kathleen Finlay has campaigned for over the last decade. In recognition of her long-standing work in combating the harm of gender violence and sexual harassment, Kathleen has been invited to address Canada’s oldest literary society in the fall of 2023.

Reimagining compassion can change organizations. More important, it can transform lives for the better. Please let us know if we can work with you in this exciting mission.