Helping those who are helping through enhancing their passion and turning it into impact.

Takefman Citizen Sector Consulting is the cumulative result of years of working with non-profits to help them make the difference they care about.

From visioning to implementation and all the steps in-between.

A little about my passion:

I have worked in business development and administration for over 30 years and have been an Organizational Development Advisor (ODA) in the citizen sector (non-profits or NGOs) in Canada, the USA, India and China for over two decades. I have sat on community service committees and boards in Canada and the US as well as being a volunteer for many other international organizations.

As an ODA I have conducted workshops and training courses, mentored staff but I also love to lead expeditions into the Canadian wilderness both in summer and winter months.

I worked and volunteered for 4 years with the eNGO Chengdu Urban Rivers Association in Chengdu, China as ODA, fund raiser, conference producer, project leader and mentor. My Mandarin is terrible but it was still a fantastic experience.

For the past 7 years, and continuing, I have worked as online ODA, and on-location volunteer with the Gyan Disha Vikas Sansthan School in Balotra, Rajasthan, India, helping them with their development and curriculum.
Very wonderfully in November 2017 I was awarded with the Magraj Jain Award for Community Service in Rajasthan, India where I had worked for two years with the honourable Padma Shri Magraj Jan.

My passion is to help small to medium non-profits grow into stable, impactful and well known organizations. Read my philosophical perspective below to find out why.

My Philosophical Perspective

I used to be a corporate officer helping develop the growth and prosperity of the different organizations I was working for. As years went by and as I became involved with sitting non-profit boards and helping in community programs I began to realize that there was a fundamental problem with the way our society was structured. The economic basis stressed continual and infinite growth as its vision, which most companies operated under. But this vision was really a fantasy that could not be borne out as we live in a world with many finite resources such as fossil fuels, land and water.
I began to see that what we needed to do was to thrive rather than grow.
All the amazing people and community groups I discovered, who ran NPOs, NGOs, Foundations, Charities and the like, were taking care of all the loose ends that the economic/political model didn’t provide for to the general populations. And these helping groups are always challenged to stay afloat, often offering only band aids for the deep cuts the status quo system was creating; social cuts, environmental cuts, biological cuts and so on.

Figure 1 Street Kids in Barmer, Rajasthan PC: Mark Takefman
I see a pattern of oppression and exploitation that has existed for a millennia and more. A pattern that has been deliberately guided by a few who have the power and the money to keep the majority of us commoners in a constant state of struggle, allowing us to feel a periodic state of satisfaction so to keep up our false hopes.

So I decided to get out of the for-profit sector (after an amazing experience in Argentina ) and work in the citizen-sector, where I can put my skills, insights and compassion to good use to help the many who really need it the most. This is the wealth I hope to offer you and your organization.

“If there is any hope for the world at all, it does not live in climate-change conference rooms or in cities with tall buildings. It lives low down on the ground, with its arms around the people who go to battle every day to protect their forests, their mountains and their rivers because they know that the forests, the mountains and the rivers protect them.” – by Arundhati Roy, from “Decolonize the Consumerist Wasteland: Re-imagining a World Beyond Capitalism and Communism”