Daniel Bernhard
me@danielbernhard.com | +1.647.706.4066 | @sendinthewolf | medium.com/@sendinthewolf
I'm a creative guy who solves complex business problems and builds useful digital products. I call Toronto home.
Work
- Executive Director, FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting (2018 - present)
FRIENDS is an independent citizens' group, national in scope, that champions Canadian culture and democracy on air and online. I spend 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 play 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.
- President, Mushroom Cloud (2011 - present)
-
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)
- Consultant, Kaiser Associates (2010 - 2012)
-
Pre-aquisition modelling, forecasting, and due diligence for private equity clients. Stratgic growth planning for prominent Fortune 500 companies.
- Community Development Specialist, Spice Innovations (2008 - 2010)
-
Youth-focussed civic engagement in partnership with nonprofits, universities, and municipal governments.
Education
- University of Cambridge
MPhil. - Political Economy
- London School of Economics
BSc. 1st Class - International Relations with History
- New Economics Foundation
Certificate - Social Return on Investment Analysis
Languages
- English (native)
- Franch (fluent spoken, intermediate written)
- Spanish (fluent spoken, basic written)
Strengths
- Leadership
- Creative problem solving and solutions design
- Getting the job done, no matter what
- Learning new things quickly
- Digital product design
- Project management (including software)
- Code (HTML, CSS, Javascript, Node.js, mongo db, Meteor.js, etc...)
Community
- Director (volunteer)
- Soundstreams (contemporary music)
