Climate Leader Takes the Helm of New Canadian Charitable Foundation

Deborah Harford brings extensive resilience and sustainability experience to new philanthropic arm of open-access publishing venture

VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 8, 2021 /CNW/ - A company that empowers and connects authors and readers through an open-access global reading and publishing platform has appointed internationally renowned climate change research leader Deborah Harford as Head of Philanthropy and CEO of its forthcoming Legible Foundation.

The company, Legible (legible.com), will formally launch its foundation in 2022. As CEO, Harford will develop and ultimately direct the new entity, which will focus on initiatives that advance diversity, equity, and inclusion, ecosystem protection and regeneration, and social resilience across Canada and the world.

Harford co-founded ACT (the Adaptation to Climate Change Team) at Simon Fraser University, and has worked for 15 years to pioneer leading approaches to strategic resilience building.

"As Canada's preeminent climate adaptation specialist, a thought leader in climate resilience for fifteen years, and as a gifted communicator, Ms Harford brings vision, wisdom, and considerable experience to our community," said Kaleeg Hainsworth, CEO of Legible.

"With her help, we intend to develop our foundation as a global leader in empowerment, and support in resiliency and literacy," Hainsworth added.

Harford and her team will support organizations and projects that build capacity on Literacy Plus, an approach to literacy Harford is developing that broadens the definition to focus on empowerment through access to knowledge developed by and for marginalized and racialized voices.

"We aim to directly support and build capacity within communities and institutions for projects that link environmental resilience and environmental justice with opportunities to make a better and more equitable society," said Deborah Harford, Legible's newly appointed Head of Philanthropy.

In practice, this will include the following five pillars, Harford said.

• Decolonization and diversity, equity and inclusion, with an emphasis on Indigenous values, marginalized and racialized voices, poverty reduction, and health and culture;
• Women and girls, especially in the areas of leadership and empowerment, self-expression, political engagement, and arts and culture;
• Youth education, entrepreneurship, health and housing;
• Climate resiliency, including short and long term responses, food and water security, STEM for developing countries, and collaborative approaches;
• Biodiversity and nature, emphasizing human relationships with nature, endangered ecosystems and species, business and private sector action, and green urban planning/biophilic cities.

Harford's leadership at the new foundation will help realize Legible's sustainability goals by building philanthropy into the company's DNA from the beginning, ensuring this emerging community of readers and publishers is positioned to deliver meaningful impact in communities around the world.

About Legible: Legible is a privately held company based in Vancouver, B.C. that delivers sustainability to the publishing industry by reducing dependency on single-use reading devices through its open-access browser-based global reading platform.

SOURCE Legible Media

Carol Sykes, 1-672-514-2665, [email protected]