Date: Sept 8, 1-2 PM ET
Cost: Free (Zoom Webinar)
*Please note, all registrants will be provided with a link to the recording and presentation slides following the sessions. The recording will be available for 60 days.
One in six people are neurodivergent. And, your nonprofit was almost certainly not built for that reality.
The research is clear about the problem. It’s not the neurodivergent person. It is the mismatch between how that person works and a system designed around neurotypical norms.
Neurodivergent leaders carry an invisible workload of masking, sensory overload, and executive function strain. Neurodivergent staff face vague instructions, performance reviews that measure style rather than results, and the real risks that comes with disclosure.
This session looks at both perspectives: leading as a neurodivergent person, and leading neurodivergent staff. You will leave with practical strategies you can use immediately, most of which will also improve conditions for your neurotypical staff.
This webinar is for leaders, managers, and staff in the nonprofit sector, whether or not they identify as neurodivergent.Participants will receive access to the recording and a resource booklet.
Learning outcomesBy the end of this session, participants will understand:
1. What neurodiversity is, and how to talk about it accurately and without pathologizing difference.
2. The most common challenges facing neurodivergent leaders, including masking, executive function overload, and burnout.
3. The strengths neurodivergent leaders bring to nonprofit organizations, and the conditions that let those strengths show up.
4. The most common barriers facing neurodivergent staff, including unclear communication, inflexible systems, and the risks of disclosure.
5. Practical strategies to build a more flexible leadership practice, including communication, meeting design, workflow, and accommodation culture.
Mikhael Bornstein is a speaker, facilitator, and instructor specializing in nonprofit leadership and management. Mikhael is an AFP Master Trainer and a frequent speaker at conferences across North America. He teaches at George Brown College, Fleming College Toronto, and Toronto Metropolitan University. Mikhael has a Master in Arts in Leadership Studies from Royal Roads University. Mikhael was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 52, and brings that experience to this session alongside the research.
The DEFNP workshop series will offer tailored programming designed to match ENGOs on their decolonial (un)learning journeys. In Spring 2026 members of the ENGO sector will be able to choose one of three workshop tracks: Introduction to Decolonization in the ENGO Sector, Advanced Decolonial Theory and Application or For Indigenous Ears Only - A Space for Reflection and Action. Each series consists of four three-hour sessions.
Collectively, Decolonizing ENGO-First Nation Partnerships fosters:
Awareness of settler colonialism and the ways it potentially harnesses civil society;
Understanding about how Canadian law such as the Indian Act and the Income Tax Act has suppressed Indigenous governance systems;
Awareness that Indigenous peoples have unique inherent political and legal systems, with which ENGOs may want to form partnerships;
A better understanding about how to navigate partnerships with Indigenous communities that promote decolonial environmentalism;
A stronger sense about how to identify and explain individual and organization social locations (i.e. positionalities) as part of ethical partnership development;
Promoting the resurgence of Indigenous self-determination in the Canadian ENGO sector.
Cost: $100 (Register 2 spots, get the 3rd free)
70 participants max.
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
Session 1: Settler Colonialism 101
Introduce ENGO representatives to the fact that colonization is a structure and not an event. Identifies key ways that colonialism moves through individuals and organizations.
Session 2: Positionality
ENGO representatives learn how to articulate their social location within a settler colonial state, and in relation to potential Indigenous partners.
Session 3: Inherent Indigenous Governance 101
Introduce the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues. Examples provided.
Session 4: Building Better Relations
ENGO representatives will road test ways they can implement previous workshop key points to re-imagine partnerships with Indigenous nations.
Cost: $100 (Register 2 spots, get the 3rd free)
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
Session 1: Diagnosing Settler Colonialism in the Enviro Sector
Participants will be asked to share ways in which they have diagnosed and traced power in social justice movements and/or in the ENGO sector. This workshop will make space for discomfort as part of promoting decolonization.
Session 2: Inherent Indigenous Governance
A mix of advanced and introductory theory, this workshop delves into legal and political pluralism, naming the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues.
Session 3: The Nonprofit Industrial Complex
ENGO participants are introduced to theories and examples describing the Nonprofit Industrial Complex and the “Shadow State.” Purpose is to show how settler colonialism structures civil society.
Session 4: Decolonizing ENGO-First Nation Partnerships
This workshop delves deep into how ENGOs can partner with Indigenous nations beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex while promoting deference to inherent Indigenous political leaders.
Cost: Free
The Indigenous only space will be collaborative in nature but critical in approach. This track is a space for Indigenous folks within the ENGO sector to come together to discuss their experiences and work, with an eye to taking a position on what the sector might need to do in order to promote decolonization. Participants will use the first session to define our goals for the remaining three meetings. Therefore, session topics named here are proposals only.
Session 1: Naming the Cannibal: Settler Colonialism in the ENGO Sector
Session 2: Proposed topic: Reflections on working in the ENGO Sector
Session 3: Proposed topic: Centering Indigenous Thought in the ENGO Sector
Session 4: Proposed topic: Visioning a Decolonial Environmental Sector
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