Thriving Non-Profits

Julia Grady is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of 10C Shared Space, a changemaking hub in Guelph, Ontario that integrates social, physical and financial platforms for shared community benefit. 

Using a combination of functional spreadsheets and design thinking practices, she likes to make connections between multiple problems that might align to possible solutions, and enjoys seeing systems in complex multi-layered ways.

Julia is passionate about people, community building, placemaking and demonstrating the potential of social finance and social enterprise, as 10C continues to explore locally and nationally relevant changemaking projects.

Julia is a mom, a partner, a widow, an artist, and a creator. She has the scars and the open-heart needed for the kind, compassionate, regenerative future we dream of.

Placemaking

With a belief that one of the roles of a placemaker is to create the openings for community members to participate, Julia founded 10C, which has gradually expanded to a dynamic 15,000 sf shared space and local food hub. As an artist with a passion for listening and interpreting, Julia has deep expertise in creating and adapting community spaces that create welcoming openings for sharing, and layering of activities to support increased density in both activities and in numbers of participants. 

Revenue Diversification

Julia has experience with the range of revenue strategies taught in the Thriving Non-profits program from social enterprise, fee for service, contracts, grants, donations, events, assets, partnerships and leveraging these assets for community benefit.As the co-founder of a grassroots non-profit, Julia understands first-hand how to create, develop and sustain a social enterprise. 10C now has a 1.4M budget (with little in the way of base operating funding) and has built a strong base of members, activities, and revenue streams. As not everyone on your staff teams comes to their roles with enterprise skills, the past five years have been spent engaging the entire staff team in the revenue generation and financial aspects of the organization, creating a team of intrapreneurs. 

Social Finance

As a non-profit change hub, 10C purchased its first property in 2016 demonstrating the local potential of community finance. Between 2016-2018 10C raised over $2,300,000 via its real-estate backed community bond program, and now manages the investments of 140 social impact investors who earn both a financial and social return. Julia shares this knowledge, coaching other organizations to develop their understanding of non-profit community financing. With the belief that smart communities invest in themselves, 10C’s social finance work continues with Harvest Impact, an emerging community-based fund that is investing in food, farm and environment entrepreneurs with a specific focus on the circular economy.Julia believes in networks, and as a community steward within the Catalyst Community Finance Initiative, she works within and across organizations to share tools, techniques and infrastructure to truly ramp up place-based social financing across Ontario and Canada.

Entrepreneur Support

Julia loves locally developed products and services with stories and community connection. As a coach, she is a big picture thinker, with an aptitude for asking people questions that help them consider their next steps or dots to connect. Julia can also help people stretch to find their strengths by embracing their weaknesses. With decades of experience as an entrepreneur on small teams, Julia knows the feeling of having it all on your shoulders, and can assist with the fortitude and need for self-care necessary on an entrepreneurial journey.