Montreal’s Trottier family foundation tackles ‘existential threat’

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sylvie Trottier, along with her sister, Claire, were among less than a handful of Canadians to sign an open letter calling for governments to tax the wealthy to assist with the impact of the global crisis.

Known as the Millionaires for Humanity, more than 80 wealthy individuals from seven countries urged their governments to address growing inequality by putting in place tax measures to help fight the ecological, economic and human rights crises threatening our communities.

Sylvie Trottier is the daughter of Lorne and Louise Rousselle Trottier, Lorne being the co-founder of Dorval, Queb.-based privately held computer graphics company Matrox, now in its 45th year.

The Trottiers founded the Montreal-based Trottier Family Foundation in 2000 to help fund projects in science, the environment, health and education. The Foundation is run by a board of directors and eight full-time staff members. Annual gifts to donees in 2021 was more than $22 million.

The Trottiers started a family office, Eclipx, in part to increase the foundation’s capacity to fund its sustainable investment objectives, as well as to apply those practices to their private family assets.

Here, Sylvie Trottier, a board member at the foundation, along with other, family members, shares how it was created, how it has evolved since its inception, and how she changed her career path in order to focus on mitigating the threat of the global climate crisis through the foundation’s work.

How did the Trottier Family Foundation come to be established?

“The Foundation was established by my parents Lorne and Louise in 2000. They were inspired by some of the big tech entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Bill Hewlett to make a difference through their philanthropic giving.”

What were the foundation’s initial goals?

“For the first decade or so, the Foundation mostly supported institutional partners in the Montreal region, focused primarily on education and health, such as McGill University, Université de Montréal, the MUHC, CHUM and the Teresa Dellar Palliative Care Residence, as well as community organizations supporting underserved populations. We continue to collaborate with a lot of these same partners to this day.”

How did your role with the foundation evolve?

“I joined the board in 2014. For the first few years, my involvement mostly took the form of our quarterly board meetings, during which we reviewed and made decisions on grant applications to the Foundation.

I was focused on my own career in the environmental sector during that time.

However, as the foundation professionalized and took on an increasingly strategic and proactive approach, especially with respect to granting in the climate space, I began to better understand how much of an impact I could have on issues I cared deeply about.

I made the decision in 2019 to leave my job as a climate analyst and instead focus my efforts on philanthropy, values-aligned investing, and advocacy work.”

How have the initiatives of the Trottier Family Foundation evolved since the year 2000?

“Our foundation has really gone through quite a transformation in the past decade.

My husband, Éric St-Pierre, was first hired as executive director in 2016, and we now have a team of eight in place, as well as having recently established a family office, Eclipx, which will support the foundation’s mission through its investment practices.

We have also gained a lot more knowledge and thus confidence when it comes to developing new initiatives.

We started by collaborating with other foundations and associations like Environmental Funders Canada and the Clean Economy Fund, which allowed our team to gain experience about how to catalyze change. When faced with a big, existential threat like climate change, no one foundation will be able to solve it on its own. But by working together, with other funders, policy makers, subject matter experts, and grassroots, local and national organizations, we can leverage our impact and actually start to move the needle.”

How do you work as a family in order to keep the vision, mission, and legacy of your foundation’s goals alive and forward-thinking?

“The whole board really does share the same vision that, as a family, we have a responsibility to do as much as we can to address the major threats of our time, the biggest of which is the climate crisis.

It’s an amplifier to every other issue – health, poverty, housing, food security, you name it. The record heat waves, fires and floods of this past summer are a stark and pressing reminder. If we don’t address this thing, everything and everyone will be affected – with those individuals that are already most vulnerable (and the least responsible), bearing the greatest cost.

I think we, as a foundation, want to be able to look back and know that we have done everything in our power to make a difference. And for us that means sometimes taking smart risks with our funding, supporting initiatives that are underfunded, and trying to use our networks to bring different actors together – by really taking a look at the entire map of tools that can make an impact, and by being as strategic as possible about where to focus our efforts.”

Are there any particular philanthropic projects you are proud of?

“The encouraging thing is that, though climate funding might seem challenging and hard to pin down, we’ve found that by working with others, and by investing a bit of time and energy, you can quickly make some significant, measurable wins.

For instance, TFF along with other partners, successfully launched Low Carbon Cities Canada (LC3), which in 2019 obtained $183 million from the federal government to establish seven city-specific funds for emission reduction, including the Greater Montreal Climate Fund.

This focus on cities also led to the collaboration with the City of Montreal, C40 Cities and others to develop a Climate Action Plan for Montreal, which, in turn, was the motor behind the Montreal Climate Partnership, which mobilizes over 100 key actors towards the achievement of this plan.

To me this shows that one successful collaboration can lead to a huge domino effect.

Another really interesting angle we have targeted is accelerating the adoption of electric school buses – which has tons of clear co-benefits when it comes to kids’ health, community resilience and economic development.

There is also, for instance, the work we have done in the cement and concrete space – this is an industrial sector that is important to both the economy and to decarbonization, and we have made some great strides with respect to the federal government announcing climate friendly procurement policies and standards.

Beyond that, we can see that big societal changes have often been generated by movements led by those most affected by an issue – which is why we helped establish the Climate Justice Organizing HUB. Ultimately, we are really interested in building more bridges and opportunities for collaboration with other funders, philanthropists and influential leaders across Canada in getting to a net-zero climate friendly future.”

Where does the Trottier Foundation go from here?

“We know that there are clear and impactful solutions out there. But the actors needed to get there – think tanks, charities, researchers, advocacy groups – simply don’t have enough philanthropic support.

For every dollar that TFF is giving, we see the need for at least 5-10 dollars more to achieve the climate-safe future we all want for Canada.

One issue is that, for philanthropically minded families, it hasn’t always been obvious where to start for giving to climate change work.

As the Trottier Foundation continues to scope out this space, we’re collecting lessons about climate philanthropy that we’re eager to share with others. I would invite anyone interested in giving to climate work in Canada to get in touch with us. There’s a lot we can do together.”

Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

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