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| Gillian Kerr is a consultant in strategic philanthropy and
information technology for the nonprofit sector, and President of
RealWorld Systems Inc. Formerly she was Vice President
of MarketLink Corporation (a high tech company) and Vice President of United Way
of Greater Toronto. Since 1989 she has been working with human service funders to redesign their granting systems for greater social impact. She is a clinical psychologist, a former Associate in Strategic Philanthropy at Manifest Communications (a Canadian social marketing firm), and a published writer in several nonprofit journals. For the last ten years Dr. Kerr has worked with over a dozen funders -- government, foundations and United Ways -- on program design and development, focusing on identifying key performance indicators that will guide organizational direction. The nonprofit sector is notorious for the difficulty in identifying meaningful performance measures, in that behavioural change is not always tied to attitude change, and that short term responses may not translate into long term habits. The complexity of the relationship between information, knowledge and behaviour change requires sophisticated knowledge management tools and processes to support strategic goals. Her consulting work in technology focuses on how organizations can use information to be more effective - make better decisions, work together more collaboratively, manage more efficiently, and engage their communities. For more information, see goodenough.ca. Dr. Kerr worked with people with disabilities for over a decade, at the Canadian Hearing Society and in private practice, and for many years was one of the leading Canadian psychologists in the area of organizational accommodations to people with disabilities. Dr. Kerr obtained her Ph.D. at York University in 1983, where she also took computer science. She has been involved in electronic networks for over 15 years, initially through her online collaboration with deaf colleagues across North America, and more recently through development of organizational systems that use information more effectively. In 1996 she managed the pilot phase of 'Volunteer Action Online', an Internet funding program for nonprofit agencies through the Trillium Foundation and the Ontario Government.
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