Al Etmanski

Al is an author, blogger, advocate and social entrepreneur specializing in innovative, multi-sector solutions to complex societal challenges. He is currently a partner in the J. W. McConnell Family Foundation’s Social Innovation Generation (SIG). SIG is dedicated to scaling up innovative solutions that solve deeply rooted social problems and to exploring new methods of financing in the social sector. Al is an Ashoka fellow and a faculty member of John McKnight’s Asset Based Community Development Institute (ABCD) and a Vancity Community Investment fellow. He is Chair of the BC Government’s new Advisory Council on Social Entrepreneurship. He is co-founder of Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network, a network that assists families across Canadaand globally to address the financial and social well-being of relatives with a disability, particularly after their parents die. He proposed and led the successful campaign to establish the world’s first savings plan for people with disabilities – the Registered Disability Savings Plan (www.RDSP.com).