Ken Wyman Scholarship
Ken Wyman started teaching for Humber in the mid-Eighties, with the part-term Certificate in Fundraising, run jointly with The Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, with classes held at OISE on Bloor Street.
In 2000 he joined the new full-time graduate Certificate in Fundraising and Volunteer Management. Tom Browne, a PR professor at Humber created it. Ken was on the founding Program Advisory Committee and taught one course in the first year. The next academic year Ken joined the faculty and became Program Coordinator.
Over the next dozen years he taught a variety of courses, including Ethical and Legal Issues; Trends, Research and Advocacy; Annual and Capital Campaigns; and Direct Marketing and Merchandising. He also taught Communications in Humber’s International Development program, Agency Management in the Social Service Workers Program, and both Presentation Skills and Research in the Advertising and Marketing program. His research sabbatical focused on advocacy for charities.
Ken has written or contributed to eight books on fundraising, including Excellence in Fundraising in Canada.
He was the first-ever recipient of the Fund Raising Executive of the Year award from the Association of Fundraising Professionals Toronto Chapter.
Ken consults for non-profit groups, and has helped hundreds of non-profit groups raise millions of dollars. He speaks at conferences across Canada, the US, Holland, Sweden, the UK, Austria, Cuba, and around the world.
He began his career with Clinic Collective in London ON, as a detached youth worker, writing government grant applications and raising funds by recycling tons of telephone books in a city-wide campaign.
Before becoming a fundraiser, Ken worked as a journalist for CBC Radio’s This Country in the Morning, and Morningside. He also freelanced from across Canada, Europe, and Israel for The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, The Sun, The Financial Post, and The Toronto Telegram, to name a few. He was one of the founders of The Toronto Clarion, an underground newspaper, and The Critical List, an alternative view of the health care industry.
As Oxfam-Canada’s National Coordinator of Fundraising and Publicity, Ken helped triple income and cut costs.
He continues an active volunteer life, looks forward to cooking more and catching up on family life, as well as finding new homes for a vast collection of documents, books, and an archeological archive of carefully curated stuff.
A new scholarship has been established to honour Ken’s commitment and passion to Humber’s Fundraising Management program. The Ken Wyman Scholarship will be presented annually to a student who has a passion for the non-profit profession and demonstrates a commitment to social justice.
