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Maggie Knight

advisor. advocate. Strategist. Org Dev Nerd. She/Her.

Maggie Knight equips justice-driven advocacy and community-serving organizations with the clarity, capacity, and operational strength needed to thrive long-term. By partnering with leaders facing complex challenges, she helps untangle bottlenecks, build practical systems, and embed equity into daily operations. Maggie guides organizations out of survival mode and into bold, values-aligned action. With a deep commitment to cultivating right relationships and fostering resilience, she enables organizations to create lasting impact where both people and movements can flourish and advance a more structurally just society.

She is an experienced organizational leader, strategist, and operations generalist who has built expertise in leading and growing organizations doing cutting-edge advocacy across Canada. She is a second generation white settler raised on lək̓ʷəŋən (Lekwungen) and W̱SÁNEĆ territories in Victoria, BC, Canada. She’s driven by the belief that embedding our values into the way we run our organizations is critical to shifting power and changing the world.

Consulting Projects

Recent projects include:

  • Organizational development roadmaps and change process accompaniment

  • Senior leadership transitions, recruitments, and shifts towards co-leadership structures

  • Start-up org operational planning and fractional leadership

  • Values-based, community-focused strategic planning

  • Financial analysis, systems development, and budget restructuring to better align with organizational strategy and promote broader sharing of financial leadership and decision-making

  • Human resources policy updates rooted in values, not legalese

  • Organizational structure reviews & option exploration

  • Governance transitions, board support, and governance tune-ups

Recent clients include 350.org, adrienne maree brown, BC Society for Policy Solutions, Binners’ Project, SWAN Vancouver, The Soap Dispensary, Social Transformation Project, RADIUS, David Suzuki Foundation, Fernwood NRG (neighbourhood house), Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, ArtStarts in Schools, Migrant workers centre, Unit/Pitt, Common horizon, The Hub, and individual coaching clients.

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In the 15+ years before going out on my own as a consultant, I served as:

  • The BC Civil Liberties Association’s Acting Executive Director (for 6 months) and then Managing Director during a period of significant staff transition, managing high stakes decision-making, funding relationships, and organizational development

  • The BC Civil Liberties Association’s first Operations Director, where I built the operations department, enabled a significant governance and culture evolution, overhauled internal systems, and led a complex head office relocation

  • Digital advocacy start-up Leadnow.ca’s first Managing Director, as we grew the core team from three to seventeen people across four time zones, more than tripled our operating budget year over year, and engaged over 400,000 people across Canada in urgent advocacy campaigns

  • Operations Manager leading communications, operations, and a student innovation seed fund at RADIUS, Simon Fraser University’s social innovation lab and venture incubator

  • President of McGill’s undergraduate student union during the 2012 Quebec student protests

  • Board director or advisor of Canadian Friends Service Committee, The Hive (social impact coworking space), First United Church Social Housing Society, the Vancouver Foundation, the Living Wage Campaign Employers Committee, and the Sierra Youth Coalition

Where I’ve Worked

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What I’ve Done

Through this work, I’ve:

People:

  • Built and supported rapidly growing teams tackling big, systemic advocacy work

  • Led 75+ hiring processes, coached 40+ managers, and worked to bring compassion and good judgment to a wide array of human resources issues

  • Supported managers to plan for “crunch periods”, clarify roles and goals, and bring in extra support to promote staff well-being and long-term sustainability

  • Led successful projects and campaigns through partnerships, coalitions, and networks

  • Co-founded and convened the Operations Management Group, a Vancouver-based network of peers who do operations work for purpose-driven organizations

  • Worked closely with students, campaigners, lawyers, entrepreneurs, accountants, architects, facilitators, university administrators, graphic designers, event planners, funders, fundraisers, vendors, landlords, and tech wizards

Finances:

  • Led financial strategy for organizations with annual budgets up to $2M, overseeing all financial risks and processes to achieve clean external audits 

  • Served as grantor, grantee, and advisor for grants from $100 to $300,000

Strategic Operations:

  • Built infrastructure, processes, and policies from scratch in both remote collaboration and in-person contexts

  • Negotiated dozens of contracts, facilitated hundreds of meetings, and tracked thousands of tasks

Strategy & Governance:

  • Led organizational development, communications, campaign, advocacy, and media strategy

  • Overhauled governance processes and anchored board recruitment and evolution

  • Organized and facilitated staff and strategy retreats

 

For more details regarding my paid and volunteer work, please find me on LinkedIn.

More About Me

  • I hold a BASc in Environment (Honours) and Economics from McGill University

  • I am an enthusiastic cook, an aspiring gardener, a practicing Quaker, and a cargo biking mama of two little humans

  • After living in Montreal, Halifax, and Vancouver, I returned to my hometown to raise my young family on lək̓ʷəŋən (Lekwungen) and W̱SÁNEĆ territories in Victoria, British Columbia

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