Making Change: Fifty Years of the Laidlaw Foundation

Janet Money is a writer and policy analyst for the Canadian Cystic
Fibrosis Foundation in Toronto.

Making Change is a commissioned history of the Laidlaw Foundation. The
lumber barons who later turned to managing money were quick to see the
tax benefits of making donations to their favorite causes. In the latter
half of the 20th century, the family wisely raised nonfamily members to
prominent positions in the foundation’s management and carved out a
niche in philanthropy by backing innovative social causes. Sadly, the
personalities of the Laidlaws—even the crafty and wise oddball,
Nick—don’t come through. Anecdotes and reminiscences are far and few
between, and there are no profiles of the beneficiaries of the
foundation’s philanthropy. This book is serviceable, but drier than it
need have been.