'''We are socialized to see what is wrong, missing, off, to tear down the ideas of others and uplift our own. To a certain degree, our entire future may depend on learning to listen, listen without assumptions or defenses.''
-Adrienne Maree Brown, Emergent Strategy.
Hi, I am Désirée Nore Duchesne.
Based in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal since 2015, I work at the intersection of philanthropy, social economy, and research, focusing on community care, 2SLGBTQ+ rights, ecology, climate justice, and systems change. Over the past decade, I’ve led national fundraising strategies, built large-scale giving campaigns, and helped shape bold community infrastructures, from health to urban transformation.
I bring a community-centric, embodied lens to philanthropy, centering joy, accountability, and deep-rooted partnerships. My leadership bridges grassroots movements and institutional power, with a focus on equity, public policy, and long-term impact.
Currently exploring new executive opportunities to scale mission-driven change and reimagine what a just, collective future can look like. I welcome inquiries for philanthropic and engagement supports, partnerships, commissions, speaking engagements, or co-creative projects.
Portfolio
My portfolio is a curated pot-pourri of my projects, gestures, and collaborations, that traces my work across art, experimentation, public speaking, philanthropy, and community-rooted initiatives. I am grateful to present where the impactful work I do meets embodied practices.
Holistical Approaches
to Change
Experimental research and social impact are not separate realms—they are entangled practices, both driven by a desire to transform how we relate to each other, to structures, and to the living world.
As a queer trans woman, I realize that the lack of knowledge and power come hand in hand, and come from centuries of systemic inequities and extractivist vision. In order to learn and translate adequately the projects I support, my philanthropic work has been guided by curiosity and heart-centered intelligence, grounded, rigorous, and committed to real-world impact.
Whether supporting collective buildings, ephemeral spaces, or philanthropic strategies for mission-driven organizations, I approach each project as a choreography of people, their dreams, and the systems we live in. I work at the threshold between the intimate and the infrastructural, the invisible and the institutional, where values are felt as much as they are measured.
Impactful goals need to be supported by lived and aligned values—without care, integrity, and imagination, quantitative metrics risk missing the deeper transformation we so urgently need. What kind of world are we making possible, and who gets to belong in it?
Research-Creation and Space curation
My practice moves at the intersection of embodied research, experimental curation, and collective becoming. Through research-creation, I explore situated gestures as doorways for socio-ecological transformations: a dinner around the summer solstice, a sound experiment on the mount, a rave in an underground space.
Drawing on queer theory, affect studies, and critical contemporary research, I cultivate spaces that make kin with the land, communities and our collective desires and emotions. Whether through a radio show creating a soudscape from an art exhibit in Broolkyn, or seminars on queer and trans studies, I want to experiment and create knowledge for shared transformation—composing with bodies, and atmospheres to open perception and desire.
Engagement and Philanthropy
With over a decade in the field of community-driven philanthropy and partnerships, I specialize in designing campaigns and initiatives that works toward collective buildings and spaces, social entrepreneurship, and a more resilient and inclusive culture. My works are strategically planned to ensure that even the most complex fundraising ecosystems and strategies serve the organisational mission.
I’ve led national campaigns, worked with different sectors to advocate for community needs within the canadian political frameworks, and cultivated stewardship models grounded in community-oriented ethics and inclusive politics. I see philanthropy not as a system of giving from surplus, but as a political, social and spiritual practice of reciprocity, connection and collectiveness.
