Dan Monafu is a community builder, serial small business owner, and Canadian federal government public servant. At the local community level, Dan has started a number of initiatives, including: Soup Ottawa, a participatory micro-grant event held seasonally which, over a half decade, has brought together more than 2,500 people to fund worthwhile community-benefit projects; Ottawa (de)tours, which used the walking tour model to invite Canadians to critically think about complex issues shaping Canada; and Ottawa Civic Tech, a community group of individuals working to strengthen civics and who think policy, technology and inspiration can solve tough problems and make communities better.
In the federal government, Dan has worked on system-level public sector innovation initiatives for over a decade. Highlights have included leading the Government of Canada’s experimentation community, and modernizing the government’s ability to use novel tools by expanding departments’ ability to use outcome-based funding models, microgrants, or prizes and challenges. Dan is currently senior policy advisor in the Canadian Digital Service.
An active speaker on experimentation, the new philanthropy, and community-based interventions, his work has been featured nationally and internationally in newsprint, radio or TV. In 2018, Dan was included in Apolitical’s 100 future leaders: the world’s most influential young people in government.