Meet Laird Eddy

Laird has sometimes been called a renaissance man, demonstrating expertise and interest in computer science, fundraising analytics, social sciences, philosophy, theology, physics, history and artificial intelligence.

Educated at McGill University, Laird graduated with a Master’s degree, winning awards for his work there. He went on to dedicate his life to working with the homeless. He spent twenty-five years running The Ottawa Mission homeless shelter with his wife Diane and became the Executive Director of The Ottawa Mission Foundation.

During that time Laird acquired his CFRE and created several innovative computer programs, one of which was chosen by the Canadian government to be placed in all shelters across the country. He and his wife Diane built many programs including a hospice for the homeless, a school, job training programs, addiction recovery programs and using the money raised by Laird, purchased apartment buildings to support transitional housing from shelter to homes.

Laird took the fundraising program at The Ottawa Mission from Three hundred thousand a year to over seven million annually, while keeping fundraising costs very low by creating computer automation to handle the tasks involved in raising those funds.

Laird is the inventor and creator of the Gryphon Report program which he designed to make analytics affordable for organizations of all sizes. His Gryphon Report program has been used by many people in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand.

Currently, Laird is both the owner and CEO of Gryphon Fundraising. He is also working on a new addition to his company that will use Artificial Intelligence to assist in the care of residents in long term care homes. His latest project can be seen in action at www.weseeyu.com.