Fonds d’aide de l’Ouest-de-l’Île (FDOI) today announced that its board of directors has elected Kristian Zimmerman as president, and has appointed Gregory M. C. Orleski as Interim Executive Director with a mandate running to June 1, 2027, ahead of a formal executive search for a permanent Executive Director.
At the board’s request, Mr. Orleski, who has served as president since May 2025, steps down from that role to lead day-to-day operations. He brings more than 25 years of experience with non-profit organizations and has worked closely with FDOI’s funders, lenders and municipal partners. The mandate’s limited term is deliberate: the board chose a leader who could take on the role immediately and carry four priorities through to completion while the board defines the permanent role and conducts a proper search. Those priorities are completing the implementation of a new financial management system; strengthening operational, staffing and volunteer capacity; enhancing communication with beneficiaries, volunteers, donors and community partners; and preparing the organization for the onboarding of its next Executive Director.
Since 2025, the board has been modernizing FDOI’s financial management, reporting and governance practices, introducing controls and policies where none previously existed, to meet the demands of a larger organization and a changing environment. The next Executive Director will inherit an organization equipped for the challenges ahead. That work continues under a renewed board, which added several new professionals as directors this summer and fall, including two chartered professional accountants, and which will review progress on the mandate at each meeting.
The decision comes as FDOI faces the same pressures as community organizations across Quebec: construction costs well above original estimates, higher borrowing costs, and demand for food assistance and other essential services that continues to rise.
As part of the plan, the board has decided to sell the building at 6, rue du Centre-Commercial. The board reviewed updated renovation estimates against the original budget: the estimates exceed even the worst-case scenario by more than 30 percent. Carrying the project forward would have put FDOI under unnecessary operational and financial challenges, which would adversely impact the community we are dedicated to serve. Proceeds will repay the financing on the property and support FDOI’s core mission.
“Over the past eighteen months this board has been modernizing how FDOI is run, from financial management to governance, so that a 60-year-old organization is equipped for the next sixty,” said Mr. Zimmerman. “We asked Greg to lead this interim mandate because he knows every part of this organization and can carry that work through to completion from day one. That gives the board the room to run a proper search for the leader who will take FDOI forward, and it means families in our community keep receiving the services they count on.”
FDOI’s food bank, thrift store and community programs continue to operate at 21, rue du Centre-Commercial, Roxboro, a property FDOI owns.
