Ajah is featured today on Next Montreal. The article does a good job of explaining the problem, as well as the approach we are using to solve it. And for those of you who were wondering what we look like, there’s even a picture of the team!
You can read the article here.
There was a fairly fluffy article last week in the Globe and Mail on philanthropy in the Life section. It was a follow-up on the story of the Gates and Buffet’s pledge to give away half of their wealth and it compares Canadian’s giving to that of our southern neighbors. The stats the Globe and Mail cite are that 84% of Canadians over the age of 15 gave an average of $437 in 2007, with the top 25% being responsable for 82% of donations. The journalist uses quotes from Benefaction Canada and Community Foundations Canada to support the assertion that philanthropy is changing and “those who give are no longer content to simply give funds to their favorite charity”. I’ve seen this remark in a few places. I don’t work with philanthropists, so I can’t support or deny the idea, but I am interested to know to what extent it is happening or why that change would be happening.
It’s hard to be more succint than that.
Responding to the news that Buffet and the Gates are calling on their billionaire peers to give away half of their wealth, Kathleen Enright, president of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations has some advice in a post entitled: Calling All Billionaires: Fund Organizations, Not Projects. (She just finished guest-blogging at the aforementioned Duke Center for Strategic Philanthropy).
The first word of advice to the billionaire philanthropists of tomorrow: Focus on building strong organizations rather than supporting only discrete programs or projects.
That’s wonderful advice and it should be said (and heard) clearly and loudly.
Her other advice to these philanthropists is to provide targeted support for activities associated with “effectiveness-boosting” ie: leadership and board development, strategic planning, etc. which “nonprofits put off or ignore when faced with restrictions on gifts combined with the urgent challenge of simply staying afloat”.
Yes, both these suggestions mean supporting strong organizations, instead of cherry-picking projects, but this advice still comes across as somewhat contradictory. Funders are first instructed not to direct funds to programs on the grounds that “if a billionaire (or any philanthropist) truly believes in the mission and the leadership of a nonprofit organization, then why not trust that organization to invest your money in ways that its leaders believe will get the best results?” (emphasis added).
And then secondly, funders are encouraged to sometimes direct (ie: restrict) funds to organizational capacity building. I’m a believer in investing in organizational capacity-building – I’m on the board of an organization whose mission is exactly that. I’m not necessarily against her second suggestion, but I would be interested in hearing how she would instruct funders to navigate that apparent conflict, of when to entrust non-profits by giving them funds not directed to projects, and when they should restrict funds to their priorities they identify – even those related to organizational capacity, effectiveness, or health – as opposed to the priorities identified by the non-profit. Why would “targeted capacity-building support” be necessary if funders can trust organizations and if organizations are better experts than funders?
Check out the rest of her posts from her stay as a guest-blogger. I really like the concept of “net grant” from her post Cut the red tape. I’ll be blogging about it later.
I wanted to share a report recently out from the Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society at Duke University
Disrupting Philanthropy: Technology and the Future of the Social Sector
This report presents an overview of some of the impacts that the networked digital technology and data are having on the philanthropic sector. It’s very readable and is a good orientation to a few of the high-tech developments.
From the summary:
This monograph explores the immediate and longer-term implications of networked digital technologies for philanthropy. Our claim is that information networks are transforming philanthropy. Enormous databases and powerful new visualization tools can be accessed instantly by anyone, at any time.
[W]e examine how networked technologies are affecting five philanthropic practices:• Setting goals and formulating strategy: how funders and enterprises make decisions about what to do, where, and how.
• Building social capital: how funders and enterprises support one another, cooperate, and collaborate.
• Measuring progress: how funders and enterprises set benchmarks, measure outputs, and make course corrections along the way.
• Measuring outcomes and impact: how funders and enterprises know whether what they’ve done has made a difference.
• Accounting for the work: how funders and enterprises account for what they do, to the public at large and to regulators.
[W]e feel confident in predicting we’ll see an increase in the following three phenomena:
• New blendings of market-based and nonmarket solutions.
• Networked, boundaryless, and often temporary alliances that call for the creation of new ways of activating, coordinating, and governing cooperative efforts.
• More and better data, more readily available and at lower cost.
Ajah is an prime example of several of the trends mentioned in this report.
News just in from Ontario provincial government about a new program. Via the Social Planning Network of Ontario:
Building on Non-Profit Infrastructure Projects
Ontario is launching a new program to support infrastructure projects for non-profit organizations that serve cultural communities.
The new Community Capital Fund will support infrastructure projects that help Ontario’s non-profit organizations deliver important public services to diverse cultural communities. Diverse cultural communities rely heavily on non-profit organizations and their facilities. These include newcomer settlement services, multi-service community centres, performance venues, and cultural activity centres. Unfortunately, limited access to venues and cost barriers often prevent organizations from effectively delivering much needed services.
Non-profit organizations currently receive funding for operating expenditures from various sources including government, philanthropic and private sector donors. However, they have inadequate access to funding for capital projects. (emphasis added)
The $50 million fund will be administered by the Ontario Trillium Foundation. It will be used to invest in projects that support cultural communities and help revitalize community-based infrastructure.
Notes:
Application forms (including criteria) are only available as of September.
Minimum contribution of $20,000 and a maximum of $500,000 with 50% matching funds required.
Projects must be completed in 2012.
Get ready, get set, go!
Industry Canada released draft regulations for the the new Federal non-profit act.
There is a “Notice from the Director” which gives some context to the problems that the draft regulations are hoping to address.
The CCA has not substantially changed since 1917. It is antiquated and lacks modern corporate governance rules. Its financial disclosure provisions are weak, the duties and responsibilities of directors are ill defined, it does not provide a proper defence against liability, and the ability of members to scrutinize the activities of the corporation is limited. Several issues, including remedies and internal governance, are not addressed directly in the Act, but through administrative policies established by Corporations Canada
In response, An Act respecting not-for-profit corporations and certain other corporations (Bill C-4), which received Royal Assent June 23, 2009, will create the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (NFP Act) to address the issues identified above with respect to the CCA. The new NFP Act contains leading edge provisions and will be modern framework legislation. These proposed regulations are needed in order to bring the NFP Act into force.
The rest of the overview is equally to-the-point. It’s brief and interesting to read. I’m looking forward to finding out about any weak points from voices in the sector.
There is a consultation process on the proposed regulations. Comments are due by October 1, 2010.
Contests as a means to allocate funds is a growing trend for funders. I’ve applied to a couple and organizations that I have worked with have also applied for these funds. If you work in the non-profit sector, I’m sure that you have been on the receiving end of “Go vote for us/me!” emails from colleagues.
This is the first article I saw questioning the practice — although it is not a critical piece: Are Social Media Giving Contests Good for Non-Profits?. They disclose that they are involved as a sponsor of the PepsiCo10 competition but then they go ahead and promote the contest with a large graphic bearing the Pepsi logo in the middle of the article.
The article links to a post by Beth Kanter about an evalution she’s been conducting: AGC Coversational Case Studies: Students for a Free Tibet: A mindful social media strategy for campaigns or contests
Finally, the folks at the Knight News Challenge have commissionned a report on the practice: Contest-Driven Innovation – A Growing Trend in the News and Information Field. You can read the 50 page pdf, which has lots of information about different contests (specifically ICT contests), but unfortunately it is light on analysis.
I expect to see more thought and discussion of this trend in the near future.
Today over the lunchtime session we watched a 20 min. video on a short history of research partnerships on the social economy in Montreal: 10 ans de recherche partenariale en économie sociale by l’Alliance de recherche universités-communautés en économie sociale (ARUC-ÉS) and le Réseau québécois de recherche partenariale en économie sociale (RQRP-ÉS)
Apparently Montreal is the only city in North America that has a social economy plan. I’ve found out the answer to my question yesterday – it seems that Québec is definitely in advance of the other provinces in the social economy movement. I do need to double-check that, though.
I find these examinations and discussions of the social economy fascinating because of all of the different types of experiences I’m having with the social economy network in Québec. Through my participation as a board member at ISF I’m encountering and working with different actors in the social economy milieu in Montreal to find funding for ISF to expand our activities. For Ajah, we’ve applied and received funding for community economic development funds. In developing the Ajah service we’re learning more about the macro aspects of the social economy across Canada.
The session I’m attending now is another one on Governance & Management:
How accountability in the social services will lead to increasingly dysfunctional organizations
Lothar Liehmann - Craigwood Youth ServicesValue Frame Fusion in Cross Sector Partnerships
Marlene J. Le Ber – The University of Western OntarioPower and Resistance in Community-based organisations: Neoliberalism, funding and discourse
Sarah Amyot – University of VictoriaChaired by Ram Cnaan
It was an interesting session. Sarah Amyot’s (Master’s thesis) talk reminded me of the book The Revolution Will Not Be Funded. Her talk and Lothar Liehmann’s overlapped well. Lothar Liehmann’s talk was different than other presentation’s that I have heard so far which I imagine is because he is a director of a social services organization (Craigwood Youth Services).
ANSER had it’s AGM over lunch. Before it started, Nancy Neamtam from Le Chantier de l’économie sociale gave a brief 20 minute overview of the social economy in Québec. The Tamarack Institute has a introduction to her work (it’s 12 years old though).
What has been achieved in Québec around the community economic development movement / the social economy is tremendously impressive. I’ve been curious to find out about the state of the social economy in other Canadian provinces. I hope to find out about that over the next two days.
Now I’m attending one of the sessions on Governance & Management:
Evaluating Collaborative Processes: The Case of Saskatoon Regional Intersectoral Committee
Louise Clarke – University of Saskatchewan
Making Sense of Partnerships: Executive Directors’ Perspectives
David Este – University of Calgary
“Building Community”: Partnering to Mobilize Knowledge of the Social Economy
Lou Hammond Ketilson – Centre for the Study of Co-operatives, U of SaskChair: Ushnish Sengupta from UofT.
Because it’s a smallish session, we did a go-around to introduce ourselves. It’s great to know that there are feds in the audience. Through my work at Ile sans fil I have had the chance to meet several government researchers who are doing their best to positively influence relevant government policy.
Note: There are PDF’s or Excel sheets online with the conference schedule for you to download. I published the Excel sheet as an webpage for myself, but maybe someone else would be interested.
I only realized now that I have not yet blogged about this conference. I’m super excited for it to start. It’s started. I’m here.
The Association of Nonprofit and Social Economy Research
- Annual Conference -
In Conjunction with the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences
Concordia University
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
June 2 to 4, 2010ANSER (The Association of Nonprofit and Social Economy Research) will hold its annual conference as part of the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Concordia University, June 2 to 4, 2010. Henry Mintzberg of McGill University will be the keynote speaker, Wednesday, June 2nd, at 4 pm. Anyone with an interest in the conference is invited to attend.
The ANSER conference involves panels of about 200 leading researchers on such themes as:
The social economy: differing perspectives; civil society and its challenges;
Nonprofits and charities in a changing world;
Social enterprises and social entrepreneurship;
Co-operatives and their challenges;
Community organizing and community economic development;
Volunteering and citizenship engagement;
Changing conceptions of financing;
Governance and management;
Public policy and government relations;
Communication, networking and social marketing;
Community/university research partnerships.
The program is available on the website (link above).
Also, a little bird told me (literally – I just found out via Twitter) that Montreal will be the host for “Le Forum international en économie sociale et solidaire”. Montréal 17 au 20 oct 2011. Great news – but 2011 is so far away. I guess we’ll have lots of time to let people know about Ajah between now and then.
