Go research team, go!

The reason we put so much effort into keeping our information up-to-date and accurate is because there is so much confusion in the sector about all funding sources, including government. Check out this recently released report of the BC Gaming Grants:

Appendix C: Common Misconceptions

Upon completing the listening and reading phase of my review, I met with the Executive Director of the Gaming Grants Branch (the people who administer the grants) to discuss concerns and ideas. Fortunately, several concerns are misconceptions about how the program is administered.

Due, in part, to the volunteer nature of leadership in community groups, and its associated human-resource turn over, many perceived constraints and requirements are hearsay and do not actually exist. (emphasis added)

Many of these misconceptions could be overcome with a clear statement on the program’s web page and written documents to the effect that the Gaming Grants Branch is willing to consider any request for an explanation of, or an exception to, its operational regulations and practices.

A list of common misconceptions follows:

Funding rules are too rigid and do not facilitate innovations, such as giving grocery store gift certificates (instead of cash) to needy people.

The Gaming Grants Branch will consider any expenditure connected with the pursuit of an approved project. Branch staff will question unusual expenditures, as they should, but will approve them when appropriate. The expenditure in the misconception cited above was questioned and subsequently approved.

Successful fundraising will be penalized by grant reductions.

Only proceeds from licensed gaming in excess of $250,000 received in the last 12 months have an impact on grants. Other fundraising has no effect.

Capital funding, maintenance funding, operations funding, contingency funding, and partnerships with other government funders are not eligible uses of grant funds.

Capital expenditures in excess of $20,000 are not eligible at this time. The other expenditures are eligible, although sometimes with reasonable restrictions. For example, contingency funds may not exceed six months’ operating costs.

The Gaming Grants Branch will summarily reject any application that contains a technical error.

The Branch makes every effort to contact applicants to resolve problems. However, they are sometimes unable to do so because organizations’ contact people, or their contact coordinates, change without notifying the Branch.

The Gaming Grants Branch is rigid in its requirement that grant funds be spent within 12 months of receipt.

The Branch will consider any reasonable request for an extension and frequently makes exceptions and grants extensions.

The Gaming Grants Branch requires financial statements that have been audited by a professional accountant. This is expensive and a poor use of a grant-recipient’s funds.

The Branch neither requires nor prefers audited financial statements. The Branch encourages simplified financial statements and reports signed by an officer of the recipient organization.

These are the kinds of misconceptions that we make our business to stamp out. It is nice to see them addressed in this report. And if you’re interested in following funding reform in BC, make sure to friend/follow/sign up for info from the Government- Non-profit Initiative.

On that note, we just finished adding the law foundations from all of the provinces across Canada. The set up of these foundations is fairly unique because of the source of their revenues. The money comes from the interest of mixed trust accounts held by lawyers or paralegals. These professionals hold money in trusts for their clients and though income from a single trust is small, combined income from all these trust accounts is significant.

Law foundations fund programs related to the law — such as legal aid, legal education, legal research and law libraries. A part of the funding is always dedicated to that province’s legal aid agency which helps low-income individuals to obtain legal aid.

Granting programs that we found interesting are the Ontario Law Foundation’s Access to Justice program and Quebec Law Foundation’s grants for research. The former is the only national program with a mandate to ensure everyone has equal access to justice under the law , while the latter is an annual award for researchers to focus on particular aspect of the law.

You can find the law foundations under government grants for each province. Bonne chance!

Sincerely – the Management

The Big Ask

We don’t know what to say about it really. We left him alone after one of our marketing/branding discussions and the next morning we came in and there it was. He said he’s all about internet memes and that anyways, archivists have two (The Gosling Archives and Hey girl, what about archives?).

So there you go.

AFP Congress in Toronto is Canada’s biggest fundraising conference. With 1000 delegates and 4 tracks over 3 days, it’s pretty serious. There’s nothing like it in the rest of the non-profit sector. It’s great to re-connect with the friends and acquaintances we have met before. And the level of speakers and workshops is realy high.

If you’re around, make sure to come by our booth. And if you’re not around, you should consider coming next year.

The twitter account for the conference is CCSRConference and the hashtag for the conference is CCSR2011.

Stream 3 has a focus on community granting and has lots of friendly faces from the non profit sector including Michael Allen from the Ottawa United Way, Allyson Hewitt from MARS, Stephen Huddart from the McConnell Foundation, Ian Bird from Community Foundations of Canada, Sherri Torjman from the Caledon Institute of Social Policy, Gena Rotstein from her company, Dexterity Consulting, and David LePage from the organization Enterprising Non-Profits.

There’s now a section called Giving in the Life section. It’s a little strange that it’s in that part of the newspaper (and website), as most of the content there is normally pretty fluffy and there are lots of real journalism in this series so far. The weekend edition felt like it was 80% about the charitable / non-profit sector. There are important articles about regulation, the thoughts of the current federal government, trends in both foundation giving and donor giving.

Take a look (and listen) to find out about open data and why it’s an important step for democracy. It’s also an important issue for Ajah; we rely on government data in order to offer Fundtracker.
CBC radio interview and Montreal Gazette

We know that you’re busy, so we pulled out the three trends she identified:

TREND #1
The mean revenues, in both the core and non-core categories, of those organizations using e-Giving tends to be higher than the mean revenues of all Canadian charitable organizations.

TREND #2
Relative levels of participation tend to be similar within ICNPO categories regardless of the method of e-Giving used and over time.

TREND #3
Although e-Giving will continue to grow, the economic environment will affect e-Giving revenues of charities in some ICNPO Categories more than it will in others.

So, basically:
1. larger organizations are the earlier adopters of online and mobile giving;
2. organizations are more or less likely to adopt online and mobile giving depending on their subsector (health, research, social services, etc.);
3. the larger economic situation will effect online and mobile giving in some sub-sectors more than in others.

We are a dynamic team using the latest web technologies to revolutionize fundraising. Our office is near métro Mont-Royal in the Plateau.
The position is 35 hours a week (flexible), for a period of 12 weeks. Your responsibilities will include:
- Developing an effective marketing strategy using social media platforms
- Generating weekly posts on our blog and create regular updates for other other social media platforms
- Making and uploading screencast tutorials for our tools
- Establishing an online presence in professional and sectoral networks
- Using online survey tools and website metrics to evaluate marketing strategies

You will also have the opportunity to deepen your knowledge of the non-profit sector, fundraising, information management, web entrepreneurship, and various web technologies.

We’re looking for someone fun who has excellent web, writing, and editing skills and who is passionate about either the non-profit sector or information management. Professional or academic experience using social media and online tools is also an asset.

Ability to speak English & French preferred.
Applicants must be students:
- under the age of 30;
- enrolled in a post secondary education program and intending to return to school;
- legally entitled to work in Canada

For more information on joining our team, please send a cover letter and a resume of related experience to info@ajah.ca .