When Karen Ball stepped in as head of the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations (CCVO) last summer, she arrived bearing what might be described as a brimming advocacy tool box: years of experience running a consultancy whose clients included both provincial bureaucrats and elected officials, a keen sense of timing and leverage, and a love…
It’s official: the charitable and non-profit sector has a “home” in government in BC. The face of that home is Niki Sharma, elected in the province’s October election. The MLA for Vancouver-Hastings is now BC’s Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development and Non-Profits, joining a small handful of elected officials across Canada with the specific role…
An advisory committee on the future of the charitable sector has released far-reaching recommendations it believes could help Indigenous organizations better serve their communities and improve diversity within the sector’s own ranks. The second of three scheduled reports by the Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector (ACCS) highlights a spring in which the energy for…
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed many truths: Canada relies heavily on fragile global supply chains; social and economic status affects health outcomes; many essential workers are poorly paid; and data matters. Never before has our collective attention been so focused on data. Case counts, hospitalization numbers, test positivity rates, and the predictions of the latest…
La pandémie de la COVID-19 a révélé de nombreuses vérités : le Canada dépend beaucoup de fragiles chaînes d’approvisionnement mondiales; le statut social et économique affecte les résultats en matière de santé; de nombreux travailleurs essentiels sont sous-payés; et les données sont importantes. Notre attention collective ne s’est jamais autant portée sur les données. Chaque jour,…
Chantal had been working at a Canadian foundation for about a month when she was asked to sit in on a volunteer committee’s grantmaking decision process, where the volunteers reviewed applications that had been shortlisted by staff members. The volunteers “over-scrutinized the applications from Black-led organizations,” Chantal said. “It felt like they were searching for…
Collecting Courage: Joy, Pain, Freedom, Love, edited by Nneka Allen, Camila Vital Nunes Pereira, and Nicole Salmon. Gail K. Picco Books, Civil Sector Press; 2020; 203 pages; ISBN 978-1-927375-63-1 Collecting Courage shines a spotlight on the painful experiences of Black fundraisers working in the charitable sector in Canada and the United States. The book features…
For Canada’s non-profit and charitable leaders, the 2021 federal budget was significant and historic for many reasons. It made the “most promises” to the sector that Peter Dinsdale, president and CEO of YMCA Canada, has ever seen. It was the first time that Anjum Sultana, national director of public policy at YWCA, encountered a budget…
This week: budget 2021, the feds respond to the Senate’s sector report; Volunteer Week; gender policy and the recovery; and hunting for vaccines online. Budget 2021: new funding for daycare, charities, and Black-led community organizations The federal budget released yesterday afternoon by Liberal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland included $400 million to establish a “Community Services…
The Vancouver Island community of Saanich has a lot of heart – literally. Since summer 2020, Saanich residents have decorated more than 900 wooden and clay hearts that now adorn structures all over community parks and spaces. Brenda Weatherston is a community arts specialist with the municipality, and one of the people behind the HeArts…