Co-authors Ted Richmond and John Shields focus on the impact of neoliberalism on health, social, and community services in their new book. It is both a welcome resource for non-profit course work and a stand-alone primer for anyone working in, around, or for the sector, reviewer Peter R. Elson writes.
The Canadian Non-Profit Sector: Neoliberalism and the Assault on Community, by Ted Richmond and John Shields. Fernwood Publishing, 2024; 160 pages; ISBN 9781773636696
Author’s note: I have known Ted Richmond and John Shields, the authors of this book, for almost 20 years. Ted through his work at Carleton University and John as a colleague in the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Management program at Toronto Metropolitan University.
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This is a very deceptive book. At first glance, 160 pages makes it seem like a brief skim that would put it in the “almost-a-book” category. Don’t be fooled. There’s a lot of material here to chew on. Co-authors Ted Richmond and John Shields are clear from the outset that they intend to focus on the impact of neoliberalism on health, social, and community services. They also bring to this book decades of experience in studying the non-profit sector, hands-on engagement with community organizations, and a clear and focused approach to their subject matter.
The Canadian Non-Profit Sector: Neoliberalism and the Assault on Community is both a welcome supplementary resource for non-profit course work and a stand-alone primer for anyone working in, around, or for the non-profit sector. The authors’ breadth of experience is evident in their understanding of the sector and the broader context in which it operates.
The book starts with the perennial issues of precarity and resilience, issues in which the dichotomy of perpetual vulnerability and strength of purpose are both revealed and highlighted. Like Axelle Janczur outlines in her introduction, I too have lived and worked through the transitional period from program to project funding. It’s not an easy road to travel, as constraints and reporting requirements are often disproportional to project scale, objectives, and timelines. The risk of mission drift is all too prevalent, as is the dilemma of being unable to provide capable, insightful, and passionate employees stable and long-term employment. As Lynn Eakin and many others, including the authors, point out, it’s no way to provide credible and long-term support to communities in need. Richmond and Shields’s analysis of neoliberalism and its insidious incursion into public service through “new public management” and the non-profit sector through contract funding is equally clear, insightful, and disturbing. The drivers of the dominant economy that thrives on insecurity pay no heed to the externalities of poverty, unemployment, disconnection, and homelessness.
Richmond and Shields’s analysis of neoliberalism and its insidious incursion into public service through ‘new public management’ and the non-profit sector through contract funding is equally clear, insightful, and disturbing.
Richmond and Shields then outline the architecture of the non-profit sector, with some important additions that reflect the context in which they have worked. In addition to a sound outline of the definition and nature of non-profit organizations, they include, to their credit, cooperatives, social enterprises, the social economy in Quebec, and philanthropic foundations. These additions lead the reader to understand and appreciate the importance and contribution of organizations that exist outside the core definition of non-profits.
Chapter three leads us into the turbulent world of data deficits, fiscal barometers, and the ebb and flow of volunteers. There is no doubt that the non-profit sector, regardless of how you define it, makes an important contribution to the Canadian society and economy. The fact that the authors must rely on decade-old data and more recent, but limited, information about the fiscal health of the sector is telling. This data gap continues to plague the non-profit sector, as it stymies the ability of the sector to clearly identify and articulate its current and future capacity, contributions, and human and fiscal resource requirements. The 1990s saw a seismic shift from project to contract funding, aided and abetted by new public management and wholesale deficit-cutting measures. These measures forced non-profits to “go to market,” and this chapter outlines some of the ways non-profits chose to do just that: namely, by increasing fundraising efforts, creating social enterprises, and entering into social finance agreements. “Resilience in the face of adversity,” the final section heading in this chapter, left me wondering whether to applaud or despair for a sector whose organizations and, most important, its people are almost, if not more, precarious than the people they serve.
The essential role of non-profit advocacy is the subject of the next chapter. The authors’ review of the Voluntary Sector Initiative (VSI) is instructive. Enough time has lapsed that there is now a much clearer understanding of what happened, what didn’t happen, and why. Richmond and Shields provide a concise summary of each of these factors. Their analysis of the 2019 final report of the Special Senate Committee on the Charitable Sector provides a great precursor to their profile of more recent changes to regulations on advocacy and transfer of funds to non-qualified donees. The transfer of funds to non-qualified donees (including donees outside Canada) now ends the requirement that charities exercise “direction and control,” as it has been replaced with “reasonable steps” to ensure that resources are used only for charitable purposes. In other words, a risk-management approach has replaced a regime that was both burdensome and a serious barrier to building good relations.
Given the critical importance of advocacy in Canadian society, why is not every non-profit organization in Canada a member of an umbrella group that is already positioned to represent their best interests to government?
While these and specific advocacy efforts by non-profits in relation to umbrella groups, foundations, and Indigenous Peoples are to be noted and appreciated, I am left with one question that every non-profit organization should be asking itself: given the critical importance of advocacy in Canadian society, why is not every non-profit organization in Canada a member of an umbrella group that is already positioned to represent their best interests to government?
Chapter five is a series of case studies, leading off with a profile of the impact of the COVID pandemic – revealing, of no surprise at this point, both the strength of the sector to respond to a crisis and the simultaneous struggle to survive. The flexibility of foundation funders was remarkable in some cases, while in other arenas public funding completely ignored the existence of the non-profit sector. This analysis is followed by a profile of the relationship of the non-profit sector to Indigenous rights and anti-racism. While the good work of some non-profits is profiled, most non-profits, the authors point out, pay lip service to the deep and sustained work that decolonizing and anti-repression workspaces, programs, and organizations requires. It’s a multi-generational challenge that needs to be conscious, coherent, and consistent.
If there is a bottom line to the final chapter, and to the book itself, it’s that neoliberalism isn’t going anywhere soon. Neoliberalism continues to permeate the walls of community centres, playgrounds, food banks, and health centres. It’s the leading edge of the ongoing capitalization and colonialization of space, both public and private. The non-profit sector is both buffeted by these forces and held firm by the belief in a more just and equitable society for all.
