The Canadian Public expresses its views about charities

The Muttart Foundation has released “Talking About Charities 2006,” a public opinion poll to survey Canadians on their views about charities and issues affecting charities. From their website: http://www.muttart.org/c-foundation/news.htm  you can obtain a copy of the report, charts that graphically demonstrate results on either a national and demographic or provincial basis, or detailed tables showing responses based on various demographic factors. 

A Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating in Canada

Imagine Canada has released: "Caring Canadians, involved Canadians : highlights from the 2004 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating". Conducted in 2004 by Statistics Canada, the CSGVP includes new information about how Canadians support one another and their communities. Read or download the full report from Imagine Canada's website.

Advancing the Nonprofit Sector

Metcalf Foundation Innovation Fellow Lynn Eakin released a report, "Advancing the Nonprofit Sector", that explores strategies for creating change in the regulatory and financing of nonprofit organizations in Ontario. She argues that the challenges facing the nonprofit sector's health are so critical that those interested in its long-term viability must explore new ways to act to influence shifts in the financing and regulatory environment. Lynn provides a pragmatic approach to organizing the sector in Ontario based on a review of nonprofit organizing efforts in regional, national and international contexts.

Read or download the paper.

New Funding Research: Taking Stock: Examining the Financing of Nonprofit Community Organizations in Calgary

In May, The Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations released research that offers new insights into how nonprofit organizations in Calgary are financed. The study examines how costs related to programs are financed and the implications when a program’s full costs are not met.  For this study, CCVO collaborated with Lynn Eakin who conducted a similar study in Toronto called Community Capacity Draining: The Impact of Current Funding Practices on Non-Profit Community Organizations.

The following themes emerged from this study:

Organizations face a complex and fragmented funding environment that is poorly serving both nonprofit organizations and funders.
• Of the 229 programs included in the revenue analysis, revenues fell short of costs for 69% of programs.
•  When there is a gap between the funding for a program and actual program costs, organizations use scarce and valuable resources to cobble together funding from multiple sources.
• Small and mid-sized organizations have the greatest difficulty covering the costs of their programs.

There are broad-based and systemic funding challenges.
• The revenue/expenditure gap averaged 19% of program costs among under funded programs and only one of the 23 organizations studied had no revenue gap to contend with.
• The funding gap negatively affects funders as well as nonprofits.. Although one program may be under funded, the effects are felt across the organization. Under funding requires organizations to divert energy and resources away from programs to raise other funds to compensate for the gap.

Core funding is linked to organizational capacity.
• The majority of programs did not receive enough funding to cover their core costs.
• When core costs are not adequately covered, organizations often make difficult choices, such as deferring maintenance, reducing supervision, or limiting insurance coverage, choices that have consequences for the health and vitality of the organization. 

Fees and fundraising are not the solution.
• Fees brought in 18.8% of total revenues, but were only a significant source of revenue for three organizations. In fact, 60% of organizations did not collect fees. For many organizations, depending on their services and client groups, charging fees may not beappropriate.
• Undesignated fundraising provided only 3% of total revenues.
• Raising money through events, direct mailings and other fundraising efforts is time consuming. Four of the organizations in this study actually lost money on fundraising, while three others raised less than $10,000 net.

There is a visible impact of the revenue/expense funding gap on human resources.
• The data gathered identified serious problems with funding for the supervision or management of programs, the provision of benefits to staff, and the ability to cover the cost of core management functions. 
• To compensate for the lack of funding for management and administrative staff, supervisors and senior managers are providing significant amounts of uncompensated overtime on an ongoing basis and volunteers are providing essential organizational and program functions.

There are limitations to the silo approach to funding.
• Funding in a “silo” overlooks how the funding practices of one funder affects other funders. If one program is under funded, this may have an effect on the organization’s delivery of other programs.
• For the longer term sustainability of the organization, the holistic health of the entire organization, not just a discrete program or initiative needs to be taken into account.

To see the full study including detailed data, analysis and CCVO’s recommendations visit www.calgarycvo.org. Printed copies of the report are available for $6.50 (plus postage where applicable).