Is the Social Sector Ready For A Modernization Fund? Senator Omidvar Weighs In.

Modernizing Canada’s charitable and non-profit sector is one of Senator Ratna Omidvar’s main missions in office. 

Since her appointment to the Senate in 2016, the independent Ontario senator has served as the deputy chair of the Special Senate Committee on the Charitable Sector, alongside Senator Terry Mercer, and is currently trying to pass Bill S-222, a Senate bill that would allow charities to provide resources to non-qualified donees — a major shift in charitable policy. 

The sector has arguably not been a major priority for the current Liberal government, but the $400 million Community Services Recovery Fund is an exception. Announced in the latest federal budget, the Fund will provide money to charities and non-profits that have struggled to modernize their operations for years. But it comes as many of those same charities are just trying to keep the lights on. 

Omidvar believes, however, that modernizing the sector is a long game. She spoke with Future of Good about the Community Services Recovery Fund, the need for digitally savvy non-profit workers, and how the recommendations of the Special Senate Committee on the Charitable Sector may have changed if it had been published after the COVID-19 pandemic began. 

The following conversation has been edited for clarity and length. 

The Community Services Recovery Fund is offering $400 million to help the charitable and non-profit sector “adapt and modernize.” Is that enough money? 

The sector is so big. It is so diverse in every sense of the word. We have charities and non-profits engaged in the environment and culture, and international aid, in education and health. It is so wide and so diverse and so broad that, of course, the answer to your question has to be: no, it is not. But it is a good start. 

If the money is spent well and the government can clearly understand the impact of increased investments in the sector, I believe it is a place to start and build towards the future. 

What aspects of sector modernization should be prioritized with the use of this fund? 

At this point, I would suggest that our first concern should be the ongoing health and stability of the sector as it is today. The sector we know is hurting. It’s been hit hard by a decline in revenue, by a decline in donations, and in being required to pivot to digital platforms. So on the one hand, there is less money. On the other hand, there is more demand, even though the government has, outside of the $400 million fund, released hundreds of millions for charities that are dealing with hard-hit communities such as violence against women and the mental health of children, and they’ve also added another fund to disperse through the United Way and community foundations. This fund should be used to stabilize the sector as it struggles to embrace the recovery. 

The government should, in the first instance, use this money through a lens of “big-small-medium charities”. That’s maybe a crude but really effective way of understanding how to work with the sector. There are big charities that would need a different kind of support because they have large payrolls. Medium sized charities have different needs and small charities, who may not even be on the horizon, but are really essential to the fabric of a local community — they should also be considered. I would suggest the government should use that lens and get the money out of the door in an accountable, impactful way. 

The second proposal I would make to the government is that they should pay special attention to those charities who have not been able to access emergency funding for the wage subsidy and other reasons. Finally, I would say, a special effort has to be made by the government to use some of these funds to strengthen charities that are fighting for racial justice — whether it is racial justice for minority communities or whether it’s justice for Indigenous communities. 

I would use this fund as a ‘ready-start-go’ fund as opposed to strictly modernizing the sector. Modernizing the sector means an investment in HR capacity. It means an investment in digital and technological capacity, and I believe it should start with creating a home in government for the sector where a cross-cutting conversation can happen. 

 
Is there anything you would change about the Community Services Recovery Fund’s scope, or who it is intended for?

Charities and not-for-profits — that’s a pretty broad umbrella. Small businesses have their own recovery funds. So I think it’s appropriate that it is focusing on charities, not-for-profits, possibly social enterprises that bridge the two.