Non-profits aiming to build united front before election
By Ry Clarke - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on March 28, 2023.
Herald photo by Ry Clarke
Volunteer Lethbridge executive director Amanda Jensen speaks about the "Nonprofit Vote" during a presentation Monday at the downtown Penny Building.With a provincial election on May 29, many residents are turning their attention to politics, and more specifically, which party will best represent them in the future.
As Albertans browse the catalogue of whose-who in the races, many organizations will be doing the same, looking to see who best fits their needs. Non-profits in the province will be looking to build a united front ahead of the upcoming election, creating a collective voice that will advocate for the work they do, the “nonprofit vote.”
Working towards that goal, Volunteer Lethbridge hosted a “Community Nonprofit Table Discussion” Monday afternoon at its office downtown, bringing together members from local nonprofits to raise concerns and questions regarding the sector, formulating questions to raise to provincial candidates.
“We are in preparations for the provincial election, and it is important to us that we come together and we galvanize around what this sector needs,” said Amanda Jensen, Executive Director of Volunteer Lethbridge.
“We have come together around a report that was commissioned by our peers in Calgary called ‘Too Essential To Fail,’ which told us what were feeling and seeing: that we are a sector in trouble, overworked and under resourced. We have come together with five main priorities that we are going to be asking of any government that forms.”
The five points include:
• a commitment in Budget 2023 to an investment of $100-million per year for three years in a community prosperity fund.
• A commitment in Budget 2023 to index grant programs, like CFEP and CIP.
• Better data collection, a workforce strategy, and better connection with government bodies.
“We will be talking about those platform priorities today, and what we are seeing and feeling we want from our potential MLA’s,” said Jensen. “We will be taking those questions to the candidates once the writ has dropped sometime in late April.”
An event is scheduled on April 14, æThe Nonprofit Vote Town Hall,” but if the writ has not dropped it will be pushed back.
The discussion helped bring non-profits together to air similar grievances and work towards a collective goal.
“We are not overloading and making common asks, we have some varying needs, but generally the needs that we are presenting to government through this campaign are things that everyone across the sector needs, so we can be specific and targeted with what we are asking for,” said Jensen.
Jensen notes, while non-profits do work in the community, their priorities have shifted towards funding rather than their mandates.
“We have to fundraise and find dollars, scrounging, and it takes the focus off of the mission of the organization. Speaking for myself with Volunteer Lethbridge, I sure wish I could focus a lot more on volunteerism and community engagement more than I do with trying to meet a budget and keep people employed,” said Jensen. “We contribute, non-profits in Alberta, $5.5-billion towards GDP. When we are asking for funds, we are not asking for handouts, we are asking for fair contributions to a thriving industry that needs funding. That’s 227-million volunteer hours last year in Alberta, and we shouldn’t need to be in the position of bake sales and raffles to be funded equitably in the same way governments invest in other sectors of Alberta.”
The event saw unity among non-profits in Lethbridge.
“We want to know which candidate is going to best serve our sector. This is the first time Volunteer Lethbridge has been involved in an advocacy campaign to this degree, and there has been a lot of interest, it sold out right away,” said Jensen. “We are all in a similar boat, and we are not alone.”
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Why not a commitment of how much pay directors get and the actual breakdown of how much gov and tax money goes to where you are saying it is going.
Just found another section of the Income tax act that counters what it said in another part of the income tax act (surprise surprise)
“Nonprofits need to register if they engage in partisan activities during the campaign period (of course, this does not apply to charities as they can never be partisan). Demonstrations, rallies, phone trees and communications expressing direct support for or opposition to candidates or parties would qualify as partisan activity.”
This is soooo wrong on so many levels. Latest is we have spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $14million on addiction out of local taxpayer money (hence the 5% raises in your taxes every year for the next 3 years) .
Their is no cap on what will be spent by the City because there is no cap on how many come here. Now the nonprofits want a “nonprofit vote” to elect in the party that promises the largest taxpayer dollar? Gee I wonder who that will be?
Assuming the $14million is accurate, then in less than 3 years it will double. Now what are your taxes going to be?
This is the same group that wants all this in your downtown? There is an alternative https://lethccc.com
I am all for the dedicated non-profits who work hard to look after the needs of the community, but I am concerned when I hear them banding together to help get a party into power just because it will benefit their organization.
The vote should be for what is best for the province, the community, not for financial reasons.
We have several non-profits I support in this community such as Streets Alive, the Soup Kitchen, Intertaith Food Bank, Lethbridge Food Bank, Salvation Army, etc., who do great work in this city, but we must be very careful that we do not end up like the greater Vancouver DTES, with a population of under 20,000 they pay over 260 organizations $400 million annually for suppors and housing projects annually.
Only 1/3 of the $400 million comes from donations and the rest from the taxpayer.
It is a billion dollar industry in BC and they are trying to build in Alberta as well. They feed off the drug crisis and many only enable addicts to continue in their addiction, while bleeding funds that could be better spent on effective addiction and mental health treatment.
That is why the addiction crisis, crime, homelessness has exploded in BC, because all the money is going to ‘support’ the addicts, not ‘treat’ them.
I am very troubled to hear these groups are banding together and I would bet it is to support the NDP, who destroyed this city with their SCS, another non-profit that saw the Stacey Bourque, who managed the SCS making almost $300,000 in pay and many other overpaid staff.
Non-profits are not cheap, or cost effective. They also drain all the funds for the Heart and Stoke foundation, Cancer Society and many other non-profits not related to the addiction crisis.
Votes should be cast on who would be the best government for the province next election, not who will give us more money!
NDP destroyed our city and will never get my vote because of all the pain and suffering I have witnessed from opening the SCS in this city!
“We contribute, non-profits in Alberta, $5.5-billion towards GDP”
Really? Where did that $5.5 billion come from? How about donations and tax dollars!!!!
I would figure more than half of that $5.5 billion came from different levels of government!
This city has a number of excellent local nonprofits, but many of them only care about themselves and the wages and benefits they enjoy.
There is not enough accountability attached to funds from the different levels of government that is given to a number of these nonprofit programs. Taxpayers, parents , teachers and residents want real results after all this time and money. Some nonprofits are getting out of the harm reduction programs due to dangers for staff and because people are still dying to an alarming degree.. They have learned the hard and expensive way that unless treatment programs are enforced ,it is a fool’s game.