My Non-Profit Rant

In every Alberta community, the work of non-profit boards creates quality of life for Albertans. They are the groups that support local environmental initiatives, local children's sports, local fire protection, emergency medial

assistance, community center management and citizen activity programs for all ages.

They hold suppers, golf tournaments, bottle drives and as many other fund raising activities as they can to put a little money into the coffer to improve the services they offer local communities.

When you consider how vital many of these tasks are, it surprises me that they receive very little support from our governments. Some get annual basic funding, but many are simply a group of local citizens trying to address a need they see in the community and they get very little support of any kind from anyone.

Over the years (which is a much higher number than I’m going to mention here), I’ve worked on, with and for non-profit boards in Alberta. The challenge I see in that is that every single non-profit board, including school districts and municipalities, struggles to do its job because of time and money constraints. If you are surprised to see municipalities and school boards in there to talk to a rural council member or school trustee about budgets.

I will admit that at least those organizations get core funding from the province to keep the lights on and have someone around to answer a phone. This is a luxury most Alberta non-profits would love to have.

Although there are many corporations that offer funds for all kinds of non-profit boards, no one wants to fund office work or space. They want to see trees planted, kids on the ball diamond, off-stream water systems adopted, but they do not want to pay for an organization to have a person that coordinates those activities. That’s where the bake sale comes in handy. However, you have to sell A LOT of cookies to pay someone to manage a watershed stewardship group,  an arts program or a soup kitchen.

This leads to what many call creative financial reporting. This is to me one of the greatest injustices we allow in our society. We take our Community Leaders; the dedicated people who actually care enough to do something and put them in a situation where they have to fudge numbers and exercise intense creative writing skills to cover the costs of projects through the available funding sources that refuse to fund people to do the work.

While I’m on a bit of a rant about funding sources, I took part in an Alberta licensed casino to raise funds for a community. This is where I learned we take our Community Leaders and put them to work for society’s money laundering underbelly to earn money for community projects. There they are, the most caring citizens of our communities, exchanging $5,000 in chips for slimeballs clearly intelligent enough to figure out a money making system better than what Alberta offers its non-profit organizations. I find that very hard to stomach.

In order to be a non-profit organization in Alberta, a group of no less than five people have to get together, create a mandate and vision and apply to the government for Society status. As a registered society, they can apply for whatever grants they think they can get. Many of these folks have no idea of the risks and responsibilities they accept by agreeing to be on a local board.

During my time with the Board Development Program; which is one way Alberta offers support to non-profits, I learned just how huge the risks are that we ask average citizens to take on behalf of a cause they champion. As a board member of a registered society, you accept complete responsibility for the financial functions of that organization. Every penny that comes in and every penny that goes out can be scrutinized through an audit and any shortcomings are the responsibility of the board members.

Board members are also completely responsible for any legal issues related to the registered society. If you hold a picnic and someone chokes, the family can sue the Board as a collective and as individuals. We live in a time where more people look to legal action than ever before. I have often been amazed at the attempts to sue I hear about. Even if the Board wins the case, the legal fees can be a real burden. Generally I find Boards have an “it will never happen to us,” attitude toward this risk and I wish them well with that.

Of course the other aspect of this is that well organized societies spend some of those hard come by grant funds to insure board members, hire accountants and generally ensure risks are minimal for board members – and then fudge numbers. But for many of the small community organizations that need it most, the money is just not there. Maybe that’s why you don’t have a Little League in your neighborhood.

The greatest misfortune I see in all this is the missed opportunities for social benefit caused by lack of non-profit capacity. Our communities miss out on grants no one fills out; activities no one organizes; improvements no one can fund and events no one puts together because the support system for non-profit organizations in the province needs reworking.

Really, isn’t it ironic that we pay taxes, but don’t see our local groups supported by those dollars? Instead they have to engage in morally questionable activities, wait on slimeballs and beg from businesses who are mostly interested in how it will improve community acceptance of their business.

It gets to me!