The increase in the minimum amounts that foundations must return in the form of donations each year (disbursement quota), announced in the federal government’s budget on Thursday, opens the door to the need to explore a new approach to philanthropy.
Posted yesterday at 3:00 p.m.
Once this new measure is in effect, I estimate that tens of millions of additional dollars in Quebec could quickly be invested in charitable causes and organizations. Many foundations are already well over the hitherto fixed quota, but for some the new requirement will result in a considerable increase in their annual payout.
Moreover, for community organizations whose mission is to fight poverty and social exclusion and which Centraide of Greater Montreal supports, the time could not be better chosen to benefit from a portion of these additional amounts.
Many of these organizations are in a precarious situation and are sorely lacking in resources. They have to deal with acute constraints of labor shortages, an increase in their operating costs and the fatigue of their staff who must respond to the ever-increasing number of requests for support and services.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its collateral effects, the lack of affordable housing and the surge in inflation have exacerbated the many social challenges already faced by people in vulnerable situations.
This new measure, combined with those announced in the recent provincial budget, should improve the funding of community organizations.
Being able to count on predictable funding would allow them to stabilize their activities, get out of short-term emergencies, better plan and organize themselves to provide all the necessary aid to people in vulnerable situations, regardless of the economic context. or ambient sanitary.
Set common goals and commit collectively
In philanthropy, the collaborative approach has long enabled foundations to act on social challenges. They maximized their impact by joining a larger group, drawing on the expertise of others, and they benefited from shared learnings.
However, this approach does not systematically involve civil society and, too often, community organizations. Nor does it always take into account the needs that emanate from the communities themselves and their own realities.
It may seem complex to bring together people who come from various bodies with their own objectives, but in recent years I have witnessed models of collaboration that have shown great results: the Montreal Initiative for the Support of Local Development and its neighborhood tables or the Collective Impact Project, the latter bringing together private foundations and institutions such as Public Health and the City of Montreal.
If collaboration is a model that allows exchanges and which has seen the birth of inspiring projects, it should now be pushed a little further. Collaboration must give way to community and citizen engagement to identify issues, effect systemic change and thereby more effectively reduce inequalities.
The pressure exerted by social issues on the community and the desire to remedy it often call for rapid changes whose impact is immediately visible: helping to serve 5,000 meals, for example.
Aiming for long-term social transformation only brings results after multiple trials and errors, but allows us to tackle upstream the causes of poverty and exclusion rather than just its effects.
I think that, before finding solutions to the effects of poverty, we must focus on developing a common vision of the problems and setting common objectives. To do this, we must consider a new form of philanthropy that we could call community philanthropy, where everyone would be involved: citizens, community organizations, the business community, institutions, cities and governments , etc. This approach would allow a frank, sometimes dissonant dialogue, where power issues would be mitigated by the pooling of experiences.
The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us that community spirit transcends individualism. We have understood that social and economic inequalities continue to grow and that they are partly responsible for poverty issues.
There is an inestimable richness in building a just, equitable and egalitarian society where everyone can live according to their legitimate aspirations. Much remains to be done to meet the needs of children, families, the elderly and marginalized people.
In the establishment of an effective social project in the fight against poverty and exclusion, we do not have enough time, nor enough energy, nor enough money for ourselves. spend it in vain.