My perspective - The big squeeze
- Details
- Published on Friday, December 30, 2016
By Kate Jackman-Atkinson
The Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press
It’s not a great time to be a charity in search of predictable funding. Independent decisions made by corporations and governments are cutting local charities out of money they used to rely upon.
As various levels of government face bulging budgets, they are cutting back on their grants to stay in the black. Many organizations are finding the grants upon which they used to rely have been cut back or are no longer available. The provincial government has put some of their grants on hold this year, as they try to get a handle on the province’s finances. In Neepawa, the Town’s 2016 budget cut grants by $16,900 and some organizations received no money at all. The trend isn’t expected to be temporary, Neepawa mayor Adrian de Groot said that they will continue to take a closer look at what organizations receive money from the Town.
Corporations are also making changes to how they support not-for-profits within our communities. Manitoba Hydro recently changed its employee giving program, which allows employees to make charitable donations through automatic payroll deductions. Charities also used to receive money from corporate matches in which employees donated to one of 14 local allocation funds, which were matched by the corporation. Local fund committees then disbursed the money at their own discretion. Neepawa United Way, Neepawa and Area Palliative Care and the Beautiful Plains Community Foundation have all received significant and generous donations this way.
Hydro has changed its policy, with 27 provincial charities eligible for payroll deductions and just six regional charities eligible for the corporate matching donations. Employees select which of the six charities they want to direct the corporate match.
The problem is that none of the charities directly serve the Neepawa area, which is home to a new regional customer service centre built to serve the areas of Minnedosa, Erickson, Gladstone and Clear Lake. It’s a shame the the employees working there can’t make a payroll deduction to a charity directly serving that area.
Of course the newly approved charitable organizations provide some programming in the Neepawa area and of course residents from Neepawa, Gladstone or Minnedosa can travel to Winnipeg or Brandon to access services, but none of these organizations are focused on the grassroots areas of the province. None of them have a physical presence, an office or a pair of boots firmly on our ground.
It isn’t just about the total amount either, reliable grants or automatic payroll deductions give a charity a predictable income stream for the year. For an organization like Neepawa and Area Palliative Care, which is trying to run programming and provide consistent services on a shoestring budget, a stable source of funding is extremely important. Organizations will certainly take money any time a donor wants to give, but knowing how much is coming and when helps them make the best use of their donations. I also suspect that when donations are made before a pay check even hits a donor’s account, donations are often larger than they are when a donor must make a conscious donation.
I don’t fault any of the governments or corporations for the decisions they have made. I have mixed feelings about governments donating to charities and I can understand why Hydro, a province-wide company, would want to support province-wide charities. But it’s shaping up to be a perfect storm for small charities. We, as individuals, need to recognize that this is happening and that it’s part of a larger trend. We need to remember that if we want to keep services available locally and when we need or want them, we need to step up and give. We don’t want to see these organizations, which operate with very little overhead and a lot of volunteer hours, get squeezed out.
