Better Cross-Sector Collaboration for Better Equity: A Wish List for Budget 2024

LONDON, Ontario - August 4, 2023. Pillar Nonprofit Network is calling on the federal government to accelerate and expand anti-oppression work, both through direct investment and by enabling better collaboration with the social purpose sector which shares its commitments and is its ready and natural partner. The recommendatioins were made in Pillar's written submission for the pre-budget consultations in advance of the 2024 federal budget, submitted today to the Standing Committee on Finance (FINA).

We have been alarmed in recent years to see reference to a “charity gap,” the notion that nonprofits are not rising to meet our social and environmental challenges. On the contrary, we wrote, nonprofits are innovative interventions in public policy gaps, driven by communities, and now indispensable advisors and intermediaries in the government’s delivery on public policy priorities. What we are really seeing is a widening social deficit, in part the result of undervaluing and under-resourcing social purpose organizations. Though this government’s equity goals are laudable, they urgently need resourcing to reverse this trend.

We’ve recommended to the government that they make these investments in Budget 2024:

1. Accelerate and expand anti-oppression work by resourcing initiatives that advance Reconciliation and eliminate racism and hate.
1. Increase investment and accelerate work on Reconciliation with Indigenous peoples;
2. Accelerate investment in Canada’s Black Justice Strategy;
3. Continue and accelerate investment in implementing the federal recommendations to combat Islamophobia from the National Council of Canadian Muslims; and\
4. Accelerate the development and implementation of a National Action Plan on Combatting Hate.
2. Accelerate and expand anti-oppression work by enabling and collaborating more closely with charities, nonprofits, and other social purpose sector organizations.
1. Continue to implement, but also evaluate, changes to the nonprofit and charitable sector regulatory environmentto ensure more equitable disbursement of government funding and funding enabled by government;
2. Be a leader in funding the full cost of services contracted to social purpose sector organizations by establishing aminimum core funding threshold;
3. Invest in better collaboration between Statistics Canada and the nonprofit sector towardan ethical and equity-focused nonprofit data strategy;
4. Create aNonprofit Sector Labour and Workforce Development Strategythat promotes decent work now and in the future economy;
5. Invest in the development and implementation of aNational Action Strategy for Volunteerismto reinvigorate Canada’s flagging volunteer ecosystem.
6. Invest in the future of Canada’s critical nonprofit institutions and the efficacy of cross-sectoral collaboration by establishing ahome in government for the social purpose sector.

Read the full submission:

Written Submission for the Pre-Budget Consultations in Advance of the 2024 Federal Budget by Pillar Nonprofit Network:Advancing Government’s Equity GoalsThrough Better Collaboration with the Social Purpose Sector.