Equitable Recovery Collective Priorities for Budget 2022

The Equitable Recovery Collective is a group of leaders from across the nonprofit sector that formed in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the nonprofit sector and the communities it serves. The Collective aims to advance an equitable recovery and a strong nonprofit sector. 

As part of this work, the group has put forth recommendations for Budget 2022 urging the government to engage with the nonprofit and charitable sector in a strategic and meaningful way and to take action on several key measures to create a more equitable and robust operating environment: 

• Recommendation 1 - Strategic engagement with the nonprofit sector: We recommend the creation of a “home” for the nonprofit sector within the machinery of government that can coordinate policy and engage strategically with our sector.  We further recommend that the government take an equity approach to this recommendation, engaging directly with organizations from equity-deserving communities to understand and address the specific challenges that they are facing.
• Recommendation 2 - Provide more core funding for nonprofits and charities: We recommend that the government: 
  • Provide more core funding opportunities to the charitable and nonprofit sector. We recommend that the government take an equity approach to this recommendation by addressing specific funding gaps faced by organizations from equity-deserving communities. 
  • Ensure that departments and agencies cover the full administrative costs associated with delivering the services being funded in transfers to charitable and nonprofit organizations.
• Recommendation 3 - Enhance the Community Services Recovery Fund and ensure equitable program design: We recommend that the government:
  • Ensure that all public benefit nonprofits and registered charities are eligible to receive funding through the CSRF on the basis of need and with an equity lens.
  • Expand the CSRF by providing an additional $300 million in funding. 
  • Extend the timeline for use of CSRF funds to at least March 30 2023.
• Recommendation 4 - Enable more equitable partnerships: We recommend that the government work with the sector to reform the existing rules on qualified donees and direction and control so that public and charitable funds continue to be protected, but in a way that allows organizations to respond more equitably and effectively to future challenges and crises. 
• Recommendation 5 - Invest in social infrastructure: We recommend that the government include dedicated support for social infrastructure in its planned 2022 infrastructure investments.
• Recommendation 6 - Invest in better data on our sector: We recommend that the government give Statistics Canada a mandate to collect ongoing disaggregated data on the nonprofit sector, the work it does, and the populations it works with, to be able to monitor the sector, the state of equity in the sector and community health coming out of the recovery.

The members of the Recovery Collective include the National Association of Friendship Centres, Policywise for Children and Families, Egale Canada, Philanthropic Foundations Canada, the Muslim Association of Canada, the Network for the Advancement of Black Communities, Prosper Canada and 
Imagine Canada, Community Foundations Canada and Disability Empowerment Equality Network Support Services. You can read the full brief here.