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Review of grant process to come before council

The first stage will be presented on Feb. 7.
St. Albert Place 2
St. Albert currently allocates $1.7 million in civic grants each year, a pot of money that includes $450,000 from the provincial government for Family and Community Services Support funding. FILE PHOTO/St. Albert Gazette

St. Albert city council is looking to review its granting process, and non-profit sector leaders say this is an especially crucial time for municipalities to invest in community services. 

Areni Kelleppan, executive director of Stop Abuse in Families (SAIF) Society, described a “significant decline” in funding opportunities amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Grants we typically apply for are gone, pots of money have been reduced, and applications have been paused,” Kelleppan said. “When we look at the non-profit sector, the amount of pressure that is coming, and the amount of need that we're seeing as a result of recovery from COVID-19 … we are not poised for that."

Most non-profits are working “paycheque to paycheque” and struggling to get ahead, Kelleppan said. She said economic downturn can have staggering consequences for non-profits, making plans for financial sustainability even more difficult to reach. Kelleppan said most non-profits already operate "paycheque to paycheque" without the ability to build a safety net. 

“Unless you have a great patron or set of donors … you’re always in that cycle if something big happens,” Kelleppan said.

Bruce MacDonald, president of Imagine Canada — a national non-profit advocating for charitable organizations — said Canadian non-profits are currently caught in a “vice grip.”

“Many people believed by this time around the holiday season and in early 2022, they would be able to restore some of their major in-person fundraising activities, but because of COVID-19, these kinds of things aren’t happening,” MacDonald said. 

Data gathered by Imagine Canada indicates 45 per cent of charities reported an increase in demand since the beginning of the pandemic (up from 35 per cent in early 2020). 

Additionally, 55 per cent of charities reported revenue decline during the pandemic, with an average decline of 43 per cent of revenue. 

St. Albert currently allocates $1.7 million in civic grants each year, a pot of money that includes $450,000 from the provincial government for Family and Community Services Support funding. 

One of these funding opportunities that SAIF applies for each year — the outside agency operating grant program — is divvied up based on recommendations from council's Community Services Advisory Committee. 

During its 2022 budget deliberation process, council voted to increase the amount SAIF will receive from the committee’s initial recommendation of $21,400 by pulling money from the city’s stabilization reserve. 

SAIF ended up with its full asking amount of $42,800, money Kelleppan said will ensure SAIF can maintain its programming for children and youth. 

More hands in the same pot

Council conversation surrounding the decision to give SAIF a top-up suggests it might be time for council to revise how annual grant funding is distributed to better serve community needs.

During council discussion on Dec. 7, Coun. Sheena Hughes noted opening up the grant to a broader set of organizations in recent years has made the process difficult.

Hughes said she supports funding newcomer organizations such as Outloud and Kaleo Collective, but said council needs to discuss how it distributes outside agencies funding in the future. 

“When you have more organizations coming in and we haven’t increased the funding, we’re creating our own crisis,” Hughes said.

In 2022, non-profits applying for the outside agency grant asked for around $160,000 more than the city’s budget of $594,738. The budget has remained frozen since 2020.

Granting review underway

Anna Royer, St. Albert’s division business manager, said the city is currently undergoing a granting review that might result in changes to its grant policy. 

The first stage of the review, which involved gathering information about other communities, will be presented to council and the public on Feb. 7.

“More than anything, it’s really administration doing their due diligence to ensure we are as efficient as possible and making sure we’re responding to what council’s priorities are,” Royer said of the review. 

The review will help establish why and how the city gives out grants, Royer said. She gave the example of an existing policy that requires organizations to be St. Albert non-profits to receive grants. 

“A philosophical discussion that might come out would be … if our only provider is someone who is a not-for-profit not in St. Albert, is that OK?” Royer said.  

The advisory committee initially recommended SAIF receive half of its asking amount because SAIF typically serves around 60 to 70 per cent St. Albert residents — lower than the 80 per cent outlined in the outside agencies grant. 

Kelleppan noted though SAIF serves a majority of St. Albert residents, the city only provides 20 per cent of its funding. 

“In terms of looking dollar for dollar, the city gets a great deal,” Kelleppan said. 

While cities such as St. Albert are able to contract out services through non-profits such as SAIF, Kelleppan said this can sometimes be a bit of a catch-22 for these charities. For example, other municipal funders such as Sturgeon County and Parkland County have similar resident requirements. 

“If I take on Sturgeon County money, they will expect — just like St. Albert does — that we will spend money on their residents,” Kelleppan said. 

When asked whether the resident requirement in the outside agencies grant policy might be worth reevaluating, St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron said it was a “good question,” noting she personally tends to take a regional perspective. 

“I don’t isolate,” Heron said. “I can guarantee you St. Albert residents are using The Mustard Seed, or the Bissell Centre, or the emergency shelters in Edmonton. We … should be helping each other, and people should access the non-profit they feel an affinity to … so the residency thing is a hard one.”

Heron noted funding non-profits can be a tricky balance between ensuring community services are provided, and mitigating tax increases, arguing outside agencies' grants should not be considered as an “ongoing, predictable” source of revenue for non-profits. 

“Organizations really need to be increasing their efforts on fundraising and reaching out to the community,” Heron said. “Allow residents of St. Albert to give their money to the organizations they actually have a heart for and support, instead of just being told by council who they’re supporting through their tax dollars.”

Financial sustainability 

Kelleppan said SAIF is building up the capacity for financial sustainability through strategies such as budgeting for a contingency fund and setting up an endowment through planned giving, but noted these strategies are long term.

In 2021, SAIF managed to save up $12,500 for its rainy-day fund. This surplus, however, was cited by St. Albert’s Community Services Advisory Committee as one reason to give the organization a lower outside agency grant than it had asked for. 

Kelleppan said this reasoning is common when governments look to provide grants to the non-profit sector. While this is the norm, however, Kelleppan said now would be a strategic time for a paradigm shift given the pressing needs brought on by the pandemic. 

“I'm concerned about the way that we're looking at cutting services or cutting budgets, or looking at surpluses and saying the need isn't great … I think that we're being short sighted,” Kelleppan said. 

MacDonald said leaders are going to have to “set priorities and make choices.”

“Not investing in charities at a time when their citizens are actually going to more of those charities than ever before seems to be an ill-advised choice,” MacDonald said. 

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