B.C.’s non-profits have been on the frontlines of some of the pandemic’s worst knock-on effects — combined with some of the worst of climate change. A raging opioid epidemic met with floods, wildfires, and extreme heat last summer. 

In response, last week, B.C.’s Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development and Nonprofits — the first role of its kind in the country — announced a new Recovery and Resiliency Fund for non-profits to adapt and be stronger in the face of future crises. 

It’s meant as a capacity-boosting fund, and while details of the funding, like the specific application processes and the size of the grants, aren’t yet finalized, Sharma says the fund plans to address many of the sector’s gripes with the usual formats of government funding. She and her team are thinking of shifting reporting requirements to the intermediaries (Vancouver Foundation, United Way BC, and Indigenous-owned New Relationship Trust) rather than placing them on the recipient organizations. Jenny Lee-Leugner of Vancouver Foundation tells Future of Good by email that they plan to simplify the application process. 

However, it’s also a matching fund, Parliamentary Secretary Niki Sharma tells Future of Good, meaning recipients will need to find philanthropic organizations to match grants from the Recovery and Resiliency Fund — so those philanthropic organizations may have their own onerous reporting and application processes. 

Future of Good Editor Kylie Adair sat down with Sharma to learn more — and gather insights for other provinces and the federal government.

Kylie Adair: I would like to start with last week’s big news. Last week, you announced $34 million in a Recovery and Resiliency Fund for non-profits and charities. Can you take us behind the scenes? How long have you been working on this fund? Who is involved? How did it come to be?

Parliamentary Secretary Niki Sharma: I spent a lot of time and the first year of my mandate, just speaking with ministers, other levels of government, internally, across ministry, to talk about how important the non-profit sector was, which I think is a big part of my role — helping government understand the contributions that the non-profit sector makes every year for our province, and that we as a government can’t do a lot of the things — in terms of achieving the wellbeing that we want to see in our province — without that partnership. So I think that all kind of culminated in the creation of the fund. Certainly, the sector’s done a good job of advocating for their needs, and they actually have somebody to do it to [now that my position exists], which I think, has been a big part of our ability to land where we did. And I think there’s really interesting things about the fund that will also be groundbreaking. 

We have a specific stream of it for Indigenous-led non-profits. One thing we heard from them pretty clearly with our engagement is: ‘We don’t want to compete for funding with other organizations. For serving our community, we know what’s best. And also we have all these challenges. It wasn’t just the pandemic that hit us the last few years, it was finding unmarked graves in British Columbia, it was the continuing impacts of colonization, that is a daily thing for communities.’ This fund sets a new standard for that relationship. The New Relationship Trust, an Indigenous-led trust in B.C. will administer the funding for Indigenous-led organizations. There were a lot of firsts within this fund for the sector that I’m really excited about.

Kylie Adair: What challenges did you face getting the fund off the ground?

Niki Sharma: There were logistical and operational challenges that we had to overcome. And then there was just the advocacy. So going internally to two different ministries, like I mentioned, and saying, not only is the sector experiencing the challenges of COVID, but they’re very specific to the sector. So it was me making the case to as many levels internally of government as I could, and my team. A lot of the funds that we had going out the door didn’t include non-profits because some of the funding criteria, even if it wasn’t intentional, left them out. And also, the sector isn’t thought about as the sector in general. It’s usually, in government, broken down into an arts organization or school sports organization or those kinds of things, rather than the overall sector. So, really, I think the work we were able to do started to show that there were common issues across non-profits that we were missing with our COVID response, which helped make the case for this specific fund. 

Kylie Adair: The grants are unrestricted and multi-year. Why is this? What did you hear from non-profits about the type of funding that is most helpful for them?

Niki Sharma: I think every executive director or leader in the non-profit sector would say that one of their biggest challenges is piecing together different funding streams from government or fundraisers to help pay for the costs of operation. So it’s that kind of targeted funding that helps build resiliency in the sector, which I think is a key word that maybe is overused right now — but it’s really important, right? If you’re going to be serving your community’s needs for a longer period of time, for as long as you can, we want to make sure that you have those supports to keep you as an organization doing the work that you’re doing. That’s the kind of thought behind structuring the funding like that. Clearly, there’s lots of work to do in that regard. Governments across Canada, frankly, should think about how we fund resiliency in the non-profit sector through the partnerships that we create, and the programs we fund. I really do hope that this fund sets a precedent for our government at least understanding how there’s a way to do that. 

Kylie Adair: Was there anything that non-profits asked for in terms of the type of funding or the rules around the funding that didn’t make the cut this time around, but that you’d like to implement into future funding opportunities?

Niki Sharma: One of the biggest things I hear is, does the amount of money that we provided meet the need that we see? It’s a matching fund. So we’re really hoping that if we can demonstrate the value to the sector, that other bigger foundations or other organizations are able to contribute to this type of fund, so it can grow and expand the needs that are out there. 

Kylie Adair: What makes for a resilient non-profit?

Niki Sharma: There are so many, probably, different answers to that question. But really, I think it’s being able to support the work of your organization over a long period of time. So whether it’s HR or technology, or office spaces, or those kinds of things that I think if they’re stable, they help your stability as an organization. You know, I think there’s a lot of probably very specific things that different non-profits would answer for that question, because maybe resiliency in their community with their needs meet something different, right. So part of the fund will actually think about more of a trust-based approach that I think will be administered by our partners to think about that, to respond to the needs that were coming at that they’re telling us they need to build resiliency, right.

Kylie Adair: What kind of relationship are you building with the sector? What kind do you want to build?

Niki Sharma: You know, I say quite often in a lot of places that I am, it’s time for the non-profit sector to take its seat at the table, when it comes to our policy, our government and how we think about the province. That’s part of the work that we’re building up to every day.

Kylie Adair: You’re doing a lot of groundwork right now, and I imagine you’re thinking a lot about what it will come to bear in the years to come. In five or 10 years, if you could envision a really flourishing non-profit sector in B.C., what would it look like? Can you paint us that picture?

Niki Sharma: That’s a beautiful question and something I think about every day. I feel like one of my tasks is to really build up the structures beyond my positions — the things that are within government that understand not only the power of the non-profit sector, but also that just automatically puts the non-profit sector at the table. And all of those discussions will have a multiplying effect in terms of the impacts that we can see within the sector in general, but also our partnership. I see a time in five to 10 years when we really understand and appreciate the impacts of the non-profit sector and that workforce and the contributions that it makes every day to our society, and that impact is reflected in our policy decision. And, that means that we are better at all the things I talked about: partnerships, setting up places for advocacy so we can respond to policy changes that need to happen at a government level through the work of the non-profit sector, and understanding what’s going on in our communities, because they are the sector on the frontline of a lot of that work. One of the beautiful things about that partnership is that a lot of leaders in the non-profit sector are there to ask government to do better sometimes, right? To ask government to play a bigger role or to be partners with them in achieving the outcomes. There’s so much positive impact there if we have a strong partnership. I really hope that that is something that is able to come from my work over the next five to 10 years.

To watch the full video conversation — including details about the fund’s application process, Sharma’s position on a federal secretariat for the non-profit sector, what’s changed for non-profits in her time as Parliamentary Secretary, and more — become a Future of Good member today. 

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