Federal budget gives National Volunteer Action Strategy a boost – but more needed

Organizations say while they’re grateful for government money to develop a national volunteer strategy, it falls millions of dollars short of the total amount required to create and implement such an initiative.

Volunteer Canada will receive $400,000 in federal funding to create a National Volunteer Action Strategy, according to budget documents released last week.

“We didn’t have necessarily any expectations as to what was going to come [out of the] budget, so we were pleasantly surprised to see at least some partial contribution towards the strategy development process,” said Megan Conway, president and CEO of Volunteer Canada. 

Creating a national volunteerism strategy was the key recommendation of a 2019 Senate report titled Catalyst for Change — a Roadmap to a Stronger Charitable Sector.  

Volunteer Canada released a comprehensive plan to develop that strategy last December. Once implemented, it would create new frameworks and pathways for engagement and participation. 

It also aims to address economic, cultural, and social cohesion issues.

Urgent challenges, such as increased living costs, an aging population, the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, an epidemic of loneliness and the climate crisis make revitalizing volunteerism more important than ever before, said Conway.

“We’ve been working for a while now to build the case for a national volunteer action strategy,” she said. “And I think we’re seeing the result of having a lot of productive conversations across government.”

Funding solutions could include business, philanthropy

The organization estimates it will need $1 million annually for three years to hold consultations, convene research, communicate with stakeholders, and develop the final strategy.

Implementing the strategy will require additional money. 

“We’re still in the process of looking for other funding sources, definitely, but we’ve seen some positive contributions from business and philanthropy,” Conway said. 

“This is at least a good partial contribution from government around strategy development, with the hope that there would be a longer-term investment made around the implementation,” she said.

Volunteer Canada will now look to Economic and Social Development Canada for specifics on this newly announced funding.

“The next step is working through details around an operationalization of that of the strategy and how we’re going build that out and I anticipate more details to come on that in the next couple of months,” said Conway.

Volunteer Canada has found that as many as 65 per cent of non-profit organizations are experiencing volunteer shortages; 35 per cent have had to reduce services in recent years.