Full video: B.C.’s Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development and Non-Profits on the province’s new $34 million recovery fund
Why It Matters
Non-profits across the country have said repeatedly, since the pandemic began, that recovery funds from different levels of government haven’t worked for their specific needs. They’ve also pushed for dedicated parliamentary representatives. Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development and Nonprofits Niki Sharma’s work addresses both.
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.
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