Tired of “siloed” conversations, Justice Fund protest brings disbursement quota advocacy to the street

This story is part of the Future of Good editorial fellowship covering the social impact world’s rapidly changing funding models, supported by Community Foundations of Canada and United Way Centraide Canada.

On Thursday, the Justice Fund hosted a demonstration at Toronto’s city hall, calling on Canadian charities to “move the money” and stop “hoarding” more than $85 billion in resources. 

“We’re tired of these pompous, self-serving, pseudo-intellectuals within the philanthropic community [who] feed us virtue signaling and incrementalism,” said Yonis Hassan, CEO of the Justice Fund, a Toronto-based organization. 

“With 1.4 million Canadians working in the charitable sector and 86,000 charities in this country, we believe in our collective ability to solve these crises only if the philanthropic sector moves the money.” 

The demonstration comes on the same day as the launch of the Philanthropic Foundations of Canada conference — a “happy accident,” said Hassan; and comes amidst heated debate in the philanthropic sector about the ‘disbursement quota’ — the policy that governs the amount that registered charities must spend on charitable programs and services each year. (Currently, charities are required to disburse no more than 3.5 percent of their assets each year.) 

This fall, the government welcomed submissions from charitable sector organizations about a potential increase to the disbursement quota, sparking sharply-penned op-eds and more than 100 submissions by email and letter on both sides of the debate.   

The Justice Fund was one of the loudest proponents of this reform, calling for the government to bump the disbursement quota rate to 10 percent. They were joined in their call by several large sector network organizations, including Philanthropic Foundations of Canada (who called for an increase of “at least” 5 percent), Community Foundations of Canada (who called for a “meaningful” increase), and the Ontario Nonprofit Network, among others. 

But not everyone was in favour. 

The federal advisory committee to the charitable sector, a government-appointed body, did not call for a DQ increase in their federal submission on the topic, nor did the Canadian Association of Gift Planners, or the Canadian Bar Association. 

Both the ACCS and the CAGP said that the DQ was not the right tool for the task of trying to increase charitable funding to grassroots groups — that increasing the quota alone wouldn’t change the status quo, but may simply mean more money distributed to large charities, universities, and other qualified donees. 

But until today, all of this advocacy — both for and against a DQ increase — has taken place online or during sector events. 

“The conversation has been amongst the philanthropic sector by themselves. I spent this whole year having private conversations. That’s not getting anything done,” said Hassan. “It’s time for the general public, the majority of Canadians, to understand that there’s this much money in the sector.” 

Richelle Nelson (right), who joined the demonstration on Thursday, said it was “enraging” to learn about the wealth being held by Canadian foundations, especially as so many arts-based organizations struggle for funding. She is pictured here with her colleague, Sariena Luy (left). 

Richelle Nelson and Sariena Luy are two young community activists, artists and non-profit workers who joined the demonstration today. 

“It’s funny because when we got sent the [invitation to the demonstration], we’re like, how do you even read that number? Like, 85 billion? That’s a lot of zeros!” said Nelson, the creative director of Flaunt It, a grassroots, youth-led organization. “And then we’re like, ‘And only 3 percent of it is given away?’ It’s just like, wait, what? What do you mean? Where’s the rest of it going?” she said. 

Nelson and Luy are colleagues at Flaunt It, an initiative that has received support from the Justice Fund for their work to empower women in the Jane-Finch neighborhood in northwest Toronto. Prior to being invited to attend the demonstration, neither had ever heard of the disbursement quota, nor of the collective wealth of the charitable sector. 

In fact, they’d been told the opposite story. 

“It’s kind of enraging. To see the fact that the money is there, and we’ve been told this rhetoric for so long…like, ‘We don’t have money. There’s no money for these spaces.’ But like, it is there, right? But it’s just not fitting the agenda which they want to give the money for,” said Nelson. 

Last winter, research conducted by the Foundation for Black Communities found that Black-led organizations received less than 0.1 percent of all grants from community foundations in 2017 and 2018. Donations to Indigenous organizations experience a similar funding gap. Earlier this year, CanadaHelps found that just 1 percent of all donations on their platform in 2020 went to Indigenous charities. 

“In the past couple years especially, we’ve been seeing these statements about people’s commitment to BIPOC organizations and communities and so on…But we’re [also] being told that not-for-profit spaces don’t have money,” said Luy.  

“Essentially, this 85 billion is [here] to help us — the organizations all across the city are doing this work,” said Luy. “Charities need to be about helping our communities.” 

Nelson and Luy were glad to join the demonstration because, Nelson said, it fit with the ethos of their work with Flaunt it — “through community, by community.”

“I think this is a way for marginalized groups and folks who are actually trying to be a part of the community to take their voices back and actually lead by example. [We’re not waiting] for somebody else to tell us what to do.” 

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