“Heal thyself”: Senator Ratna Omidvar on the state of the charitable sector’s modernization
Why It Matters
Over two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, charities and non-profits are still struggling to adapt. From retaining staff to moving their work online, there’s a massive need for modernization — in order to meet growing demand from devastated communities. Senator Omidvar says if the government had heeded the recommendations in Catalyst for Change, the sector could have shown much more resilience.
It’s been three years since Catalyst for Change, the report by the Special Senate Committee on the Charitable Sector came out. With 42 recommendations meant to modernize the charitable sector in Canada, it was an important moment in the world of social purpose.
It also happened in an entirely different world — a world where the COVID-19 pandemic hadn’t yet struck.
The pandemic has in many ways accelerated the need for modernization, from where and how (and how much) money flows to the digitization of charities’ work to treating the sector’s workers better.
To mark the three-year anniversary of Catalyst for Change, Future of Good’s editor Kylie Adair sat down with Senator Ratna Omidvar, the deputy chair of the Special Senate Committee on the Charitable Sector, to dive into progress, lack thereof, and where the sector should go from here.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Kylie Adair: It’s been three years since ‘Catalyst for Change’ came out. This was 2019, before the pandemic began. If you could have foreseen the pandemic, would you have written the report differently? What’s one recommendation you would have added? Any you’d take out?
Senator Ratna Omidvar: Of course we would have written the report differently. There’s no doubt about that. We would have had a whole set of recommendations related to crisis management, related to risk management. Some sectors, some organizations, were better prepared because they had risk mitigation strategies in place, they had risk insurance. They lost audience — I think it was the Shaw Festival, they lost their audience, but they maintained fiscal stability because their board had had the foresight many years ago to take out risk insurance.
And obviously we would have paid greater attention to the technological and digital capacity of the sector. This is an underlying, broad theme in the sector. During the crisis, everyone pivoted to online, but it took a lot of pain. We would have been able to pivot to online services and interface with clients if there had been some kind of a common platform that was well-prepared in advance and monitored. Hindsight is 20/20.
I would have also added a recommendation, if I could look into the future, on the disbursement quota. Money is an issue in the sector, and we were cautious in our recommendation. We didn’t say in the report, ‘Increase the quota from X to Y.’ We said the government should review the disbursement quota.
Kylie Adair: So you would have added a recommendation to raise the disbursement quota?
Senator Omidvar: I mean, I was one member. But I would have certainly said it’s time to review and increase the disbursement quota. I would not have put a percentage on it. I think that is up to the government, through its consultations, to do.
Kylie Adair: Much of the report is focused on the sector’s workforce. We’re hearing lots lately on this concept of a ‘great resignation’. We know the data doesn’t really support that this great resignation is taking place in Canada’s charitable sector, but we’re hearing anecdotally that some organizations are struggling to attract and retain workers. Is this something you’re hearing too?
Senator Omidvar: I’m not hearing that, but it points to one of the significant deficits that we have, in that we don’t collect enough information and we don’t collect it in a sustained manner. One witness told us that on any given day, you can always find out how many eggs were laid by Canadian chickens. But you’d never know how many people work in the charitable sector. Gathering evidence on employment trends in the sector, about people coming, people going, people’s aspirations — these indicators and this evidence are important. We kind of know that 2.5 million people are employed by the sector — that is significant, by the way, but I don’t know how up to date that figure is. We use that figure again and again. I just don’t know how up to date that figure is. I think we need to put our shoulder to the heavy lifting of developing data plans and evidence gathering in partnership with the government, possibly in partnership with Statistics Canada. We have a set of recommendations around data and evidence that still need to be acted on.
Kylie Adair: Any other ways COVID has exposed cracks in the sector?
Senator Omidvar: The sector’s governance is out of tune with the demographic of our country. There is no issue with gender — women are serving on the boards of charities and not-for-profits and foundations at the same rate as men and that is good, but that does not hold true for racialized minorities, for disabled people, for Indigenous people, et cetera. I believe that if we had addressed this problem 10 years ago, and the boards would have been more in tune and more in line with the emerging needs of the sector, then racialized communities, Indigenous communities could have been better served.
Kylie Adair: The report is written as recommendations for the federal government, but there are many recommendations that could be taken up by the sector itself. What should the charitable sector prioritize over the next year or so?
Senator Omidvar: I believe there’s much the sector can do if it decides to do so collectively and collaboratively. They can decide to start gathering data on their own, for instance. They don’t have to wait for the government to do it. They can say, ‘Gathering evidence on impact, efficiency, governance, etc. is in our hands. We are going to do it.’ I’ve heard, time and time again, about governance capacity — this is not something you want the government’s sticky fingers in. You want to increase the capacity of governance in the sector yourself, maybe with some help from the government, but you don’t want them to come in with a heavy, heavy hand. [The sector] could table its own equity plans. I’m working on, hopefully, a piece of legislation that will require charities and not-for-profits that are federally regulated to disclose annually the demographics of their governance leadership, just as we require of Canada’s federally regulated corporations — we already have that legislation. If the sector is as important to the fabric of society as we say it is, then it should also be held accountable. It should hold itself to account. Again, these are things the sector can do for itself or it can let the government in. I always think self regulation — heal thyself — is much more effective than outside interference.
To watch the full video recording of this conversation — including more on the changing relationship between the charitable sector and the federal government, what philanthropic organizations should prioritize to help charities modernize, and more — become a Future of Good member today.
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