No Blazers Required: A Consultation with Charities & Not-For-Profits
Franco Savoia
RCCD is a member of the Calgary Funders Table. RCCD, with nine other members of the group, hosted "No Blazers Required", a consultation with 60 community charities and not-for-profits. The Not-for-Profit Chamber facilitated two 90 minutes sessions. The discussions focused on deepening understanding of the needs, pain points, and questions that community organizations have about funders.
The sessions were organized so that the ten funders were able to meet with all 60 community organizations. Franco Savoia participated on behalf of RCCD. Steacy Pinney was present representing childhood literacy organizations.
Two overall impressions:
• The diversity of community organizations in terms of size, focus and unique needs being addressed.
• As well as, the diversity of funders and approaches and processes.
Some key take aways for community organizations are:
• They overwhelmingly appreciated the opportunity to meet with funders. Many sought to better understand funders’ priorities, processes and evaluation criteria.
• They are stretched, under resourced and have limited capacity. With pressure from funders to reduce costs, they are challenged to pay a living wage.
• The are frustrated by some funders’ hesitation to pay for administration- who is expected to pay for administration?
• They welcome and appreciate funders’ focus on outcomes. However it is difficult for projects to achieve impact on a one-year funding cycle. They would welcome multi-year funding.
• Community organizations would welcome greater coordination among funders: similar application forms, the reporting formats, etc.
• They are interested in greater collaboration in the delivery of services. However, for this to be successful it needs financial support from funders.
A report of the consultation to indicate learnings and to suggest next steps will be shared will all RCCD committees and other Rotary Clubs in Calgary.
