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Building on a decade of funding reform efforts
Funding reform has been a policy priority at ONN since 2013. With a new government in 2018, and a pandemic following not long after, our lay of the land around government funded nonprofit needs quickly became outdated.
In 2024, thanks to support from Atkinson Foundation, we were able to activate a data collection strategy. Traveling across Ontario we spoke to a diverse range of nonprofits from sports nonprofits to Indigenous organizations, healthcare, and nonprofit housing all of whom had plenty to say about the evolution of funding over the past six years.
Through these discussions we developed survey questions on issues with Transfer Payment Agreements (TPAs), and used the resulting data to build out our key informant interview process with more diverse nonprofits. What we learned was that though much had changed, many things had stayed the same; but more importantly new approaches were necessary to confront the consistent funding problems.
Why focus on funding reform?
The breadth, depth, and public benefit nature of nonprofit work necessitates we have financial stability with adequate investments that allow us to focus on our missions rather than on chasing money. Unfortunately, the constantly changing economic, political, and social landscape continues to significantly and rapidly impact nonprofit sustainability.
If operational costs, including nonprofit wages, don’t keep pace with those of the local school boards, governments, or private sector, nonprofit sustainability is directly impacted as more time and money is spent tackling successive HR crises than focusing on the work.
We understood that the reverberating impacts of issues with funding further entrenched many nonprofits in a cycle of “catch-up” that rarely allowed them to get ahead let alone innovate. As the economic and social circumstances changed, so too did our funding advocacy.
Our strategies and learnings on funding reform
From our conversations with nonprofits, jurisdictional scans, our 2024 ONN State of the Sector Survey, and key informant interviews we learned a few things:
- Ideally the sector needs champion(s) in the provincial government (political and/or bureaucratic) for ongoing funding reform.
- Asking for more money was going to be a hard argument to make in this economic context.
- Pivoting to asking for “better money” options (no-to-low cost policy solutions) fits with the government’s approach to red tape and administrative reduction.
- Negotiation as a tactic can be used by individual organizations but often made small gains that didn’t result in deeper change.
We took the major themes from our interviews with the sector, and began developing four funding briefs that could be used as resources for nonprofits on TPAs that help advocate for “better money”.
Funding reform briefs: What’s in them and how to use them
Each brief was structured to: identify a specific transfer payment agreement issue and explain how this issue impacted nonprofits, provide context behind why the issue manifests alongside a case study, and outline the opportunity in resolving the issue.
All of the briefs offer an opportunity, detailing ways in which these issues can be addressed by the provincial government in collaboration with the nonprofit sector. These briefs serve as government relations (GR) resources that can accompany nonprofits to meetings with government officials and/or program officers, serving as further evidence of issues being faced with TPAs.
- Brief one: Government lacks knowledge of the sector
One of the most common funding issues that the sector faces is that many politicians and bureaucrats struggle to understand the full breadth of the work of organizations they fund. This disconnect can lead to misunderstandings about the funding needs, capacity, and potential of the sector especially when it comes to the development of funding agreements.
- Brief two: Lack of flexibility in funding agreements
Lack of flexibility within TPAs continues to burden the sector. Stringent budget lines make it difficult for the sector to move money around to support changes in programming or organizational needs that often take place over the duration of the agreement.
- Brief three: Increasing administrative burden
Over the past decade administrative requirements have become a more onerous part of fulfilling TPAs. This is a result of government shifting to prioritizing “efficiency” and “quality control” in funding agreements and as a result, over the past decade, administrative requirements have become more time consuming.
- Brief four: Increasing mergers
Mergers are becoming increasingly popular as government seeks to streamline as well as decrease the amount of funding agreements they hold. Too often government can assume that mergers will result in cost savings though this is rarely true. In reality, when done on the organizations’ terms and not under pressure, mergers have the ability to strengthen and ultimately improve service delivery.
Four ways nonprofits can use ONN’s funding reform briefs
- Copy and paste: Use ONN’s language and information in the briefs to talk about the TPA issues you are experiencing with your program officer and other elected officials. Don’t forget there’s also survey data that you can draw from. Use our survey resources to collect data and stories to highlight funding concerns, and table recommendations.
- Offer solutions: Share the opportunity and solutions, a case for things to be better, and actual recommendations to act on.
- Advocate: If you are a network or association, use the briefs to support your meetings with government officials for sub-sector specific advocacy.
- Join ONN’s coalition: Let’s advance funding reform together! We’re all saying the same thing for a better chance at systems change. Better than the fragmented way, collective advocacy is the best strategy for our sector.
