06
Feb 2017Don’t let evaluation become the elephant in the room
Evaluation… Impact Assessment… Reporting… Simple in concept, but capable of causing severe challenges for your organization if not properly managed. So, why are many nonprofits missing this important piece? In the private sector, where my experience lies, measurement and evaluation is relatively straightforward: Return on investment. Profitability. Efficiency and effectiveness. In the nonprofit world as I’m learning, however, measurement and evaluation is much more complicated....
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30
Jan 2017The perils of recipe thinking in the not-for-profit sector
If you stuck me in a kitchen without a recipe book, I wouldn’t know where to start. When you are inexperienced or lack confidence, a recipe is an amazing thing. It breaks up a complex task into simple steps. It minimizes the risk of making a mistake. It allows you to achieve things you couldn’t otherwise do. Skilled chefs use recipes, of course, but they...
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30
Jan 2017Evaluation: Expanding design learning
Late last fall, ONN’s evaluation project took me to the American Evaluation Association’s annual conference in Atlanta, Georgia, to present alongside Andrew Taylor, ONN’s Resident Evaluation Expert. For me, it was an important professional development opportunity (one of the seven elements of decent work) and, thinking back, it was a bit of a surreal experience. Never did I think I would be in Atlanta at...
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12
Jan 2017Can charities and nonprofits help heal social division?
The world of democracies seems to be an uneasy and unpredictable one these days. Voters have chosen to support candidates and policies that threaten to upend the status quo, from the election of Donald Trump in the US to the support of Brexit by British voters, to the recent result of the Italian referendum. People who have voted this way are not necessarily ideological radicals...
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09
Jan 2017Decent Work: Could harassment be lurking in your collaborative workplace culture?
One of the many wonderful things about the nonprofit sector is its hallmark of being values-driven – admirable values like integrity, respect, openness – the values that draw us to work in the sector in the first place. Compare this with the stats about workplace harassment: – For Personal Support Workers in Ontario, 20% experience harassment or violence on-the-job – 50% of workplace harassment victims...
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04
Jan 2017How the federal charity reform process can be enriched by provincial and regional nonprofit networks
Big changes may be coming to how Canada regulates charities. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau specified in his mandate letter to the minister of national revenue to “modernize the rules governing the charitable and not-for-profit sectors” and to clarify the rules governing “political activity,” proposing that “a new legislative framework to strengthen the sector will emerge from this process”. It is easy to understand why national...
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19
Dec 2016Time to roll up our sleeves and lead
As with many in the nonprofit sector here in Canada, over the last month our team has watched our US nonprofit counterparts struggle with what the new administration will mean for their organizations, their communities and the role of the nonprofit sector in the country. As public benefit organizations, we are closely connected to communities with an ear to the ground – seeing firsthand when...
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07
Dec 2016ONN in conversation: Yes, government funding will get easier for nonprofits
Funding reform, arguably one of ONN’s most challenging policy files to-date, has the network working closely with government to reform the policies, practices, and procedures for how funding is provided to the sector. Funding, cited as a key barrier facing nonprofit organizations, is not only about the size and stability of dollars, but also the administrative requirements and how the funding flows. This, for now,...
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29
Nov 2016Five Steps Towards Good Jobs
Our commitment to decent work began many years ago when we committed to being evidence-informed and using data to inform our planning and evaluation processes. This means all data, but in particular data and knowledge that was co-created with community through our community based research program. It became crystal clear to us that bad jobs are making people sick, that pathways to precarious employment are...
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03
Nov 2016A new advocacy chill? The Election Finances Act
The Government of Ontario recently reintroduced The Election Finances Statute Law Amendment Act (Bill 2 – formerly Bill 201), which changes the rules for provincial election financing. We don’t disagree with Bill 2’s stated intent. To reduce the influence of powerful third-party spenders in elections is a good thing. Democracy can be subverted when there is too much influence from wealthy third parties on politics....
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