Posts Tagged ‘philanthropy’
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The Problem with Food Banks
Monday, April 30th, 2012
April 25, 2012
Canada signed and ratified the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1967 — and other international agreements following — that guarantee the right to food. But it’s not entrenched in our constitution, our domestic law. The right to food is particularly problematic in the Canadian context, because social rights, like welfare for example, are provincial responsibilities. “It’s the old problem of Canadian federalism… It becomes messy in terms of whose government is really responsible for this.”
Tags: budget, ideology, philanthropy, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
A call for Canadian charities to become politically active
Sunday, April 22nd, 2012
Apr 21 2012
Even among those charities that have an interest in public policy, there is a reluctance to engage, and few play anywhere close to the 10 per cent level… Since governments have shed much of their policy capacity in the last few decades, they need good ideas from outside, and particularly from those working close to the coal face of society’s problems… Many charities who weren’t aware of the 10 per cent rule can now gear up to add a public policy dimension to their work, to begin to get a grip on one of the biggest levers of change for the better.
Tags: participation, philanthropy, rights, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »
Stephen Harper’s attack on charities doesn’t go far enough
Saturday, April 21st, 2012
Apr 20 2012
… you and I are both on the hook for a portion of $2.8 million in so-called charitable donations that the Fraser Institute raised in 2010. Its donors too received charitable tax receipts. I don’t know about you. But I resent having to subsidize an organization that spends much its time fulminating for neo-liberalism. For the same reason, I have no interest in helping to fund the Canadian Constitution 2005 Foundation, which agitates against medicare… So what is to be done? The simplest answer is to scrap charitable tax receipts entirely. Distinguishing between real and bogus charities is an almost impossible task. Even established charities can be controversial.
Tags: featured, ideology, philanthropy, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »
Canada’s non-profit sector invents a solution to gaps in funding
Friday, April 20th, 2012
Apr 19 2012
The recession hit Canada’s non-profit sector hard. Demand surged. Donations shrank. Foundations suspended grants to protect their endowments. Government support held up for a time as Ottawa and the provinces poured money into the moribund economy, then it too was cut… Innovative non-profit organizations shelved groundbreaking projects and went into survival mode… In 2010, the Community Forward Fund (CFF) was born. It took another two years of work — painstaking legal work — to build Canada’s first non-profit lending institution.
Tags: budget, participation, philanthropy, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
Charities working hard for your money
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
Dec. 20, 2011
Social services come in all shapes and sizes. Some are remarkably effective, and some are not. Some are nimble and creative, and some are not. The best ones change people’s lives. But too many of them mistake activity for results… Good social-service agencies are incredibly important, because the government can’t possibly do what they do. Governments aren’t flexible, efficient or smart enough. But social-service agencies, like everybody else, will have to get much better at what they do. They’ve got to compete harder than ever for donor money.
Tags: budget, ideology, philanthropy
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
When it comes to charity, Quebec still can’t find its wallet
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
Dec 15, 2011
Quebec is the least religious of the provinces (and in fact the most militantly anti-religious). Quebec is also the most statist (and highly taxed) of the provinces. Quebecers figure their taxes are taking care of all the social problems, or should be taking care of them, and it is therefore no surprise that they are the least likely to take responsibility for the afflictions of others. Which is a great argument against statism… Statism tends to suffocate the blessing of empathy. Statism promotes civic immaturity. One more in a long litany of reasons for working to bring down the size of government.
Tags: ideology, philanthropy, standard of living, tax
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
Charities under pressure
Saturday, December 10th, 2011
Dec 09 2011
Food Banks Canada reported a shocking 851,014 people received sustenance from a food bank in March 2011, virtually identical to 2010, and 26 per cent higher than before the 2008-2009 recession. Reported cases for social assistance in Ontario also jumped more than 30,000 in the past 18 months, proving that despite the economic recovery, there are many in need… More troubling, the economic prospects ahead are not going to alleviate the current heightened demand for charitable services.
Tags: economy, philanthropy, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Give to charities, but also advocate for justice for the poor
Thursday, December 8th, 2011
Dec. 6, 2011
Justice is the gift that keeps on giving, through January and beyond. It tackles the root causes of poverty rather than focusing on its temporary alleviation… It would rebuild the social safety net that is supposed to help people get back on their feet but increasingly holds them down. It would tackle the chronic hunger experienced by so many… You might think it will be too expensive. But we all pay for poverty through higher health-care, policing, criminal-justice and social-service costs. Purely on economic grounds, it makes sense to tackle poverty directly…
Tags: ideology, philanthropy, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Paul Martin is making a difference
Thursday, December 1st, 2011
Nov 30 2011
In 2008, he launched the Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative, a national project that offers programs designed to help lower dropout rates for aboriginal students. He has also created a fund to help aboriginal entrepreneurs start new businesses. At the same time, Martin is co-chair of the Congo Basin Forest Fund, which addresses poverty issues in a 10-nation region in Africa… He’s also taken time out in recent days to speak in support of the Occupy movement, praising it for raising awareness of the income-inequality gap.
Tags: Indigenous, participation, philanthropy, rights, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
CAMH gets $30-million donation for new research institute
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
Nov. 28, 2011
Cutting-edge work investigating new ways to treat mental illness and provide better care for patients will soon be one step closer to reality because of a massive $30-million donation to create a new research institute at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. The donation, made by the daughters of the late Audrey Campbell and their families, is the largest private donation ever made to a mental health and addiction research hospital in Canada.
Tags: mental Health, philanthropy
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
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