Non-profits aiming to build united front before election

By Ry Clarke - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on March 28, 2023.

With a provincial election on May 29, many residents are turning their attention to politics, and more specifically, which party will best represent them in the future.
As Albertans browse the catalogue of whose-who in the races, many organizations will be doing the same, looking to see who best fits their needs. Non-profits in the province will be looking to build a united front ahead of the upcoming election, creating a collective voice that will advocate for the work they do, the “nonprofit vote.”
Working towards that goal, Volunteer Lethbridge hosted a “Community Nonprofit Table Discussion” Monday afternoon at its office downtown, bringing together members from local nonprofits to raise concerns and questions regarding the sector, formulating questions to raise to provincial candidates.
“We are in preparations for the provincial election, and it is important to us that we come together and we galvanize around what this sector needs,” said Amanda Jensen, Executive Director of Volunteer Lethbridge.
“We have come together around a report that was commissioned by our peers in Calgary called ‘Too Essential To Fail,’ which told us what were feeling and seeing: that we are a sector in trouble, overworked and under resourced. We have come together with five main priorities that we are going to be asking of any government that forms.”
The five points include:
• a commitment in Budget 2023 to an investment of $100-million per year for three years in a community prosperity fund.
• A commitment in Budget 2023 to index grant programs, like CFEP and CIP.
• Better data collection, a workforce strategy, and better connection with government bodies.
“We will be talking about those platform priorities today, and what we are seeing and feeling we want from our potential MLA’s,” said Jensen. “We will be taking those questions to the candidates once the writ has dropped sometime in late April.”
An event is scheduled on April 14, æThe Nonprofit Vote Town Hall,” but if the writ has not dropped it will be pushed back.
The discussion helped bring non-profits together to air similar grievances and work towards a collective goal.
“We are not overloading and making common asks, we have some varying needs, but generally the needs that we are presenting to government through this campaign are things that everyone across the sector needs, so we can be specific and targeted with what we are asking for,” said Jensen.
Jensen notes, while non-profits do work in the community, their priorities have shifted towards funding rather than their mandates.
“We have to fundraise and find dollars, scrounging, and it takes the focus off of the mission of the organization. Speaking for myself with Volunteer Lethbridge, I sure wish I could focus a lot more on volunteerism and community engagement more than I do with trying to meet a budget and keep people employed,” said Jensen. “We contribute, non-profits in Alberta, $5.5-billion towards GDP. When we are asking for funds, we are not asking for handouts, we are asking for fair contributions to a thriving industry that needs funding. That’s 227-million volunteer hours last year in Alberta, and we shouldn’t need to be in the position of bake sales and raffles to be funded equitably in the same way governments invest in other sectors of Alberta.”
The event saw unity among non-profits in Lethbridge.
“We want to know which candidate is going to best serve our sector. This is the first time Volunteer Lethbridge has been involved in an advocacy campaign to this degree, and there has been a lot of interest, it sold out right away,” said Jensen. “We are all in a similar boat, and we are not alone.”

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