Community Group Funding

Update: June 20, 2020

If you scroll down, you’ll see lots of information about the City’s funding of Community Groups. This information was put together in early March.

Council hasn’t made any changes since then. However, Council Committee of the Whole will be meeting on June 24th to discuss potential changes.

At the direction of Council, administration has created recommendations which see total Community Group Funding reduced by ~$185,000 next year. You can read these recommendations here.

I’m very comfortable with us re-allocating funding between organisations to better meet community priorities. But I don’t see a need to have our total pot of grants reduced.

I’m not supportive of reducing Community Group Funding. I wasn’t before COVID-19 impacted our community. And I’m even less so now. This is for two reasons:

• Many residents are struggling with mental wellness and financial viability. And many non-profits they rely on for important, affordable services are in jeopardy due to reduced revenue. Now is not the time to put these services at greater risk by reducing their grant funding.

• The City needs to be more conscious than ever about making wise spending decisions. And often non-profits can deliver community services much more cost effectively than government can. I fear that causing some of our partners to struggle may be penny wise but pound foolish.

I’m concerned about having an overall funding reduction.

But I’m also very concerned by two specific cuts being proposed: significant reductions to Library and Sport Connector funding. In the recommendations, these two organisations receive the largest cuts. I’m still waiting to learn more about why these cuts are proposed. But I’m unlikely to support them.

Additionally, my current understanding is that recommendations provide for multi-year funding to be provided to organisations. This is a good step: annual funding introduces a lot of unnecessary work and uncertainty. However, in multi-year funding agreements, some provision should be made to adjust funding with inflation community need. I’d like to see an addition to the funding policy made to have core funding grow (or contract) along with the City’s total tax levy.

I’m still processing the recommendations coming before Committee. And I’ll be going into our meeting with an open mind. However, my above thinking is likely to shape the motions I support or make.

Following on this page is more information about the City’s funding of community groups.

The City’s job is to create a great, safe, resilient community for people to live and work in. It does this by delivering a number of programs directly. However, the City also works with community organisations. One way the City partners with others: by providing funding.

The City provides Community Group Funding to approximately 40 local non-profits. This funding is important: non-profits in our community contribute significantly to residents’ quality of life. And often non-profits deliver programs better and more efficiently than government can.

However, Community Group Funding has recently become a hot topic.

All members of Council see the importance of providing some funding to community groups. But there are some who question the total amount being given by the City. Our economy is suffering and the City has been working hard to reduce spending. Some think that Community Group Funding should be reduced.

Council has also expressed concern about our allocation process.

It is important to know that this is an ongoing conversation and no final decisions have been made yet.

As you learn more about this conversation, I hope you’ll let Council know what your thoughts are.

ON THIS PAGE

Following is more information about Community Group Funding. I lay out how funding is currently allocated and what changes are being contemplated. At the end of this page, I provide my current opinion on where Council should go next.

Any mistakes or opinions expressed here belong to me and me alone.

If you don’t want to read this whole page, you can click on section links below:

Community Funding Today

• Total Money Allocated

• Groups that Receive Funding

Potential Changes

• Changes Already Made This Council Term

• Administration’s Recommendations

• Council’s Current Direction to Administration

• What’s Next?

My Takes on Community Group Funding

• Overall Funding in 2021

• A Change Formula is Needed

• Allocating Funding to Specific Groups

• How COVID-19 Impacts Funding

Have Your Say

In 2020, Council has budgeted $3,569,003 for Community Group Funding. This is money that is directly awarded to non-profits by Council.

A few numbers that are useful to put Community Group Funding into perspective:

• It represents ~2.2% of the City’s annual spending ($162,122,527 was the total spent by the City in 2018).

• It is equivalent to about $54 per resident

• If community group funding was reduced to $0, taxes could decrease by ~3.1%. That would save the average household approximately $7.75 per month. (Note: no one has suggested eliminating Community Group Funding completely- I am just sharing these numbers to show its total impact on taxpayers).

There are two important notes to this funding total:

• It does not include Gifts In Kind (such as free use of City facilities) given to groups

• It does not include all City money given to external groups. In partnership with the province, the City funds a number of preventative social programs through Family and Community Support Services. The City also has a number of smaller scale grant programs such as the Tourism Event Fund and Arts Development Project Grants.

The types of groups that receive funding include:

• Libraries (these receive approximately half of the City’s Community Group Funding)

• Cultural groups (ex: South Peace Regional Archives, Centre for Creative Arts, the Art Gallery)

• Youth and senior organisations (ex: Big Brothers and Sisters, Golden Age Centre)

• Economic development initiatives (ex: Community Futures, Regional Tourism Association)

• Community outreach and rehabilitative initiatives (ex: Youth Emergency Shelter, Saint Lawrence Centre, Rising Above)

• Sport groups (ex: Regional Sport Connector, Nitehawk, Curling Club)

• Safety initiatives (ex: STARS, Technical Search and Rescue, Victims Services)

You can see what funding requests were made and which were granted for 2020 by clicking here.

Our current Council was elected in October 2017. Since then, significant changes have been made to the Community Group Funding process. However, totally funding hasn’t been significantly changed- it has received a minor increase.

Prior to this Council term, external groups were funded through a variety of processes. Some groups received funding based on the decisions of City staff, some based on direct actions of Council. Funding came out of a variety of departmental budgets. There was no consistent process to apply for funding, and no transparency as to how external groups were being supported.

Our Council directed change. We left some grant programs in place. But we directed most external funding to be put into one “Community Group Funding” pool. This funding pool was given a single application process. Final allocation decisions are made by Council based on recommendations from administration.

Throughout this process change, Council has not reduced the total amount of Community Group Funding granted by the City. In fact, the funding was increased by $55,900 in 2019. However, Council has also received over $1,000,000 in new applications for Community Group Funding. This has resulted in some individual groups seeing their funding reduced to create space for new organisations.

Over our term, Council has put financial pressure on the City. We’ve insisted on finding aggressive cost savings and efficiencies. And our management has been delivering that. The City is a much leaner operation now than it was a couple years ago.

I’ve been very proud that administration has been focused on finding internal savings. Through three budget cycles, it has not recommended making any cuts to Community Group Funding.

However, Council has expressed that it wants to see Grande Prairie’s residential property taxes be more in line with other Alberta municipalities. This has led administration to create a number of financial comparisons between Grande Prairie and other mid-sized cities.

Community Group Funding information was collected from St. Albert, Medicine Hat, and Lethbridge (Airdrie and Red Deer were also contacted, but were not able to provide their numbers). The average funding provided to community groups was approximately $48.15. Grande Prairie funding is slightly higher, at $53.95.

To get Grande Prairie more in line with elsewhere, administration recommended Community Group Funding reductions. Two options for reduction were presented:

• A 15% ($605,652) every two years for the next six years

• A 10% ($403,768) every two years for the next six years

Click here to read administration’s report and recommendations for yourself.

Council debated potential Community Group Funding on February 10th. You can view the debate by clicking here.

A motion was made to reduce Community Group Funding by $250,000. This motion was defeated. Council has not given any direction to reduce funding.

However, Council did decide to continue discussing potential reductions. A motion was passed to “direct Administration to bring back a report indicating which groups will be directly affected by a 10% reduction in Community Group Finding for the 2021 grant funding year.”

The way I interpret this direction: Council has asked for more refined recommendations from administration. The previous recommendation was to have an overall cut to Community Group Funding. But Council has asked administration to make recommendations about what specific groups could potentially see reductions. It will consider these recommendations later in the year.

I think my Council colleagues recognize that we need to have a higher level conversation about Community Group Funding. We shouldn’t just be talking about how much we give and which groups get what. We should also be talking about what outcomes we are trying to achieve and create policies to support them.

The Community Services Committee will be reviewing Community Group Funding policies in the spring. This discussion was originally set for May 26. However, it may be delayed in light of responding to COVID-19.

The City is also undertaking an Integrated Coordinated Access project. Part of what it will accomplish is an inventory of the social programs that are running in Grande Prairie. It should be informative as Council deliberates on Community Group Funding.

Administration will be processing funding applications over the summer. That will give us a better idea of the level of need that exists in the community. Administration’s recommendations regarding the groups that might be given reductions is due on August 18.

Ultimately, final decisions are not likely to be made until the fall.

As Council considers Community Group Funding in 2021, I do not currently support reducing our investment. I have three big objections:

• It’s the wrong time to be reducing funding. Many of the groups we fund just saw cuts made by the province. Their private donations and revenue sources are also likely to see sharp declines. And we are in a time where the services of many groups are more needed than ever. If the City reduces funding, this is likely to cause the loss of many programs in our community.

• We shouldn’t base our decisions on what other municipalities are doing. A recommendation for funding reduction came out of per capita comparisons of Grande Prairie, St. Albert, Medicine Hat, and Lethbridge. We seem to be funding slightly above other municipalities. However, this isn’t a convincing reason to reduce funding for two reasons: 1) I’m not convinced that the information we looked at gave a full picture of how each municipality is funding community programming, and 2) we’re a northern City where costs are more expensive, attracting labour is more challenging, winter is harsher, and travelling away is more expensive. It’s reasonable to expect us to spend a little more building a vibrant community than cities to the south spend.

• I’m not convinced reducing funding will save us money. Many of the groups we support operate City facilities (ex: the Library and Art Gallery). Others deliver services that are often provided directly by municipalities (ex: the Curling Club). And lots of groups are doing preventative social work that will save taxpayers a lot of money in policing and health care (ex: Youth Emergency Shelter). If these groups start struggling to deliver services, the City will need to increase its services. And government programs are often much more expensive to run than non-profit programs.

I don’t know where Council will land on Community Group Funding in 2021. However, regardless of where the level gets set: it shouldn’t be left in place indefinitely.

Inflation increases the costs for non-profits year over year. That means that if their revenue doesn’t increase over time, they will be forced to deliver less services.

Our City’s population is also changing. Every year, this changes the demand for non-profit services.

Once Council finds a level of funding it is comfortable with, Council should make provisions for it to change in future years. There are two good ways to do that:

• Direct that Community Group Funding be increased (or decreased) in future years by population growth plus inflation

• Figure out what percentage of the City’s operating budget is represented by Community Group Funding and direct it to remain at this same percentage year over year.

  
  

While I don’t support lowering the total amount of Community Group Funding, I think our process of allocating funding to specific groups needs work. And I may end up supporting decisions that lead to reductions for specific organisations in order to give greater support to organisations more aligned with Council priorities.

There are four big changes I’d like to see to our allocation process:

• Work directly with the Library, Art Gallery, and Centre for Creative Arts Boards to set their budgets. These organisations are the largest recipients of Community Group funding. They also operate flagship City buildings in our downtown core. I’d like their funding to be considered separately from funding given to other groups. I would also like Council to meet directly with their boards to better understand their goals, challenges, and financial needs.

• Segment Community Group Funding. We fund groups with several distinct purposes. I don’t think that each type of organisation should be looked at the same way. We should create several segments of Community Group Funding (examples could include Arts & Culture, Youth, Social Response). Rather than looking at how much funding we put into Community Groups overall, each segment of funding should be considered individually.

• Establish long term core funding for critical organisations. There are some organisations that should clearly receive long-term funding. Sometimes this is because they are filling a critical need (ex: Rising Above). Sometimes this is because they are delivering a service that would otherwise fall to the City (ex: the Curling Club). To give them certainty and to reduce administration, these organisations should be funded for 4 years at a time instead of funded year to year.

• Delegate allocations work. For organisations that receive non-core, year-to-year funding: Council should set overall funding levels and objectives. But it should delegate decision making about specific allocations to other bodies. For example, the Arts Development Committee could consider Arts & Culture applications and the Economic Development Strategic Planning & Advisory Committee could consider Economic Development applications. Having these groups do allocations work would bring more on-the-ground experience to decisions. It would also free up Council and senior administration time to focus on other City priorities.

Above, I shared my current thinking on Community Group Funding. However, I want to acknowledge that we are in the midst of a pandemic. It will mean big changes for our community. And it will almost certainly impact my thinking on Community Group Funding. I’m just not sure how it will impact my thinking…

On one hand, our non-profits are going to be hit hard by the economic challenges of COVID-19. Just like businesses and individuals, they are incurring unexpected expenses while facing reduced revenue. Their ability to deliver programs and their long-term viability are at risk. And people in our community are going to need their services more than ever. This suggests that Council should be placing a priority on maintaining or even increasing Community Group Funding.

On the other hand, many of our taxpayers are facing large financial struggles. And this is a time where the City is also incurring large, unexpected expenses while facing lost revenue. More than ever, we need to be very conscientious with taxpayer dollars. This could suggest that a reduction of Community Group Funding is warranted.

I honestly don’t know how COVID-19 will change my thinking on the total amount dedicated to community groups. I’m still waiting to see how the pandemic will socially and economically impact Grande Prairie. And I’m working very hard to have an open mind about our response.

However, I do think that COVID-19 means we need to be more stringent with our allocations process. We need to make sure that the organisations which receive funding are great managers of their finances (ex: they have strong reserve policies, maximize non-government revenue, leverage volunteers, etc…). We also need to make sure that the programs they deliver are well aligned with community priorities and have a large impact.

I’m glad that Council is taking a rigorous look at Community Group Funding. COVID-19 makes that more important than ever.

Community Group Funding is a very “live” topic at Council. There has been no clear direction given on it, and I don’t know where Council will land. So it is very helpful for us to be hearing from the community.

I’d love to hear from you. If you agree with my thinking, that’s useful for me to know. But even more important: please let me know where you disagree with me. Feedback and push back is incredibly useful as I decide on how to vote and what to advocate for.

You can email me at dbressey@cityofgp.com or call me at 780-402-4166.

Of course, I’m only one of nine votes at Council. To get a hold of the rest of us, click here.

If you want updates from me on where this conversation is going, the best place to get them is to follow me on Facebook or Twitter. I also post about upcoming Council meeting agenda topics at www.bressey.ca/meetings.