How Comité ZIP du lac Saint-Pierre is Building Connections
written by Pascaline Aubrée, Community Foundations of Canada
The Comité ZIP du lac Saint-Pierre, based in Québec, was established in 1996 as part of a federal government initiative. Its primary mission is to protect and celebrate the St. Lawrence River, which has been significantly impacted by human activity. Today, the organization manages the region’s UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve designation, focusing on biodiversity conservation, sustainable development, capacity building, and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. The biosphere reserve includes the five regional county municipalities bordering Lake Saint-Pierre, as well as the city of Trois-Rivières.
The Comité ZIP du lac Saint-Pierre received funding from the Government of Canada’s Community Services Recovery Fund (CSRF) in 2023, allowing it to deepen its impact and strengthen its organizational framework. “Our goal is to continue this work in the long term and reduce our reliance on grants.” — Geneviève Tardy, CEO of the Comité ZIP du lac Saint-Pierre. With the funding, the organization prioritized project management training for staff, developed a philanthropy strategy to foster sustainable funding, and launched a series of collaborative initiatives to broaden its outreach. One standout project was the partnership with the Biophare de Sorel museum to raise biodiversity awareness among local youth.” Geneviève describes, “Approximately 40 day-camp students took the ferry to the museum. We enjoyed a full day of educational and interpretive activities.” Geneviève says.
“This event helped create ties with the Saint-Ignace-de-Loyola municipality, the ferry company that offered the boat ride over and back, and the Biophare museum.”
This immersive experience was documented by professional photographers, and images of the region’s unique wildlife and natural beauty will soon be displayed at the Biophare de Sorel museum, celebrating the biodiversity of Lake Saint-Pierre. Portraits of Comité ZIP’s staff and board members, along with a promotional video for the biosphere reserve, were also created to showcase the organization’s dedication.
Perhaps most significant was the “Rendez-vous Biosphères Québec” initiative - an inaugural gathering of the biosphere stakeholders from diverse sectors. Geneviéve describes it as “the first biosphere-wide gathering of its kind, focused on exploring how organizations can leverage the UNESCO biosphere designation to promote green transitions and tackle the impacts of climate change.” The success of this event has fostered a new network of collaboration across the biosphere reserve, establishing a permanent community committed to sustainable practices and environmental resilience
“The Government of Canada’s Community Services Recovery Fund’s requirements were much more flexible than those of other programs. That gave organizations a lot more latitude in terms of the projects that they could undertake.”
Reflecting on the experience, Geneviève notes that the projects supported by CSRF exceeded expectations and offered a chance for organizational growth. The flexible nature of CSRF’s requirements provided Comité ZIP the latitude to undertake transformative projects, from network-building events to enhanced internal capabilities, setting the stage for a sustainable future.
“Our projects were completed even more satisfactorily than we had anticipated. There aren’t enough programs that give organizations the opportunity to reorient themselves. We’re so caught up in the day-to-day that we don’t have the time or resources to sit down, reflect, take a breath, and then formulate an action plan.”
The Community Services Recovery Fund was a one-time $400 million investment from the Government of Canada to support community service organizations, including charities, non-profits, and Indigenous governing bodies as they focused on how to adapt their organizations for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Community Foundations of Canada, alongside the Canadian Red Cross and United Way Centraide Canada, supported close to 5,500 community service organizations through the Community Services Recovery Fund.
Promoting Inclusion in the Workplace
written by Erika Jacinto, United Way Centraide Canada
Autisme Péninsule acadienne is a nonprofit grassroots organization in Caraquet, New Brunswick. Its mission is to provide support, resources, information and services to individuals, their families, stakeholders, and professionals in autism-related areas.
During the pandemic, the team quickly realized that people with autism were left to their own devices, were isolated, and disconnected from reality, resulting in the worsening of their mental health. This was particularly true for young people and adults who didn’t have access to supports necessary to enter the job market and develop their autonomy.
Committed to their vision to enhance services and optimize the quality of life for individuals with autism, their families and loved ones in their community, the organization was grateful to receive funding from the Government of Canada’s Community Services Recovery Fund (CSRF) for the upscaling of several projects.
Acknowledging that a website often serves as the first impression visitors gain of an organization, they gathered all the required resources (technical and intellectual) to revamp their public image, as well as the design of their main website, in order to create a new one, catering specifically to people with autism in the workplace.
The funding also allowed them to pick up a project they first launched in 2021: the preparation and publication of two guides (books), one for individuals with autism and the second, for their employers. The guide Je suis autiste et je travaille (in French), written for people with autism, is over 300 pages long. The guide for employers, J’ai embauché une personne autiste (in French) has 40 pages. They were designed, adjusted and customized using tools and strategies for labour market stakeholders.
The province’s minister of Education and Francophone school districts have indicated their intention to use the guides to help learners transition from school to the job market.
Funds were also used to start developing an online course to train all users on the right use of the guides. They also provided them with tools allowing them to achieve maximum results regarding the integration and retention of people with autism in the workplace.
Pursuing their vision to enhance the quality of life of individuals with autism, their families, and loved ones in the Acadian peninsula, the team has already received requests to share their guides from other Franco-Canadian organizations, as well as from Europe. These guides have turned into tools that will be of great use outside Canada. Discussions are under way to translate both guides in different languages.
The organization’s director, Liette Lanteigne insists on the importance of knowledge and capacity transfer in the field of autism.
“We developed our guides taking into account the existing material to avoid reinventing the wheel. Every person interested in learning about autism should have access to these resources, amongst others. We are grateful for the CSRF funding and their help in developing our services to better support our deserving communities.”
The Community Services Recovery Fund was a one-time $400 million investment from the Government of Canada to support community service organizations, including charities, non-profits, and Indigenous governing bodies as they focused on how to adapt their organizations for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Community Foundations of Canada, alongside the Canadian Red Cross and United Way Centraide Canada, supported close to 5,500 community service organizations through the Community Services Recovery Fund.
Technology is at the center at Umoja
written by Erika Jacinto, United Way Centraide Canada
UMOJA (a Kiswahili word meaning unity) Operation Compassion Society is a charitable organization formed in 2003 to support newcomer immigrants and refugees living in Surrey, BC, to successfully and holistically integrate into their new surroundings.
UMOJA’S culturally attuned, trauma-informed programs are particularly essential for those at risk of socio-economic marginalization based on language and skills gaps, race, cultural and religious background or perceived status.
In 2023-2024 many of the UMOJA local programs benefited from the Government of Canada’s Community Services Recovery Funds (CSRF), namely: UMOJA United Way School’s Out and Future Leaders Youth programs, Adult Literacy and Life Skills, Early Years Parenting, Newcomer Men’s and Digital Connect programs (for visible minority women).
The funds received largely served to enhance resilience and recovery post-COVID through the modernization of their facilities including the setting up of a new virtual conference room equipped with modern assets such as an overhead projector, laptops, conference audio equipment (microphones and speakers), TV screen, digital cameras and even a photocopier (very helpful to reproduce their training manuals). The upgraded and integrated facility enhanced their capacity and helped expedite efforts to provide a variety of culturally sensitive programs to help families, children, and youth acquire exposure, skills and confidence for successful integration into their new socio-economic environment.
The additional training courses and upgraded facilities help users find meaningful work, more efficiently communicate virtually with the world in an increased professional setting and even plan leisure activities such as movie nights and more as UMOJA seeks to build a true community hub.
Among other deserving groups, mothers with young children have greatly benefited from the upgrade since they can now use a laptop onsite or borrow it to train remotely. This flexibility greatly facilitates their balance between home and training opportunities. The staff’s motivation has also increased because of a new work area set-up, sophisticated décor, and resources.
“Newcomers to Canada can find it difficult to integrate due to obstacles such as financial insecurity, language and skills gaps and culture shock. The CSRF has helped UMOJA become a benchmark organization by enhancing its versatility, creativity and efficiency to the benefit of our clients”
“Everything has been transformed, and we are now better set up for our mission continuity and properly suited to serve increasing current and future community needs”
UMOJA seeks to holistically support integration into Canadian society while upholding each person’s dignity and unique worth to their communities. Thanks to the CSRF, the upgraded facilities ensure that they are better equipped to help bridge the privilege gap and to work toward an authentically thriving Canadian society in which no one is left behind.
The Community Services Recovery Fund was a one-time $400 million investment from the Government of Canada to support community service organizations, including charities, non-profits, and Indigenous governing bodies as they focused on how to adapt their organizations for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Community Foundations of Canada, alongside the Canadian Red Cross and United Way Centraide Canada, supported close to 5,500 community service organizations through the Community Services Recovery Fund.
Investing in People in Prince Edward Island
written by Kathy Mueller, Canadian Red Cross
They come together on a warm spring day, seven staff and volunteer board members from the PEI Coalition for Women in Government, to attend a workshop on how to develop strong messaging and advocacy practices. As a non-partisan non-profit dedicated to advancing women’s leadership in the political, civic, and democratic life of Prince Edward Island, the organization wants to ensure its messages are not just heard but will resonate.
This training is one of several the Coalition has been able to offer its members over the past year, thanks to funding from the Government of Canada’s Community Services Recovery Fund (CSRF), a one-time $400 million investment to support community service organizations as they recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Post-pandemic, Sarah Outram, the Coalition’s Executive Director, says they found it more challenging to attract and retain volunteer board members and staff. They applied for funding through the CSRF to offer an in-person, professional development program for current and new personnel. That investment has paid dividends.
“Organizations like ours need the funding and capacity to invest in their people. I cannot stress
that enough,” explained Outram. “The visible impacts from this funding have
been a more cohesive working group. Our operations are running more smoothly. We’re
able to create a more solid foundation that we can grow from and then expand the
services that we’re able to offer.”
The PEI Coalition for Women in Government equips women and gender diverse groups with the skills and training needed to take on, and keep, leadership roles in the political sphere.
Aside from the messaging and advocacy workshop, the Coalition used CSRF funding to implement creative care, created plans for organizational sustainability, and held board governance training. Outram says this investment not only resulted in board members feeling appreciated and valued, it also helped them better understand the regulations and policies that must be adhered to when running a non-profit. “Our volunteer board members feel more confident in their roles,” explained Outram.
“More motions are being brought forward and ideas are flowing. These trainings are
helping to build a stronger community at the Coalition which, to me, is the most
important aspect.”
“I want to thank the Red Cross and CSRF program. I want to stress the importance of investing in your people for non-profits. If you don’t show appreciation to your staff, whether through helping with phone costs or parking spaces, those accessibility needs, you cannot retain valuable people, those good folks who really want to make a difference.”
The Community Services Recovery Fund was a one-time $400 million investment from the Government of Canada to support community service organizations, including charities, non-profits, and Indigenous governing bodies as they focused on how to adapt their organizations for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Community Foundations of Canada, alongside the Canadian Red Cross and United Way Centraide Canada, supported close to 5,500 community service organizations through the Community Services Recovery Fund.
Planting SEEDs of Connection
written by Laura Ellis, Canadian Red Cross
The COVID-19 pandemic presented numerous challenges to community service organizations across Canada, one of the most important being ensuring the mental health and wellbeing of frontline staff and volunteers.
To support charities, non-profits and Indigenous governing bodies as they adapted for pandemic recovery, the Government of Canada launched the Community Services Recovery Fund (CSRF). This one-time $400 million investment provided a unique opportunity for community service organizations to focus inwards and build their capacity to continue to respond to community recovery needs.
Winnipeg-based non-profit organization SEED (Supporting Employment & Economic Development) received CSRF funding to help support staff retention and resilience, provide culturally safe mental health resources, and enhance connections among staff.
“I think we were at risk of no longer having a healthy organization if we didn’t address some of the internal issues.”
”That’s where the idea of focusing on staff retention and resilience came from. We wanted to take a look at equity within the organization to make sure that staff were being fairly compensated.”
There were also emerging inequities within SEED’s staff framework that saw some positions carrying the majority of responsibility for in-person service compared to others who were more easily able to work remotely.
“A big part of how we work here is that even if people are in different positions and focusing on different things, there's still a sense of having each other's back and filling in and working towards the same goal and having the same values of working in a non-profit,” said Raena Penner, SEED office manager. “It was really hard to feel those things when all of that disconnection happened.”
Addressing these challenges was a top priority for SEED. The CSRF funding helped them reinvest in the things that matter most to their team. They conducted a comprehensive review of staff salaries which resulted in wage increases for lower-paid positions and helped foster a more supportive and equitable workplace environment.
The funding also provided the opportunity to create a sense of togetherness and appreciation through non-work-related activities and excursions that saw staff come together, in-person, in an outdoor environment. With a newly created Retention and Resilience Committee made up of Indigenous and racialized staff, many of the activities incorporated Indigenous teachings such as medicine pouch making, beading and red dress ornaments, and learning about traditional uses for plants. Additional training and coaching were also made available for Indigenous staff, which has helped to improve overall retention.
“It's been a real breath of fresh air to have an employer and colleagues who are so focused on really taking to heart this aspect about the wellness of people so that we can do our jobs,” said Lisa Forbes, who has held various roles since joining SEED in 2004. “When you have been running on empty for so long, you forget what it is like to refill the cup.”
SEED’s mission is to build strong communities and increase opportunities for people who are financially vulnerable through a range of financial empowerment programs and services. They try to ensure that staff are representative of the communities they serve. As a result, the majority of staff at SEED have previous life experience of living on a low income.
“As a social service, our jobs are to help people. So being able to help the helpers has been a real treat. I’m not the kind of person who would have thought to focus time to make those things happen for myself, so it’s very empowering to be able to do it at work”
SEED’s CSRF project is now completed but based on its success, management plans to continue investing in similar team building and appreciation activities well into the future.
The Community Services Recovery Fund was a one-time $400 million investment from the Government of Canada to support community service organizations, including charities, non-profits and Indigenous governing bodies as they focused on how to adapt their organizations for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Canadian Red Cross, Community Foundations of Canada, and United Way Centraide Canada, supported close to 5,500 community service organizations through the Community Services Recovery Fund.
An Innovator in Food Security and Poverty Reduction
written by Erika Jacinto, United Way Centraide Canada
Ottawa-based, The Rideau Rockcliffe Community Resource Centre (RRCRC)’s Good Food Box program offers packed boxes with an assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables to be sold to individuals and families in need, at less than market price. In 2023, 2,000 Ottawa residents purchased 22.8 tons of affordable fresh produce through Good Food Box, confirming the high demand for low-cost nutritious food.
RRCRC received funding through the Government of Canada’s Community Services Recovery Fund (CSRF), to better integrate its three food security programs so they can reach more people in need.
Market Mobile is a low-cost grocery store on wheels that serves ‘food desert’ communities where fresh food is not easy to find.
Social Harvest grows fresh produce that stocks the emergency food bank.
Good Food Box sells boxes of fresh food at below market prices to anyone in the community. Profits are reinvested into RRCRC’s emergency food supports.
United Way East Ontario has been a partner to the RRCRC for almost three decades. The funding opportunities, networks, and community ties that United Way offers have been essential to the centre’s successes.
With support from the CSRF, the RRCRC can continue to adapt its food security programs to be more nimble, accessible, and responsive to the diverse needs of its clients. They’re actively reaching people who don’t have access to internet or cell phones, supporting seniors who live alone, and delivering to people with mobility challenges at a time when food bank visits are at an all-time high.
One important milestone that the funding has allowed the organization to accomplish is the completion of the construction of an urban farm, in the basement of the Rideau Community Hub for the Social Harvest program, which augmented both Market Mobile and food bank operations.
Regarding installations and equipment and with the purpose of enhancing their service capabilities, they upgraded the Market Mobile truck and installed air conditioning in the food bank, thus improving the environment for staff and beneficiaries.
Parallel to spearheading the development and implementation of a food bank appointment system to streamline operations, their website construction and an order management system for the Market Mobile and Good Food Box programs, they began constructing a kitchen space for food bank users and launched a community meal program to bolster food bank services.
The funds also allowed them to engage with a consulting firm to identify the best long-term solutions for human resources and volunteer management systems that would support the food bank and associated programs. Consequently, they expanded their workforce by recruiting three additional part-time staff members to support the new activities and growing scope of the project.
“Community services are always under resourced and underfunded, so when we have opportunities like the Community Services Recovery Fund, we really try to upgrade our infrastructure and get ourselves set up so that we are more sustainable at what we do.”
The Community Services Recovery Fund was a one-time $400 million investment from the Government of Canada to support community service organizations, including charities, non-profits and Indigenous governing bodies as they focused on how to adapt their organizations for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Canadian Red Cross, Community Foundations of Canada, and United Way Centraide Canada, supported close to 5,500 community service organizations through the Community Services Recovery Fund.
Laying the Groundwork for a Sustainable Future
written by Rachael Sonola, Community Foundations of Canada
For over a decade, the Rainbow Refugee Association of Nova Scotia (RRANS) has supported LGBTQI+ refugees seeking safety and community in Canada. Founded in 2011 by passionate community members, RRANS has helped resettle many individuals, providing vital support and advocacy.
During the pandemic, similar to other organizations, RRANS faced unprecedented challenges. "The pandemic really shifted the work that we do," says Rhiannon Makohoniuk, Co-Executive Director of RRANS.
“We saw increased isolation and difficulty accessing support services as everything moved online”
With the growing needs of communities, it was clear that charities and non-profit organizations are crucial in addressing persistent and complex social problems especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. RRANS knew that they needed to build a more sustainable foundation and applied to the Community Services Recovery Fund (CSRF) program with the hopes of using the operational funding to develop internal systems and processes for the necessary long-term growth of the organization.
The pandemic meant that the borders were closed and there would be a pause on newcomers and refugees for a while. This pause gave the RRANS team some time to reflect on internal changes that could be made to better support its community. Through the CSRF funding, RRANS focused on being more representative of the community it serves, as well as providing operational support that enabled the team to focus on leadership development and mentorship from within the BIPOC and LGBTQI+ communities.
“This fund was really important for us to be able to have the time, resources, and energy to create solid foundations and supports for a sustainable future”
With the CSRF support, RRANS was able to develop a comprehensive staff handbook, develop efficient financial procedures, and even obtain charitable status. This funding also enabled the organization to rebrand, crafting a visual identity that better reflected its grassroots, community-driven approach.
"It was a really beautiful process that showed us we have this special, grassroots space that works with the community," Rhiannon shares. "We were able to get rid of our old clip art logo - it had served its purpose, but now we have branding that truly captures who we are."
This funding support has been transformative for the organization. "It ensures that we can still remain the same, community-minded organization for years to come because we can be sustainable," Rhiannon says. By building strong internal foundations, RRANS can now focus on expanding their impact, sponsoring more refugees, providing education, and working on advocacy.
Rhiannon shares how the CSRF funding supported RRANS to lay the groundwork for a "sustainable future" - one where LGBTQI+ refugees can find the support and community they deserve. With this foundation in place, the organization is equipped to continue supporting vulnerable individuals for years to come.
"It's not the glamorous work, but it's practically creating foundations so that we can exist and help people thrive”. Thanks to the CSRF's operational support, RRANS can now dream bigger and have an even greater impact on the lives of LGBTQI+ refugees in Nova Scotia.
The Community Services Recovery Fund was a one-time $400 million investment from the Government of Canada to support community service organizations, including charities, non-profits, and Indigenous governing bodies as they focused on how to adapt their organizations for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Community Foundations of Canada, alongside the Canadian Red Cross and United Way Centraide Canada, supported close to 5,500 community service organizations through the Community Services Recovery Fund.