(i) Area B residents should no longer be tax for Grants for Assistance and groups should be encouraged to apply for funds through the Quesnel Community Foundation; or
(ii) The Director of Area B should continue with the traditional Grants-for-Assistance program and develop a Grants for Assistance program specific for Area B.
What follows are some resident answers.
While both the CRD Grants for Assistance funds and funds available through the Quesnel Community Foundation [QCF] are available to worthy community groups, I believe that funds available through the CRD Grants for Assistance Program represent a completely separate and “different” type of funding from those funds that are available through the Quesnel Community Foundation….The CRD funds come from taxes and as you stated in your email….for 2012, the residential tax rate for Grants for Assistance was $5.96 / $100,000.00. This resulted in $ 37,598.00 being donated to QCF from Area B alone. The funds collected and administered by the Quesnel Community Foundation are donations that come from the general public, either individuals or community groups, clubs and organizations. People wish to make donations for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which is to gain some income tax relief.
The CRD Grants for Assistance Program exists to
provide support/incentive/leverage funding for community groups, to support
them in various initiatives/projects that [hopefully] would have some benefit
for not only the specific group receiving the funding but also for the citizens
of the broader community….in this case it would be the citizens of CRD’s Area
B. Other jurisdictions have similar
Grants for Assistance or Grant In Aid Programs. Unless it has been discontinued,
I believe that the City of Quesnel has a similar program, although I seem to
remember reading that the City of Quesnel has also donated funds to the
QCF. Various community businesses also
offer “Grant in Aid” programs, one example is the program offered by the
Integris Credit Union. Further, from
time-to-time the provincial government will create “special” grant programs in support of various
provincial celebrations, such as the Direct Access grant program that was
established to support the 2008, BC150 celebrations. There are also lottery funds that are
available to specific community
groups…..this is essentially “government” money.
The Quesnel Community Foundation is just one of
several similar Community Foundations that exist in communities throughout the
province. Community Foundations are
philanthropic organizations, I believe that officially they are registered
charitable organizations regulated by the Registrar of Societies. The “grandaddy” of all of B.C.’s Community
Foundations is the Vancouver Foundation.
I believe that there is some kind of formal link between all of the
provincial Community Foundations, and that they share common terms of reference
and operating procedures, maybe even a common Constitution and Bylaws???? I do know that the Vancouver Foundation was
instrumental in establishing the Quesnel Community Foundation and that they
donated a significant amount of seed money at the time the QCF was established.
There is one significant difference between how CRD and QCF funds are awarded/distributed. In order to be eligible to receive QCF funds, the recipient [group or organization] must be what is called a “registered donee” which means that they must be a registered charity. To become a registered charity, a group/organization must meet the criteria set out by the Federal government. Not every group that would benefit from CRD Grants for Assistance funding would be eligible to receive charitable status, this would include many sports, minor sports, recreation and even some arts groups. In short, if CRD funds are given to the QCF to be administered, some groups in the CRD will definitely be excluded. The only way to get around this would be for the group applying for the Grant for Assistance to ally themselves with another group that is a Registered Donee. An example of such a group could be School District 28. This would mean that there would be a third party involved in the granting process…it can get quite complicated.
When the CRD was distributing Grants for Assistance,
there was a detailed and comprehensive Application Completion Guide available
for any group wishing to apply for funds.
This guide is six pages long and I won’t go into any detail right now,
but it is a step-by-step guide to completing the application form. It explains that the Applications for
Assistance Program falls under Section 176[1][c] of the Local Government Act
and that all applicants must be “non profit societies or agencies”, which is
not the same as being a registered charity.
It is my belief that the CRD simply got tired of the
work involved in screening all of the applications that came in under the
Grants for Assistance program and they were looking for some way to off load
the work while still maintaining the actual Grants for Assistance Program [for
which they are collecting taxes]. By
offloading the responsibilities to the QCF, they have fundamentally changed the
Grants for Assistance Program as indicated above.
However there are also two additional points that must
also be considered. The QCF policy is to
only distribute the interest on the money that they have invested. There have been years when their investments
did not accrue any interest at all.
Unless there is some kind of special arrangement between the QCF and the
CRD, the money that is “given” to the QCF each year by the CRD does not
represent the actual amount that will be distributed to applicants for
grants….only the accrued interest from that money will be donated.
Having stated that, it is true that the QCF will arrange
that any grant monies can be awarded as part of a designated fund…for example
it would be possible to have the QCF establish a “CRD - Area ‘B’ Designated
Fund”, and it could be specified that
only residents/charitable groups from within Area B could apply for that grant
money. But the money awarded annually
would only be the interest that was gained over the past year on the money that
had been designated for that particular fund…which would not be the same as,
and would probably be far less than, the principal amount that had been donated
to the QCF by the CRD each year. It
would take many years for the fund to grow before the accrued interest would
equal the amount of the annual CRD grant.
Both The Quesnel Community Foundation awards program
and the CRD Grants for Assistance Program are excellent and both are good for
our community…..but they are different and in actual fact I believe that we do
need both of them and not some convoluted hybrid just so that there might be less work for the
CRD.
So having said all of this, I come out in favour of
your second option…..
(ii) The Director of Area B should continue with the
traditional Grants-for-Assistance program and develop a Grants for Assistance
program specific for Area B.
But
this will be a lot of work, I actually believe that the CRD should revisit
their decision and that they should resume the role that they once held in
terms of administering their own Grants for Assistance program.
