A Charity’s Guide to the Canada Revenue Agency
In order to become a registered charity, you must apply for such status with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), which can be a time consuming process. This may be an important step to securing funding as only registered charities can issue receipts that make the donations eligible for a tax credit on an individual donor’s personal income tax return. This blog post serves as a nonprofit guide to navigating the CRA, covering tax reporting, rules to follow, and audits.
3 Ways Nonprofits Can Create a Meaningful Internship Experience
As policy intern, Vivian Mak’s, summer internship at CCVO comes to an end, she reflects upon her time with the organization. In this blog post, she shares three ways that nonprofits can create a meaningful internship experience that personally enhanced hers. She also draws upon the perspectives and insights she gained from other summer students during the Kahanoff Summer Student Lunch in June.
Social Innovation and Social Finance: An Introduction for Nonprofits
Social innovation is the use of different strategies and ideas to address existing social and/or environmental issues. These innovations can take many forms, from community-centered planning to international labour standards to fair trade. Social finance, a form of social innovation, is the use of investments (loans, equity finance, bonds, etc.) to further a social and/or environmental impact while also generating financial returns for investors. This blog post introduces Social Innovation and Social Finance to nonprofits to help prepare and inform the sector in light of the Government of Canada’s new initiative.
Provincial Spending Update
If your nonprofit has been following the news or social media, you’ve likely seen some rumours of looming provincial cuts starting to swirl. The new provincial government is expected to release a budget in late October and speculation as to what it will hold has already begun. We have heard in traditional media, on social media, and directly from some organizations, that they are experiencing a “funding freeze”, ranging across sectors and issues, and is likely related to the fact that there is only an interim supply budget currently in place. This blog post provides an update on provincial spending in the midst of the UCP’s transition period and prior to their budget being finalized in October.
CCVO responds to upcoming City of Calgary Budget Cuts
On Monday July 22, Calgary City Council will meet to review Administration’s proposal on cutting $60 million in the City’s operational spending. The City has been asked to make these cuts to make way for property tax relief for business owners in Calgary. In this blog post, CCVO responds to these budget cuts in the context of the nonprofit community, and discusses our recommendations to the City of Calgary.
Alberta Legislative Round Up: 13 Bills Passed by the New Government
The first sitting of the new government began on May 22 with a Speech from the Throne and just concluded on July 4 with 13 bills passed relating to 55 of the UCP platform commitments. The House will not sit again until October when a budget is expected to be tabled. To give nonprofits an easy reference to all the legislation, this blog post provides a brief summary of each bill.