Budget 2023 and Alberta’s Nonprofit Sector

By Alexa Briggs, CCVO Director, Policy & Research

Budget 2023: A Missed Opportunity to Support Alberta’s Nonprofits

In November 2022, CCVO and our partners sounded the alarm for the nonprofit sector in Alberta. With budget 2023, the alarm is still ringing. After more than three years of doing more with less, Alberta’s nonprofit sector remains in crisis.

An Ipsos poll conducted in November 2022 shows 22% of Canadians and 30% of Albertans expect to access charitable services for their basic needs in the next 6 months. Budget 2023 does not address this reality; the strategic requests made by CCVO have not been met, and despite recording a $2.4 Billion surplus, Alberta’s 2023 Budget does not support Alberta’s essential nonprofit sector.  

Nonprofits employ 1 in every 20 Albertans, contribute $5.5 billion to our GDP, and garner 227 million volunteer hours. They predate our establishment as a province, emerging from rural areas that are still home to ¼ Alberta nonprofits today. Nonprofits are established and efficient partners in the delivery of essential services, which was especially evident over the last several years. But the pandemic has left a mark on the sector, and it has yet to recover. While nonprofits operate efficiently, service demands and economic realities are preventing organizations from keeping pace:

• COVID supports have evaporated and demand continues to rise.

• Demand for services for mental health, substance use, and criminal justice is particularly acute, now among the top reasons for 2-1-1 calls in the last two years.

• Inflation has exacerbated labour retention and cost pressures, particularly as nonprofits cannot pass price increases onto the communities they serve.

• Existing programs, such as the Community Initiatives Program, Community Facility Enhancement Program, and the Family and Support Services Program have not kept up with population and inflation growth, resulting in nonprofits having to service a growing need with insufficient levels of investment towards operations and facilities.

In CCVO’s pre-budget submission, we made two requests to support a sector in crisis:

1. A commitment to indexing all granting programs to inflation and growth in the budget, starting with 2023/24, such as Community Facility Enhancement Program (CFEP), Community Initiatives Program (CIP), and Family and Community Support Services (FCSS).

The table below shows where those programs now stand in Budget 2023, CCVO’s recommended budget adjustment, and the actual budget adjustment:

Despite the adjustments within CFEP and FCSS, all of these critical programs are left with a substantial shortfall totalling $73 million, which means that the sector will continue to operate in a deficit position while attempting to meet growing demand amid rising costs.

2. An investment in the 2023/24 budget in a strategic Community Prosperity Fund, eligible only to nonprofits totalling $300 million over 3 years.

No such commitment was made for nonprofits in Alberta in budget 2023. Verbally, we were told that the Civil Society Fund, which ended after 3 years in 2022, would continue in 2023 with a $3 million commitment. We cannot verify that as it does not appear anywhere in the budget as a line item. In the 3 previous years the Civil Society Fund was offered, it was eligible to post-secondary institutions and private sector organizations. In total, the Fund distributed $20 million, and funding requests to the Civil Society Fund were 22 times the available budget, with fewer than 1/10 applicants selected.

With no dedicated emergency recovery programs for the nonprofit sector, and no commitment for a recovery fund in budget 2023, nonprofits will continue to be underserved and undervalued in Alberta.

This budget offers some notable pockets of good news for the sector, in disability services, homeless shelters (although funding for women’s shelters is not keeping pace), and multiculturalism. In the Ministry of Culture, the biggest increases are for Capital Grants, Sport, Physical Activity and Recreation, and the Alberta Media Fund. All other areas: Arts, Francophonie Secretariat, Status of Women, Heritage, Community and Voluntary Support Services are stagnant or see minimal increases. You can find the exact breakdown of these budget details and all Ministries here, but if you have any questions or have any trouble finding the information about a specific program or Ministry you are interested in, drop me a note and I will do what I can to help you navigate.

What’s Next?

Because this is an election budget, we are opting not to do a detailed analysis of all ministries. This is a budget that may or may not come to fruition after the election in May, regardless of who forms government. Some budget commitments were previously announced, food bank funding for example, and so are already in the works. Others will not have time to be implemented before the writ period (about 6 weeks before the May 29 election date) when the business of government comes to a standstill.

So, if you were pleased to see certain items, or displeased at the absence of others, take advantage of the next few months to be vocal about what you wish to see added or maintained in the budget coming out of the election. 

CCVO and our partners at The Nonprofit Vote will be making full use of the election cycle to promote a suite of platform priorities that support nonprofits (released mid-March). That means asking for further commitments from the UCP that go beyond what was presented in budget 2023 for the nonprofit sector. And it means asking the NDP to make these commitments as we have yet to hear any plans for nonprofits from that party.

We will be equipping you and your organization with tools to get involved in speaking up for what matters to nonprofits. Together we have the power of 300,000 people who work in this sector, plus countless volunteers and supporters, to show our collective strength.

Join us by signing up and following along at The Nonprofit Vote and happy election season! #nonprofitsvote