Being inherently mission-driven, non-profits are sometimes blind to the work being done by other organizations in their sector.
“When we’re in that nose-to-the-grindstone survival mode, trying to get through the day-to-day, it’s hard to be aware of people working in parallel with you and sometimes overlapping,” noted Sean Easton, co-executive director of Zero Ceiling, a Whistler-based non-profit aimed at eliminating youth homelessness.
And while the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly produced significant challenges for a sector that relies heavily on donations and in-person fundraisers, it has also come with a distinct opportunity to strengthen the already close ties between Sea to Sky non-profits.
“In crisis, we galvanize. In crisis, we come together,” said Jaye Russell, executive director of the Sea to Sky Community Services Society (SSCSS). “I think the benefit for the corridor is that we had the existing relationships in place and … already having those established working relationships enabled us to pick up the phone, come together and really roll up our sleeves and look at what needed to be done and what needed to be prioritized.”
Local non-profits already met regularly before the pandemic hit, but those meetings have taken on greater frequency and urgency in the intervening months, explained Mei Madden, executive director of the Whistler Blackcomb Foundation (WBF), which has granted more than $15 million to registered local charities since its founding in 1992.
“It was extremely helpful to bounce off ideas with one another and also to learn what different programs were available to help non-profits during these trying times,” she added in an email.
An RMOW-led Social Services Recovery Working Group has also met throughout the pandemic and is currently drafting a guiding principles document that was spearheaded by the Association of Whistler Area Residents for the Environment’s Claire Ruddy, who could not be reached for comment, with input from non-profits across the corridor, Madden relayed.
Specifically for the WBF, Madden said the meetings have helped her “understand where we can support our local non-profits with grants to help them get through this,” noting that the foundation has handed out grants to help cover non-profits’ operational costs as well as to cover mental health support for the sector’s frontline staff.
“The executive directors have been faced with having to lay off staff, which puts a lot more workload on them and also having to pivot to raise funds,” she added. “Collaboration is what is going to help us get through this.”
The pandemic has also helped shine a light on the “critical populations and critical issues that are key to maintaining the resiliency” of the corridor, Russell said, namely: affordable housing, mental health, and childcare, longstanding issues in the region that COVID has thrust to the forefront.
“In any major city or rural environment, the non-profit sector is the eyes and ears of the community,” she added. “We’re at the grassroots, we’re on the frontlines, we see the people who are faced with the pandemic every day and we have staff who are working tirelessly to support our community every day, every hour, every week, and so the ability of the non-profit sector to funnel that information up to local government, to senior leadership at the provincial and federal levels, is actually paramount and necessary.”
Of course, no amount of collaboration will make up for the loss in revenue local non-profits are experiencing with so many British Columbians tightening their purse strings and no concrete timeline for when in-person fundraising events might go ahead.
The sector has been forced to get creative with its fundraising initiatives, with many non-profits holding virtual events.
“We’ve all realized you can do so much virtually, but sometimes it’s not a great replacement,” said Easton, noting how Zero Ceiling is planning a virtual fall fundraiser that will recreate the “family dinners” its Work 2 Live participants host on a weekly basis.
“We’re trying to reimagine a little bit. How can we pivot? What we’re talking about is moving our fundraising to be more virtual, but in an intimate way with something that’s a bit more program-centric than the gala-themed events.”
