Supporting Black Canadian Communities Initiative Reporting

1. Why does Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC)/Supporting Black Canadian Communities Initiative (SBCCI) ask questions that aren’t about the project?  

ESDC asks questions that aren’t specifically related to the funded projects for a couple of reasons.   

ESDC does not collect information on non-profits. Statistics Canada does not consistently collect information on non-profits and collects only limited information. This means that SBCCI doesn’t have any information on how many non-profit organizations exist, how many Black-led, Black-focused, and Black-serving (B3) organizations exist, or anything else about them. The only information ESDC has is given through your grant applications and final reporting.   

ESDC asks for this information to get a better understanding of how many B3 organizations there are, their size and area of activities, and what their needs are. ESDC uses this information to help develop programs that will support Black community organizations in the ways that they need.   

2. Do you use this information to make decisions about funding for organizations?   

No. ESDC is not involved in the funding process. The National Funders review your grant applications, make decisions about funding based on set criteria, and distribute the funding to successful organizations. ESDC does not see any of this information until after funding decisions have been made.  

ESDC uses information in aggregate-- all the information about all the organizations-- to get information on areas of need and help make decisions around what priorities the department funds.  

3. Will you use this information to make funding decisions?  

No. ESDC is only asking for information so that ESDC can better understand your organization, the environment you operate in, and whether the program is doing what it is supposed to do in the short-term, and in the long-term. Program data, which is what ESDC calls data collected through SBCCI’s grant application and final reporting, is not used to support funding decisions. If you apply to another program through ESDC, the information you provide for each application is kept separate. This approach helps maintain privacy and confidentiality.    

4. Why do you ask about staff and volunteers?  

This is one of the ways ESDC talks about the size and the resources of an organization. ESDC has heard from community organizations that a lot of organizations run on volunteers alone, but ESDC needs to be able to provide numbers on how many of the organizations have no full-time or part-time staff, and how many volunteers they have. This information also helps ESDC talk about the impact of funding over time, if funded organizations, on average, see an increase in paid staff or volunteers.   

5. Why do you ask about the number of clients, new clients, and information like age and gender?  

This helps ESDC understand how many people in Canada are participating in programs and services offered by organizations across Canada. ESDC is interested in the number of new clients because it can show an increase in demand for services, as a result of external factors—like inflation, rising costs of living, or a crisis that affects a specific community. It can also help us understand if your organization is expanding. ESDC looks at things like how old your organization is, the number of staff and volunteers to understand if your organization is growing, maintaining, or decreasing in its capacity to serve the community. This information is useful to understand trends for all organizations in a sector, in a specific location, etc.   

ESDC asks about age and gender because it is required to report on this as part of Gender Based Analysis Plus. There is more information about Gender Based Analysis Plus in one of the questions below.   

ESDC does not expect you to provide information you don’t have. If you don’t keep track of it, it’s ok.   

 6. Why do you ask about the organization’s budget?  z

This is another way ESDC talks about the size and resources of an organization. When ESDC asks about changes in your budget over time, ESDC is interested in trends for all the organizations. ESDC does not expect that your budget should be increasing each year—ESDC knows funding fluctuates and it depends on a lot of things that are outside of anyone’s control. If ESDC sees that most or all organizations say that they have less funding than they used to, it’s useful information because it shows that there’s a problem for a lot of organizations.   

7. Why do you ask about groups served?  

This helps ESDC understand how many organizations are focused on supporting each part of the community. It helps ESDC understand if there are needs of the groups of the population you serve and if Black-identifying communities face any gaps in access to support. This understanding can guide ESDC in the development and improvement of departmental programs to better address those needs.   

8. Why do you ask about sector?  

This helps ESDC understand the type of organization that you are, and it can help in making comparisons between sectors. This can help us show things like whether organizations in some sectors have better access to funding than others.   

9. Why do you ask about geography?  

ESDC wants to know if some areas of Canada have less access to programs and services from community organizations than others. ESDC wants to make sure that organizations across Canada have equitable access to grant funding. If ESDC sees that not all regions of Canada have organizations, or not all regions are getting funding, it shows that ESDC might need to change something in the program to fix that. It might mean that ESDC needs better connections in a certain place to make sure that all organizations who are eligible for funding know about the grant program and have the opportunity to apply. 

10. Why do you ask about the social determinants of health?  

ESDC uses this because it’s a standard category across the government. It’s a way of looking at the challenges or problems that your organization is trying to help with. It helps ESDC understand the type of government intervention needed to address these challenges.   

11. Why do you ask about future needs?  

ESDC wants to know if the current program isn’t meeting your needs. If it isn’t, then ESDC needs data to help make the case to adjust our programming.  

12. Why do you ask for testimonials?  

ESDC really likes testimonials because it’s another way ESDC can use to show the impact of the program. ESDC has found that different people respond to different things—data and numbers are really important when ESDC is making the case for more or different funding, but stories and testimonials also help tell the story of how important community organizations are, the kind of impact your organization has on the people in your community, and if this funding has helped you in making that impact.  

13. Why do you ask about data needs?  

ESDC knows that most community organizations need more support with data. ESDC knows that most community organizations don’t have the resources for data, and ESDC heard that for a while, but ESDC needs a number to support that. ESDC also knows that data is becoming increasingly important for community organizations. Lots of grant funders ask about data, and performance or impact reporting. Asking this question gives a better idea of the kind of resources we can develop to support community organizations with their data collection, and how we might be able to do that.   

14. Why do you ask about grant writing?  

Like data, ESDC knows this is a major challenge for a lot of organizations. It’s also important for organizations, because a lot of them rely on grants for funding. ESDC just needs to be able to put a number down, because that helps decision makers understand to what degree it’s an issue.   

15. Why do you ask about the intermediary model?  

Most grant programs in the federal government aren’t set up the way SBCCI is. SBCCI is run on the approach of “by the community, for the community.” Because the intermediary model is relatively new, ESDC does not expect it to be perfect. ESDC wants to know what works for you, what doesn’t, and how ESDC can change things to make them better.   

16. Why do you ask about systemic change?  

ESDC wants to know if you think that SBCCI funding is helping your organization create systemic change and reducing barriers to accessing programs and services for Black people in Canada. This is the long-term goal of the program. There are a lot of other things that matter when ESDC is talking about long-term, Canada-wide changes. What ESDC is looking at is whether or not you think there is a ripple effect, where a small change now might have a bigger impact for many years in the future.   

17. What’s Gender Based Analysis Plus?   

Gender Based Analysis Plus is a tool that the government, and other organizations, use to understand how different people might experience or interact with government programs and policies. It means ESDC needs to look at all the different factors that are part of our lives—things like age, gender, language, disability, cultural background, location in Canada, and life experiences—to see if our programs work well for everyone, or if ESDC ends up missing people because of one of these factors