Most funding in the nonprofit world is attached to programmes. Funders understandably prefer to support something they can see: a class, a meal service, a clinic. What is far harder to fund is the infrastructure that makes those programmes possible — the staff training, the database, the financial controls, the secure network.
That is why the Community Services Recovery Fund, whose application window opened on 6 January 2023, stood out. The $400 million fund, delivered through the Canadian Red Cross, Community Foundations of Canada and United Way Centraide Canada, was designed to help community service organisations adapt and modernise, with a focus on investing in personnel, in systems and processes, and in programme innovation.
The overhead myth
For decades, many donors judged charities by how little they spent on “overhead.” The intention was admirable: to ensure that gifts reached people in need. The effect, however, was often corrosive. Organisations were starved of the very investments — in people, technology and management — that allow programmes to be delivered well and sustained over time.
A fund that deliberately supports these investments quietly challenges that myth. It acknowledges that capacity is not a distraction from impact; it is a precondition for it.
What good capacity investment looks like
- People: training, fair compensation and leadership development that reduce turnover.
- Systems: secure, connected tools that eliminate duplicate data entry and protect information.
- Processes: documented ways of working that survive the departure of any one person.
- Innovation: space to test better approaches rather than simply repeating old ones.
An enduring lesson
Time-limited funds end, as this one was always intended to. The principle behind it deserves to endure. Every donor, foundation and public funder can ask a simple question: Are we funding only what is visible, or also what makes the visible possible?
Much of our own work is devoted to that second category. It is less photogenic. It is also where a modest investment often yields the greatest return.
This article is commentary and personal reflection, not news reporting. Facts and figures are drawn from the publicly available sources listed below; the views expressed are the author’s own.
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