CMCS Consulting Services

In This Edition

Should All Canadian Non-Profits Buy Canada First?

The US President wants to hurt Canada economically. At least one Ontario non-profit has responded with a ”buy Canada first” policy. Should other Canadian non-profits do the same?

Canadian Non-Profits: Tech Leaders?

Imagine Canada reports on the state of Canadian non-profit tech compared with the private sector. The findings are surprising!

Results of Last Edition’s Survey

In our last edition, we asked whether a board member has ever left your organization citing personal liability as the reason. Here is what BIG Ideas readers told us!

Developing Long-Term Housing Strategies

CMCS helped Community Living Thunder Bay create a long-term vision for housing. We can do the same for you.

From They To We

How do your staff refer to management? Is it “they” or “we”? It matters.

SHOULD ALL NON-PROFITS "BUY CANADA FIRST"?

The Story

With Canada under economic siege from its formerly friendly neighbour to the south, is it time for Canadian non-profits to do their bit and invoke a Buy-Canada-First policy?

One Ontario non-profit, Reena, thinks so. It has publicly stated that Reena “remains steadfast in its commitment to prioritizing the procurement of Canadian goods and services, especially in light of recent economic tensions and the possible imposition of tariffs on Canadian products. Supporting Canadian businesses not only upholds our core values but also ensures that the individuals we serve continue to receive the highest-quality products and services.”

Reena provides a range of services for individuals with developmental disabilities. They include housing, community participation, social, employment and support services. Its well-earned stature includes being a leader in housing, which it has built extensively, including “intentional community residences”. Reena’s rationale for positioning itself as a Buy-Canada-First organization is based on three principles:

Strengthening Our Communities
Investing in Canadian businesses directly supports our local economy, fosters job creation, and underpins the stability of enterprises that share Reena’s dedication to social responsibility.

Enhancing Service Quality
Canadian suppliers understand the unique needs of our sector, enabling us to maintain and improve the services we provide for individuals with disabilities.

Ensuring Long-Term Sustainability
By fostering strong relationships with local partners, we reduce our reliance on shifting global trade policies and enhance our ability to remain financially resilient.

As part of this approach, Reena will implement a “Canada-first” policy in its procurement practices, evaluated on a monthly basis, and will not attend U.S.-based conferences or training sessions.

The Skinny

Your BIG IDEAS newsletter is all for a Canada-first approach. It is as disappointed as you are in the sudden turnaround from being participants in a friendly, integrated, North American economic partnership to being bullied and insulted by people of questionable motivation and even more questionable character.

At the same time, being realistic, many non-profits, using our clients at CMCS as an example, spend about 80% of their money on staff. This means they have already bought Canadian. Undoubtedly there will be some things they can source differently, but the magnitude of the switch would be as much symbolic as impactful, given how little is available to spend on anything beyond staffing.

The BIG IDEA

However, sometimes symbols are a good thing, and this is one of these times. So my BIG IDEA for this edition is to find ways of replacing US-sourced goods and services with those made in Canada.

CANADIAN NON-PROFITS: Tech Leaders?

The Story

Conventional wisdom is that Canada’s non-profits lag the private sector in harnessing technology and avoiding being hacked. A recent report from Imagine Canada questions that assumption.

Imagine Canada advises that according to data from Statistics Canada, “nonprofits outpace for-profits in technology adoption across nearly all categories, including websites, social media, e-commerce, and cloud computing. This pattern holds for all sizes of organizations, but the gap is largest among small ones. For example, 81% of small nonprofits use social media compared to only 66% of small businesses, and 70% of small nonprofits use cloud computing or storage compared to only 52% of small businesses.”

The same goes for cybersecurity. “Nonprofits also lead for-profits in the adoption of most cybersecurity measures. Eighty percent of nonprofits report using email security, compared to 72% of for-profits; 79% report using anti-malware software, compared to 74% of for-profits; 72% report using network security, compared to 67% of for-profits; and 60% report using web security, compared to 50% of for-profits. Less commonly used cybersecurity measures include mobile security (48% of nonprofits), data protection and control (42%), and software and application security (33%). “

The private sector catches up when it comes to being hacked, an achievement it might not be happy to acknowledge. “ Eighteen percent of nonprofits reported experiencing a cybersecurity incident in 2021, as did 18% of businesses.” Interestingly, “16% of small organizations reported incidents, compared to 25% of medium-sized organizations and 35% of large ones.” So the bigger you are, the more vulnerable you are.

How much did it cost to deal with being hacked? The report suggests it was $19,000. This seems cheap given all the reports of much more extensive, and expensive, invasions. However, the report does note that there was more pain other than financial: operations were interrupted and extra time was needed to perform needed functions.

The Skinny

Spoiler alert: this data is a bit old, since it comes from 2021. Apparently Statistics Canada collected more data in 2024 that has not yet been released. It will be interesting to see if Canadian non-profits have maintained their lead in the areas noted above. In the interim, congratulations to all those non-profits that were attentive to technological advances and cyber protection.

The BIG Idea

Our BIG IDEA related to tech is to keep doing your best to stay current, which we know isn’t easy in an environment where continuous advancements are the norm and cost is always a barrier.

DEVELOPING LONG-TERM HOUSING STRATEGIES

With housing at a premium and no sign of that changing any time soon, at CMCS Consulting Services, Tom and Nancy will help human service organizations develop long-term housing strategies for the people they support.

This strategy can start with creating a housing philosophy that addresses issues like:

· Choice: Who chooses where people live and who they live with?

· Ownership: Does the person own or rent or does the organization own or rent on their behalf?

· Subsidies: Will the organization make a location affordable by paying a portion of the monthly cost?

· Location: (Are there areas where housing is preferred and areas that are out of bounds?

· Staffing: Is staffing in place to support the various choices available?

Then it can move into the details of its new strategy of adding to, changing and/or reducing current housing options for the people assisted by the organization.

Many of the strategic plans we help organizations develop address housing among other issues. On occasion, the entire exercise deals only with housing. Our work with Community Living Thunder Bay is an example of the latter. So, if you want a plan that is solely focused on housing, that’s okay. We will be there for you.

SURVEY results

In our last edition we asked: Has a board member ever left your organization citing a concern about personal liability as the reason?

In response, only 3% of BIG IDEAS readers said a board member had resigned due to concerns of their legal exposure. This means either almost all board members are familiar with the liability issue and are good with how their organizations address it, or they aren’t aware of the liability aspect and don’t know enough to be concerned. We are pretty sure it’s the former.

Many thanks to all the BIG IDEAS readers who responded. Your contribution is appreciated, and makes Ontario’s non-profits and charities even better.

FROM THEY TO WE

The Story

If we accept the argument that an organization’s employees are its most important asset, it makes sense to spend time considering how those employees experience the organization in their day-to-day encounters with it.

Such an analysis would include:

· What that experience involves currently;

· Whether it is to a standard that motivates the current employee group and makes it want to stay;

· Whether it attracts quality recruits; and

· How the employee experience might be improved.

The employee experience starts with money. No one works for free. And let’s include benefits under the money heading, although surprisingly some people don’t pay attention to benefits and who pays for them.

But it extends much further than that. At the heart of the employee experience is her/his job duties and whether those duties are well-structured, well-communicated and rewarding. A lot of weight needs to be put on this part of the employee experience, for obvious reasons.

In the course of fulfilling those job duties, however, many other factors come into play. They start with core issues like work location, full time versus part time hours and 9 to 5 versus evenings and weekends. Then come others, such as the work environment and whether it is supportive and nurturing, whether each employee and her/his contribution is recognized and whether the employee’s supervisor has the skills to fulfil that demanding role (remember people don’t quit their job, they quit their boss).

Beyond the work environment are even more issues, like:

· Whether the employee takes satisfaction in the mission and vision of the organization;

· The connection between what the employee does and that mission and vision;

· The opportunity to advance within the organization;

· The opportunity for professional development; and

· The esteem that comes with the job and with an organization that has a strong reputation in the broader community.

All this means that the employee experience is comprehensive in nature and fleshing out the details of the employee experience and giving weight to its various elements will be challenging. However, it is worth the effort, and can be used as a springboard for planning and change. It can also be used in the recruitment of new employees and in providing perspective to the organization’s current employee group. Everyone should be clear on what the employee experience represents.

The Skinny

If you want to build your employer brand by analyzing the employee experience, here are the cornerstones that most non-profits can aspire to:

· Reasonable salary (not great but not terrible);

· Excellent benefits including vacations;

· Job security (although primarily for full time staff);

· Commitment and flexibility related to work-life balance;

· A worthy mission.

Then it’s a matter of adding to those, to the extent possible, with “nice to haves” like professional development opportunities. You can also look to enhance what exists currently, and a key area here would be supervisory skills, which tend to be lacking at least in some non-profits.

If you don’t want to go to all that effort, but you still want to take the temperature of your organization and its employee experience, or if you just want an additional way of measuring the employee experience, here is a very simple test: find out whether the organization’s front-line employees view it as a “we” organization or a “they” organization. If they see it as a “we” organization, in other words, if in conversation they talk about the whole organization, including management, in terms of “we did this” or “we stand for this” you can be assured that everyone is on the same page in terms of its goals and especially how it is pursuing those goals. There is no differentiation between front line and management. They are in it together.

In “they” organizations, front-liners are not in sync with the goals, with how the organization operates in pursuing those goals or both, and all the problems and shortcomings are the fault of the management team. “They did this” and “they did that”, “they didn’t do this” and “they didn’t do that” predominate any front-line discussion of the state of the organization.

The BIG IDEA

My BIG Idea for this week is to get a grasp on the employee experience. Use it to evaluate where you are on the scale and what you still need to do to provide the best employee experience possible. Then proceed with enhancing, to the extent possible, those parts of the employee experience that are found wanting.

If you can’t wait to go through the steps needed to determine where you are on the employee experience spectrum, then find out how your front-line staff characterize their relationship with the management team – is it “we” or is it ”they”? A “we” organization is well on its way. A “they” organization has work to do.