Building Non-Profit Capacity

Sustainable Capacity Solutions is the one-stop shop for Canadian environmental organization capacity building support. Nonprofits are essential for climate action because they expand public appetite for action, while also monitoring progress towards climate goals and ensuring everyone has a voice.

We are a network of social enterprises delivering necessary services across a wide range of areas, with a core goal of providing support to help nonprofit organizations deliver on their missions and achieve key goals. Our network of service providers help with bookkeeping, administration, staff support, and professional training and fundraising.

SCS and its five social enterprises were all born out of Ottawa and have a strong network and community within the Eastern Ontario region. We value and encourage reciprocity whenever we can within the region, and would like to share some key tips for organizations throughout Ottawa, to help them in their daily operations.

Our first tip is from our social enterprise GreenBooks:

Do you know that in order to make a healthy decision about your organization's expenditure, whether you can afford it now or not and when the right time is, you need to check another figure other than your organization's bank account balance?

Why? All the received grants/donations and all other revenues go to your bank account. They should cover a long period of time. A year, or two, or maybe a project or salaries of an employee. If that money is used to pay for rent, then that salary money will not be available on payday.

What can you do?

1. Check the net income number on your organization's Income Statement. This number reflects the accrued revenues and expenses whether they have been received/paid in cash or not.

2. Create an Excel sheet for every grant or big donation that is received and link the grant to your chart of accounts expense accounts.

This way, if the bank account says you have $100,000, you will know where the money should be going tomorrow, next month and till the year-end. This helps you figure out if you can afford another employee, for example.

In comparison to personal finances, think of what will happen if you spend all your paycheck on a nice trip on your payday! What happens when you are back and your mortgage payment is due? How will you pay then?

Our second tip, from Sustainable Philanthropy, identifies some key fundraising best practices!

It's important to plan out your fundraising activities - and as far ahead as possible. You might want to start your year by thinking of some key activities you want to accomplish and by when. This might include applying for grants, meeting with key funders, following up with a donor or individual that has supported you, or developing a report that talks about your impact. Whatever activities you identify make sure you build in enough time (and flexibility!) to accomplish these. For example, how much time do you need to research grant opportunities and deadlines? To pursue and set up a meeting with a funder you have in mind? To write up an impact report? Things will change along the way, but a general roadmap is better than none at all.

SCS hopes that these tips and tricks will help build the internal capacity of your organizations by increasing knowledge and understanding!

We also host monthly online webinars on various nonprofit topics, hosted by the Capacity Building Institute. The next event is on June 5th from 4:00 pm EST - 5:00 pm EST, the topic of discussion is “Fund Development”. Anyone can register by going to the Capacity Building Institute website and registering under “Events”.

Chantel Haigh is the Executive Director of Sustainable Capacity Solutions. She is a graduate of Trent University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree of International Development Studies and an Honours Minor of Environmental Studies.