In April, the Nonprofit Chamber introduced their new President and CEO, Angie Gélinas, who took over the organization at a politically charged time for Calgary.
Just two weeks after that announcement, the federal general election was held, and now the Calgary municipal general election is just mere months away.
What has not changed is the pressure that non-profits are facing, and the need for non-profit organizations and charities to be heard by politicians, both present and future.
As part of that need, Gélinas said that the chamber’s advocacy efforts undertaken in 2019 and in 2023 with the #nonprofitsvote campaign would be returning for the 2025 municipal election, albeit under the chamber’s new name instead of as the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations.
“We’re going to launch a renewed non-profit vote approach. Certainly we don’t pick or advocate for any particular candidate, but what we want to do is be able to provide a platform for nonprofits to put forward policy needs, policy concerns, and then we will likely look at how we can host at least one mayoral event where the sector gets to meet with the candidates,” said Gélinas.
“Non-profits vote will be launched probably early September, on a new platform, and we hope to play that role in bringing policy, wants, needs and insights in a way that these candidates can digest and understand.”
She hoped the high-quality information that the chamber collects would help to both inform the platforms of candidates, and help Calgarians in making their decisions at the ballot box.
“With this relaunch, I do hope that people candidates are able to understand the value of of the sector, the people who work in the sector, and that they are voters whether it’s municipal or provincial,” Gélinas said.
“But mostly from the Chamber’s perspective, we want to be that conduit that brings it in from all parts of the province and the city, allowing a conduit for nonprofits to get their voice heard.”
The continued collection and dissemination of data about the sector would continue outside of the elections, said Gélinas.
“We have a strong priority of just continuing to develop and improve the data for the nonprofit sector… and we’ll continue to work with partners on how we do that. We can work on making sure we have clean, live data about the vast spectrum on how non-profits work,” she said.
“We want to make sure that’s available to everybody, like a data commons. I’d say we were at the early stage of being able to produce some of this data, and we’re one of the only, if not the only province right now with these kinds of dashboards open.”
She said that the continued work to promote the interests of the non-profit sector came from ensuring that policymakers and the public have an understanding of the critical work that is being undertaken on their behalf by non-profits.
“I very much come at it from a perspective of its essential infrastructure. It’s indispensable. It’s not a nice-to-have, and it does these amazing things. So often you’ll hear a lot about the needs of the sector, and maybe not as much about the innovations and the accomplishments,” Gélinas said.
“I want to find a balanced narrative for the sector, so that when things happen in our world and people reach out looking for solutions, yes, they look to the business, they look to government, and they look to the nonprofit sector as a way to build that community and be part of the solution.”
