Canadian faith-based development NGOs and CIDA funding

Abstract

Abstract This article analyses the faith-based NGO sector in Canada, particularly its relationship to Canada's public development agency, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), using data on CIDA project expenditures over six years (2005–2010) and registered charity information filings. Faith-based NGOs constituted about one-quarter of all NGOs receiving CIDA funding, and received about one-third (about CAD100 million per year) of CIDA program and project funding to Canadian NGOs. Faith-based NGOs received a third of their CIDA support for humanitarian relief programs, compared to only a fifth for secular NGOs, and served less as channels for official bilateral programming. They were also less dependent on CIDA funding, raising a greater proportion of their revenue directly from the public.

Résumé Cet article s'intéresse aux ONG confessionnelles canadiennes, plus particulièrement à leurs relations avec l'Agence canadienne de développement international (ACDI). À cette fin, la recherche a examiné les données sur les dépenses consacrées aux projets par l'ACDI de 2005–2010 ainsi que les déclarations des organismes de bienfaisance enregistrés. Les ONG confessionnelles comptent pour le quart de toutes les ONG qui reçoivent des fonds de l'ACDI; elles ont reçu le tiers des fonds de l'Agence pour les programmes et les projets versés aux ONG canadiennes, soit environ 100 millions de dollars chaque année. Le tiers des fonds ainsi reçus visait l'aide humanitaire, comparativement à un cinquième pour les ONG laïques. En revanche, les programmes d'aide bilatérale passaient moins souvent par les ONG confessionnelles. Enfin, les ONG confessionnelles recevaient une plus grande part de leurs revenus du public et étaient donc financièrement moins dépendantes de l'ACDI.

Keywords:

• faith-based NGOs
• CIDA funding
• Canadian development assistance
• religion and development
• Canadian civil society

Notes

The literature examining faith-based organisations in development most frequently uses the acronym FBOs (for example Clarke 2007; Paras 2012). However, as Clarke (2008) and Tomalin (2012) discuss, this term is conceptually imprecise, includes a wide variety of organisational forms, and is analogous to the term civil society organisation (CSO). Since this article focuses on development NGOs that are faith-based, the more precise though unwieldy term “faith-based NGO”, and corresponding acronym “fbNGO”, will be used.

These 16 fbNGOs are indicated with ^a in Appendix 1.

Author's calculations from CIDA annual Statistical Reports, http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/acdi-cida/ACDI-CIDA.nsf/eng/JUD-4128122-G4W#pre

Fiscal year 2010/2011 was the most recent year posted online when the research for this article was completed. Henceforth, spans of fiscal years will be referred to in shorthand, for example 2005–2010 instead of 2005/2006–2010/2011.

OECD-DAC is the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development – Development Assistance Committee.

Calculated from CIDA's annual Statistical Reports, http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/acdi-cida/ACDI-CIDA.nsf/eng/JUD-4128122-G4W#pre

CIDA renamed the Partnership Branch to the Partnerships with Canadians Branch in 2010, after a program review that also moved NGO funding from a responsive process to a competitive call-for-proposals process. The name “Partnership Branch” will be used for consistency in this article.

The criteria used to identify NGOs as such were whether the organisation named itself as an NGO on its website, whether it prominently solicited donations, and whether membership was open and voluntary, not based on any professional qualification. Nonetheless, the range and diversity of organisations that make up Canadian civil society is great, and a simple, easily defined and widely accepted definition of an NGO is not easy to find. See Appendix 1 for the listing used in this analysis, and Appendix 2 for a discussion of the effects of some coding decisions on results.

The exception was Eastern Ontario Catholic Curriculum Cooperative, classified by CIDA as a cooperative. Since it only received CAD30,770 for development awareness activities (less than 0.0002% of the total CIDA disbursements for this period), it was ignored.

The inclusion of the Aga Khan Foundation as a fbNGO may be the most sensitive coding regarding faith, as its received a full one-sixth (CAD101 million over six years) of the total CIDA funding to fbNGOs. While the Aga Khan website emphasises its nonsectarian orientation, it is clearly linked organisationally to the Ismaili branch of Islam, and its programming is oriented by its faith perspective (Settle 2011).

The 11 denominational fbNGOs that were both members of the CFGB during the period of this study and also received CIDA funding directly are indicated with a ^c in the list of fbNGOs in Appendix 1. (Development and Peace and the Primate's World Relief and Development Fund joined the CFGB in 2008.)

The OECD-DAC sectoral “purpose” code tables provide progressively more detailed sector descriptions, resulting in hundreds of five-digit codes (OECD-DAC n.d.). The analysis presented here only uses the first two digits of the sector codes, and Table 6 even groups some of these sector codes. See CIDA (2012).

There was considerable variation in the dependency on CIDA funding among these six NGOs. CIDA revenue as a percentage of overall revenue for each organisation was: Aga Khan Foundation, 27 per cent; CFGB, 77 per cent; World Vision Canada, 3 per cent; Red Cross, 52 per cent; CARE Canada, 18 per cent; and Plan International Canada, 7 per cent. There is no consistent difference between the three fbNGOs and three secular NGOs. (For the Red Cross, the above figure is for CIDA revenue as percentage of expenses outside Canada, since the Red Cross also has significant activities within Canada.)