In our May 2023 CharityVillage Connects podcast episode, we took a hard look at the world of philanthropy, especially how foundations, both public and private, operate in Canada. 

For this episode, we interviewed Andrew Chunilall, CEO of Community Foundations Canada. In our interview, Andrew talked about some of the barriers historically preventing philanthropic funds from reaching equity-seeking communities, addressed the importance of building relationships, and commented on why it is past time for philanthropy to be transformed.  

To start, we asked Andrew about some of the systemic barriers preventing a more equitable distribution of funds, and whether he felt legislation, like the increase to the disbursement quota or the relaxation of the rules around granting to qualified donees, would appropriately address these barriers. 

Andrew Chunilall: I don’t think the disbursement quota solves for this. I think the disbursement quota increases the floor on what’s required to be dispersed, but it doesn’t deal with the allocation issue, which is where I think your question is. And that was something that was debated, which is, we want to increase the disbursement quota, sure, that can be a good thing, but is it going to serve underserved communities? 

And when we looked out at the landscape and some of the work that we were doing, we understood that not a lot of philanthropic dollars were making it out to the Canadian North and isolated communities. Not a lot of philanthropic dollars were making it out to Black communities. And the Unfunded Report provided some data to support that. We also understood that not a lot of philanthropic dollars were making it to Indigenous communities.  

Now, we could take it a step further and say, well, in those communities, there’s not very many charities. And so we have this legislative requirement that we have to grant to qualified donees. And so that was a barrier, a legal barrier. But I think it was more perception as a barrier. We have a permissive enough, flexible enough regulatory regime that we can find ways to work with different organizations in different parts of the country, whether there’s a charity there or not. However, the legislative change does make it easier. And we’re working that through. 

We asked Andrew what he thought the real barriers were, if they weren’t of a regulatory or legal nature 

Andrew Chunilall: I think the real barrier is that philanthropy has not developed the relationships that it needs to effectively work in those communities. And many people will say this, you just don’t show up in a community or you don’t just show up with a constituency and say, here’s what we’re doing. 

We need to be educated. We need to build those relationships. We need to understand there needs to be a relationship. And that takes time and it takes intentional effort. But it also requires us to build relationships with people and communities that we may in a first instance not think we have much in common with. And so that actually is the barrier. And oftentimes when we think we are working in communities like the Indigenous community, the Black community, we are often fearful of working in places where we feel like we could make mistakes and we could be called out for them in an unhealthy way. And again, that just goes to trust and relationships. So again, I think we’re working through some of these challenges. 

Many community foundations and private philanthropy are working very closely with the Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund as an example, or the Foundation for Black Communities. And so we’re really pulling those old impediments away and we’re establishing a base of trust through which will help us move resources and empower those communities. 

Does philanthropy as we’ve known it need to be reimagined? We put this question to Andrew. 

Andrew Chunilall: Yes, and we’re at the early stages of this, Mary. I think reimagining, we use the term transformation. And a lot of people will ask me, what does that really mean, Andrew? And it’s not about changing laws or policies or even retooling in a first instance. 

Transformation really is about changing the way that we think. And I think that is work that can’t be done overnight. It’s slow by nature. Like we’ve spent thousand years getting here and we’ve realized, Hey, you know, we’re not doing right by climate. We’re not doing right by equity-seeking groups. Like, we understand that. 

But the true change will come from our alternative ways of thinking. And then that in turn will then help us to create new tools, which will then help us to have different types of institutions, and leadership and governance. But the pace of change is slow. The criticism again, we’re talking a lot about criticism, is that many people would say we don’t have any more time. We’re running out of time. 

Particularly that we’re in the middle of a global polycrisis. And climate change is one of those crises, in addition to economic inequality, economic insecurity. And so I think that’s our challenge, is how do we move through those processes quick enough so that we can be responsive and counteract some of the changes or counteract some of the effects of the global polycrisis? 

Want to hear more from Andrew? Listen to his full interview in the video below. 

Listen to Andrew and other philanthropic leaders discuss the challenges and complexities surrounding how we approach philanthropy in Canada in our new CharityVillage Connects podcast episode. Click here to listen.