The Impact of Cutbacks and Restructuring on the NGO Sector and the Delivery of Immigrant Services

Mwarigha M.S.
Program Director
Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto
Presented at the First National Conference on Immigration Prairie Centre for Research on Immigration and Integration
Edmonton, 1997

Non-Governmental Organizations or NGOs are an important part of the social service infrastructure in the Greater Toronto Area, and Ontario as whole. NGOs in Ontario provide a whole range of services to immigrants, including: language training, reception and settlement services, employment, health, housing, escort and interpretation.

The main source of funding for immigrant services are the Ontario Settlement and Integration Program (OSIP), and the Federal government which has several programs including: Immigrant Settlement & Adaptation Program (ISAP) the Host Program and Language Instruction for Newcomers (LINC). In addition, immigrant services also receive funding from municipalities and a host of foundations.

According to estimates done in a research by Ted Richmond entitled, Effect of Cutbacks on Immigrant Service Agencies (1996), ‘funding for Immigrant Service Agencies or ISA’s in Ontario probably peaked around 1994, at around 70 million dollars. About 35 percent of this funding came from the Federal government and about 42 percent from Ontario. The remaining funding approximately 8 percent from Municipal, 7 percent United Way, and 8 percent from foundations, fundraising activities and productive enterprise.

The exact amount of money that flows directly through Ontario’s NGO sector to service immigrants is difficult to pin down. In 1996, in Ontario, all services provided by all the 13 Host programs, were contracted to NGOs. A sizable portion of LINC services 24 percent or 24 million of the total program budget was provided through community based organizations. Also, the entire ISAP budget worth 8.7 million dollars was allocated to non-profits to support direct settlement and adaptation services. It is evident by looking at the above breakdown of Federal funding that the NGO sector is a major recipient of government dollars for settlement services.

Today in Ontario, the role of NGOs in facilitating the settlement of new immigrants is clearly being redefined by both the Federal and Provincial governments. Reduced transfers from Federal to the Provincial levels of government have been passed on in reductions to municipalities, and in turn to NGOs that provide services to immigrants. In its shift, "from investment in the public sector to public/partnership/competitive marketplace, the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services is expressing its intention to increase contracting and purchase of service agreements with both non-profit and for-profit operators." (Future Directions in Social Services, 1996, MCSS).

The result of these changes introduced by both provincial and federal governments are: 1) withdrawal from direct service provision as much as possible; 2) reduction or total elimination of grants and other discretionary programs to NGOs, especially to smaller low income and immigrants serving organizations that have little political clout: and 3) increased reliance on competitive market type mechanisms for allocating funds to low cost private providers, or to the larger NGOs that can meet the more stringent and narrowly defined requirements of purchase of service agreements.

A recent "Community Agency Survey of Metropolitan Toronto, 1996," conducted jointly by Metro Community Services, Social Planning Council of Metro Toronto and the City of Toronto, found that 43% of all programs for immigrants or refugees were at a high risk of being eliminated. According to research by Ted Richmond (1996), the total dollar effect of the funding cutbacks to date varies from 20 percent for some of the larger multi-service agencies, to 40 percent for some of the smaller agencies. In addition, many of the smaller NGOs such as ethno-specific immigrant service agencies have had to close.

The NGO sector has responded by undertaking research on the impact of government cutbacks, the increased competition in the delivery of social services, and advocacy to warn about the negative impact on the NGO sector of a ‘service delivery market’ in which the lowest bid prevails.

The Social Planning Council (SPC) recently completed a research paper entitled: "Merchants of Care? The Non-Profit Sector in a Competitive Social Services Marketplace, 1997." In this paper the SPC examines the implications on the NGOs, of a social services delivery system that is based on the competitive private market model. Although many of the arguments in this paper deal with the NGO sector as whole, the conclusions are particularly applicable to immigrant serving NGOs. The SPC’s research paper builds on the premise that over the last forty years, government funding support has provided a substantial component of operational and program funding, which is then supplemented by other sources such as the United Way. The loss of government support through funding cuts, downloading and privatization will weaken the vital partnership between government and NGOs, to the detriment of long term benefits, such as: quality service, public accountability, volunteer and community participation in the provision of immigrant, and other social services. It is clear, concludes the SPC’s research paper, that NGOs will not be able to fill the vacuum left by governments withdrawal from many of its public provision roles.

Another practical research document produced by a collaborative effort of a number of NGOs and led by CultureLink: "Making the Road by Walking It," studied the effect of cutbacks and restructuring on immigrant settlement service agencies. The workbook aimed ‘to stimulate settlement workers to start thinking about restructuring and responding proactively to change by providing a broad view of change at all levels: political, organizational, and individual/personal.’ The book provides a global and national

context to the uncertainties facing settlement service agencies, and emphasizes that ‘this is a time of radical change when non-profits around the world are increasingly expected to do more with less.’ It provides strategies, options and examples of change undertaken by some NGOs in Ontario that provide settlement and immigrant services. These include: 1) starting new ventures in order to generate additional revenue for services. 2) cooperative strategies between related services that have to date operated as single entities, 3) internal reorganization and refocusing on core mission and activities of serving newcomers. and 4) coordination, using volunteers more effectively and sharing office space to reduce overhead costs. The workbook concludes by stating that the key to success is for NGOs to become learning organizations. moved by creativity rather than problem solving, and that see their world in "wholes" rather than in parts.

In the area of advocacy the SPC initiated Community Voices of Support, ‘a network of more than 150 community agencies in the Metropolitan Toronto which has taken leadership to preserve the important contribution which the voluntary sector has to make to the quality of life in our communities.’ The Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI) is leading similar advocacy efforts among immigrants serving agencies to oppose government cutbacks, and to voice its membership’s concerns about the implications of the federal government’s impending withdrawal from directly funding settlement services.

Finally, in what ways can the four Centres of Excellence work in partnership with the NGO community?

First, NGOs and universities as public supported agencies are under greater scrutiny from the general public to reduce duplication and to utilize public funds more effectively. In this context, the partnership between universities and NGOs to collaborate in doing research will demonstrate that the two sectors are taking concrete steps to respond to calls for more effective use of public funds. Ultimately, this evidence will boost the case for continued government funding for independent non-governmental research in the area of immigration.

There is general agreement about the principle of and need for developing a meaningful partnership between universities and NGOs involved in Toronto’s Joint Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration & Settlement. However, the critical equity question that must consistently be addressed is still: "who gets what, when and how?"

To answer this question, each of the four centres across Canada must develop mutually agreed upon short term goals, indicators of progress and outcomes, for both research and community participation. Doing so will help answer the question of "who gets what and how" and advance the partnership beyond the realm of rhetoric, and into a higher level of practice. In the Toronto Centre, the areas in which the question of equity is a recurring one include: the allocation of resources, representation in the Management Board and its sensitivity to the concerns of community partners, and in defining the research priorities of the Centre and adjudicating research proposals. Significant progress has been made in many of the areas of research and community participation during the Toronto Centre’s inaugural year. However, NGO partners still have concerns about not getting the necessary support to ensure meaningful participation. These concerns are clearly linked to the challenges of restructuring and the negative impact of cutbacks, which has left most NGOs with barely enough resources to carry out their core work. However, the current realities of increased public scrutiny and reduced government funding, leave us with two choices: ‘isolation or competition. Either we compete against one another for funding, or we work together.’ (Making the Road by Walking it, 1996). My preference is for NGOs and universities to continue building this new partnership, based on the credo of ‘making the road by walking it.’

Mwarigha M.S. is an immigrant from Africa who has been actively involved over  the past years in the community development and immigrant service areas in  Toronto. He is currently employed with the Community Social Planning Council of  Toronto (SPC) and the Centre for Equality Rights in Accomodation (CERA).  Mwarigha M.S. has been actively involved with CERIS since its inception and for the first two years served as a community representative on the CERIS Management Board. He is the author of a number of articles and studies dealing with the planning and provision of social services and is a frequent public speaker on these issues.

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