With the election called for May 2, 2011, and Parliament dissolved, now is an ideal time to meet with your local Members of Parliament, local candidates running for office and, where applicable, local Senators.

If the work around Bill C-470 taught the charitable sector anything, it is that there are a lot of commonly-held misconceptions about the sector. Your efforts, therefore, are key to educating our elected officials and addressing these misconceptions while raising the visibility of AFP and the fundraising profession as a whole.

When meeting with Members of Parliament, candidates, Senators and/or their staffs, you might find the following talking points helpful.

Talking Points

• Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. I am here as a constituent and an employee of [name of your organization and its mission], as well as a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, also known as AFP.
  
  Background
  
  
• AFP is the largest community of fundraising professionals in the world. It represents 30,000 members in 222 chapters throughout the world, including 3,100 members in 16 chapters across Canada. Our mission is to advance ethical and responsible fundraising and philanthropy through research, education and certification programs.
• Our members raise funds for a wide variety of charities, from large, multinational institutions to local grassroots organizations on every conceivable issue – education, healthcare, religion, and the environment, to name just a few.
• AFP members are committed to ethical fundraising and educating the public about wise giving. AFP’s Code of Ethical Principles and Standards have been used as a model for charities and nonprofits around the world, and members are required to sign the code annually.
  
  Collaborative Efforts: Government and Sector
  
  
• Building on a record of recent success, our key message is that AFP members are keenly interested to provide our expertise and experience to Parliament on any issue relating to the charitable sector.
• AFP has successfully worked in the past in collaboration with the government. For instance, we have forged a strong working relationship with the CRA, and we have seen this approach result in strong public policy that protects donors while respecting the rights of charities to raise funds for critically needed programs. We welcome a similar collaborative relationship with you and your staff.
• We would welcome the opportunity to update you in the future on issues of importance to our sector.
  
  Public Trust and Regulation
  
  
• I came to chat with you today to briefly discuss some issues important to the charitable sector and to perhaps clear some misconceptions about the sector.
• Over the past few years, administrative costs (including fundraising expenses) and nonprofit compensation (recently considered in Bill C-470) have been suggested as effective baseline indicators of nonprofit performance and transparency.
• AFP contends that attempts to create simplistic indicators such as these are far too misleading and overlook other equally important elements of nonprofits such as the use of commission-based compensation (which is prohibited in the AFP Code of Ethical Principles and Standards), the size of the charity, charitable causes with limited appeal and the organizations’ internal fundraising evaluation processes.
• Also, when legislative and regulatory changes are suggested, it is important to avoid creating redundancy. For instance, Bill C-470 created a potential redundancy on top of existing Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) oversight.
• Unfortunately, the charitable sector has been placed under greater scrutiny due in a large part to some well-publicized accounts of wrongdoing by a select number of nonprofits. We think that these wrongful acts are quite rare and the exception to the rule, but we nevertheless support transparency and ethical behaviour, exemplified by the AFP Code of Ethical Principles and Standards that each of our members must sign and abide.
• When legislative or regulatory changes affecting the nonprofit sector are proposed, we urge you to consider taking a broad view. The charitable sector is complex, and one-size-fits-all approaches often fail to acknowledge that complexity.
• For these reasons, we again offer our expertise and experience to Parliament on legislative and regulatory matters relating to the sector and would welcome a collaborative relationship with you and your staff.
• Again, thank you for your time.

Meetings Feedback

If you are able to meet with your MP, a local candidate and/or Senator, please let us know, so we can keep a record of who has been contacted. We also might be able to foster a stronger collaborative framework with them. If you are unable to set up a meeting, please consider sending a letter with the points mentioned above.

UPDATE: Feedback needed from AFP members to improve CRA Fundraising Guidance

As we mention in the talking points, AFP has built a strong working relationship with the CRA. Through Andrea McManus, CFRE, our chair, AFP has been invited to provide the CRA with feedback on and potential improvements to the fundraising guidelines. We would welcome any comments from you regarding areas where the guidance could be improved. Alternatively, you can also let us know which parts of the guidance are working well.

We thank you in advance for your input.

If you have any input regarding meetings with elected officials or the CRA fundraising guidelines or if you have any questions, please contact Jason Lee, AFP’s General Counsel, at jlee@afpnet.org or Ken Mayhew, Chair of the AFP Canadian Government Relations Committee, at Ken.Mayhew@mssociety.ca.

Thank you for everything you do to advance ethical fundraising and philanthropy in Canada. We appreciate your efforts on behalf of AFP and the fundraising profession.