Funder Focus: Ratna Omidvar and the Maytree Foundation
January 6, 2003
By Nicole Zummach
This month in our continuing series of interviews with some of Canada's
leading funders, we feature the Maytree Foundation, which was
established in 1982 to work toward reducing poverty and inequality in
Canada and building stronger communities. CharityVillage spoke with
executive director Ratna Omidvar about the foundation's efforts
to reach out to immigrants and refugees, its support of capacity building
and leadership for other nonprofit organizations working in this area,
and the progressive initiatives it has launched in order to help achieve
its mission.
CharityVillage: Perhaps you could tell me a bit about the
history of the foundation and why, in the last 10 years, you decided
to focus primarily on immigrants and refugees?
Ratna Omidvar: Ever since the creation of the foundation in 1982,
it has had an abiding interest in the reduction of poverty in Canada.
Our earliest work was with seniors. Very early in 1984-85, we also did
some work in the literacy community, and it was through this work that
we actually arrived at the community of immigrants and refugees. Certainly,
in this large urban centre of Toronto, a high number of the people who
were in need of literacy training and literacy programs were, in fact,
immigrants and refugees.
I should point out that the foundation's focus on the reduction of poverty
expresses itself in a number of different ways. Work with immigrants and refugees is certainly one priority. Another key area is grounded in our belief that social policy is the most powerful tool for addressing inequity. We express this belief through sustained funding of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy.
CV: How does the work of the Caledon Institute relate to the
foundation's activities?
RO: The institute develops social policy through the lens of
poor people, and puts forward social policy ideas and constructs that
have proven to be very useful in the development of new policy frameworks,
such as the child tax benefit. They continue to play a role in the development
of policy ideas that are practical and tangible, covering a wide range
of issues, such a fiscal policy, child care, education, disability policy
etc.. They are the policy expression of our belief in national policy
such as an instrument of social justice.
We also have a firm belief in the power of individual leadership, especially
when it has the capacity to create social change. The foundation funds
leaders who are able to realize their dreams by imagining, creating,
and implementing practical solutions to specific problems in a manner
that is sustainable, and replicable. The work of these leaders can be
national or local in scope. For example, Mary Gordon at Roots of Empathy
had an idea that she articulated and expressed first at the local school
board. Today, through her pioneering work, parenting workshops and programs
are available to over 10,000 children and 400 classrooms across Canada.
The program builds empathy in young children, it builds their parenting
skills, it builds their social skills, and has a direct impact on levels
of bullying.
The Refugee and Immigrant Program has been a continued thread of interest for the foundation. Since refugees and immigrants live primarily in large urban centres, this is where we express our interest in them. Because we are a small private foundation, we have restricted our interest to large urban centers in Ontario.
CV: You recently launched your Fulfilling the Promise database.
How did this project get started and what need does it fill in the community?
RO: When you look at poverty and immigrants you very quickly realize
that, to a certain extent, it is artificial poverty. Immigrants have
the tools and have the capacity to become taxpayers, and to contribute
to our labour market and our economy. However, there are certain systems,
certain behaviours and barriers that keep them out of the labour market,
or at least out of the labour market they came to participate in. It
comes as a shock to them, and I think a shock to all of us, that many
of the skills that are brought into this country lie fallow and waste,
and are not able to be used because of barriers to entry. This problem
is not new, but over the last 15 years I would say it has grown in terms
of scope and size and in terms of public attention. In the last three
years it has emerged as the single most pressing problem to solve in
terms of immigration and the labour market.
The foundation believes that it has a role in contributing to the articulation of practical solutions. We have always been interested in this problem of un and underemployment of immigrants. Two years ago, we decided that we needed to figure out a way out of this complicated maze. There are issues of jurisdiction between federal government and provincial government. There are issues of jurisdiction between departments of the federal government and departments within departments of the federal government. There are issues of jurisdiction within the provincial government and regulators, and employers, and educational institutions. It is a very complex puzzle and we needed to bring a singularity of focus so that we could develop some solutions.
A lot of solutions have already been put out ë but for the most part, these solutions are really a call for a minor "revolution". I've worked enough in this field to know that revolution is terrific as a dream to hold on to, but it's really good to make incremental progress that really moves the markers forward.
So as part of making a difference that was real, we started to collect data on who's doing what, who's thinking what, who's done what, what we know. Out of this research, we have created a database that tells the user very quickly about different projects, ideas, programs that are currently underway that have a bearing on enabling Canada to better use the skills that immigrants bring with them.
Once you access the database, a few things become abundantly clear. First, that an enormous amount of work has been done and is being done, and an enormous amount of money has been spent in this area. Next, you are quickly able to perceive a real problem ë that notwithstanding all the good work and good ideas that are being tried, there is very little sustainability that has built into the system. We appear to have created a real appetite for pilot projects without any capacity to institutionalize these into broadly accessible programs. Instead, there are a host of pilot projects that spring up and die.
CV: What feedback have you been hearing about your efforts
so far?
RO: The timing has been great. Last year the federal government
launched its national Skills and Innovation consultations. At these
consultations, our proposals have been universally welcomed. Our proposals
are simple. For example, most skilled immigrants who come to Canada
have a waiting period of four to five years in their home countries
until their visas arrive. We think we should be using this waiting period
to prepare the immigrant for a new life of work in Canada. And this
can be done very simply using technology. We could be posting information
on an Internet portal about regulations in professions, about certain
demand occupations, about standards in those occupations. The immigrant
could engage in some self-assessment, if the tools were available to
them; they could be taking language-training courses; they could be
linked to a mentor.
So we've made a number of practical suggestions and done a lot of work in describing how the stakeholders can each play a role without tripping over each other in terms of jurisdiction. Quite frankly, jurisdiction will be the minefield. We have provided some ideas and paths, but in the end, governments have to take us up on this. In the meantime, we are very encouraged by what we think may be coming from the federal government.
CV: You also support organizations that work with immigrants and
refugees through a number of programs that help build their capacity
and leadership. Why do you feel this is important?
RO: I think this is really an important place for private foundation funding. Civil society organizations are subject to more change than possibly many other sectors of society. They not only have to cope with changes in the environment, changes in the economics of the country, shifts in generations, etc. - but they also have to cope with the constant shifting of government policies, programs and funding. So it is really important for the leadership in the sector to have the capacity to shift and respond appropriately.
After many years of funding initiatives that helped individual immigrants,
we have come to an understanding that it is more effective for us to
help agencies become stronger, and through an improvement in their capacity,
provide ultimately better services to immigrants and refugees. Sustainability
is an important element of our work, and we look to creating impact.
We feel very confident that we can create and leverage impact by investing
in the people who work and volunteer in the sector, and who lead the
community.
CV: Are you evaluating these efforts to help the sector achieve sustainability?
RO: We work under a culture of constant evaluation and improvement. We do this by remaining in close contact with our communities and agencies and listening and talking to them. We are not one of those foundations that calls in external evaluators to prove to us that we are on the right or wrong path. We tend to rely much more on our connections with the community. And we are not also terribly concerned with proving that everything we do is right. I think we are a little out of the box here. At the same time, we are observing very encouraging indicators that tell us we are making a difference.
CV: Beginning this month you will be conducting media training
for nonprofit organizations in partnership with IMPACS. How important
is media savviness to the sector?
RO: It has always been important. We are concerned that the media tends to paint immigrants as victims and refugees as security risks. We would like to change this by shoring up the capacity of immigrant and refugee leaders. We want to be able to boost their self-confidence, to position their issues and solutions in a way that their message gets heard. In seeking a partner for this project, we were drawn by the expertise and experience of IMPACS in media training.
CV: What's next for the foundation?
RO: Firstly, I would like to incrementally expand our offerings
to strengthen the capacity of the people who work and volunteer in the
sector. We are planning some interesting initiatives this year, such
as a certificate program at George Brown College for employment counsellors.
Secondly, we are not simply a passive funder. We share passionately in the convictions that lead to change and believe that we can use our special place in society by convening communities and stakeholders to discuss specific problems and solutions. For example, we have been working for the last two years with Ontario occupational regulatory bodies to help them define for themselves their action plans for change and learning in view of the demand for accreditation and licensure from immigrants. Through this ongoing conversation, they are well on the way to developing their own best practices and learning systems so that they can collectively become more responsive to a new client group, whilst retaining their commitment to standards. We would like to be able to do something similar with employers because employers are very important for immigrants. To date, this conversation between employers and immigrants has not taken place. We hope to change that.
Ratna Omidvar joined the Maytree Foundation five years ago. Prior
to that she was the executive director of Skills for Change. For more
information about the foundation, visit: www.maytree.com.
