As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, we recognize that the community faces monumental challenges. The rising cost-of-living, affordable housing and food security, along with the shorter-and-shorter-term effects of climate change and growing healthcare demands, to name a few, were exacerbated by the pandemic in part. They now threaten to overwhelm our institutions at all levels.
Tim Brodhead
Tim Brodhead is a past OCF board member and the former CEO of the J.W. McConnell Foundation. He is also a fundholder for the Brodhead Fund at the OCF. Tim acknowledges the need to leverage the foundation’s unique role to address these urgent needs.
“This is exactly when philanthropy needs to dig deeper,” he explains. “As a community foundation, as donors, how do we respond to the onslaught of intersecting and interrelated crises?”
The OCF has always been proud of its role helping donors to seek long term solutions to deep-rooted problems while also addressing immediate needs in the community. As Ottawa’s foundation, it uses its flexibility and direct engagement with the community to identify our most pressing problems.
“This is exactly when philanthropy needs to dig deeper,” he explains. “As a community foundation, as donors, how do we respond to the onslaught of intersecting and interrelated crises?”
“Part of the OCF’s unique value proposition for donors is access to the foundation’s deep local connection,” Tim asserts. “And right now, many organizations in the community are reaching a breaking point.”
A recent report from Feed Ontario showed a sharp increase in food bank visits over the past three years.
The current areas of pressure are, in many ways, unsurprising. They include the basics of people’s well-being: food and shelter. Food banks are almost always at the edge of capacity and continue to face unprecedented challenges. Affordable housing is a persistent and growing emergency. A recent update from Ottawa Public Health showed that a single person relying on Ontario Works is already in the red each month after paying for rent and food. And Feed Ontario, which represents 1,200 food banks across the province, reported a striking 42% increase in food bank visits over the last three years and found that food bank use is rising faster than pre-pandemic rates.
There are ongoing and promising efforts within the community to address these needs. The recently launched Good Food Link website, which connects people experiencing food insecurity with local resources, was funded through an OCF Community Grant. And in 2021, the Ottawa Community Land Trust was established to acquire and hold land to be preserved for affordable housing.
But Brodhead concedes that more needs to be done, and with contributions from beyond the usual stakeholders. For donors, he thinks it can begin with a pivot in mindset.
“We all have causes and organizations that we are passionate about,” he begins. “The Brodhead Fund, like all the funds at OCF, has priorities and areas of interest. But right now, we cannot overlook the needs of people who need help – food, shelter, access to services. We have to do more.”
The Ottawa Community Foundation strives for effective fundholder engagement by fulfilling donor wishes and intent. It has always taken pride in its mission of facilitating its fundholders’ support for causes across the spectrum. This unique relationship will always be honoured.
But the foundation also honours its obligation to provide the best local knowledge to inform its grant making and advise fundholders interested in current needs in the community.
If you would like to learn more about priority areas of interest in the community, please contact us.