Non-profits serving Black Canadians gather to find solutions to fight systemic discrimination

Dozens of workers from non-profits focusing on Black communities are gathering this week in downtown Montreal.

They are looking for strategies to work together to overcome the systemic discrimination they say often plagues their organizations, and say even on their best days it can be a struggle to survive, especially when you don’t have help.

“So I think what ends up happening is that you work more hours, you spend your own money a lot more,” said Nora Jones, who helps run the Vida Sana Centre, a non-profit group that supports youth from diverse ethnic, but primarily Black, backgrounds.

The conference at the Hilton Garden Inn hotel in downtown Montreal will run for three days and is being run by Groupe 3737, which supports racialized and Indigenous enterprises.

“We help them to have better governance, better management and we help them to have access to other sources of funding,” Ed Vertus, director of social innovation at Groupe 3737, told Global News.

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Vertus pointed out that Black and other racialized non-profits face numerous challenges, causing many to struggle or even fail.

“Out of the 206 organizations that we have in our community of practice,” he noted, “about 75 per cent out of them are economically non-viable.”

The reasons include lack of access to funding and other support. That happens, he said, because often non-profits don’t know where to go for money and institutions that can give money often don’t know the non-profits exist.

Jones agrees and says often there’s another reason: race.

“I think that a lot of people have pegged us a certain way,” she said. “I feel like when we ask for funding, no matter how successful you are, you always have that little checked box that you have to say if you’re from a minority group, and it’s not good.”

Other delegates stressed that it’s vital for non-profits to get the support to be able to help their clients.

“Because if we don’t, the consequences are actually — they could be quite dire,” warned Dwight Best, chief executive director at ACSioN, which supports and mentors African diaspora university youth and young professionals.

There’s a trickle-down effect, he insisted, and the community suffers.

By coming together at gatherings like this, they hope to find solutions to overcome these barriers.

The conference wraps up Thursday.