Unfortunately, we’re dealing with a postal strike that could last for weeks or longer. For many Canadian charities, they will barely notice the Canada Post strike. However, for other charities, it could have a significant impact in terms of fundraising during the critical fundraising season and dealing with regulators, as many charities are grappling with ONCA and changes to purposes, etc.
Fundraising
For groups that do final year-end mail-out campaigns, this could be very disruptive. Harvey McKinnon, a very respected Canadian fundraiser, had the following tips in his recent newsletter:
We are hopeful we’ll see a resolution soon, but in the meantime, here are a few things you can consider doing to ensure you don’t miss out on donations during this all-important end-of-year season:
-
Increase your quantity of e-mails. You might already have something planned for Giving Tuesday, so use that as a jumping-off point, and keep your e-mail communication frequent through the month of December.
-
Add a lightbox / banner/ article on your website to advise donors of the strike. Ensure that their mail donations will still reach you, and make it easy for them to complete a donation online.
-
Pick up the phone. Whether you do that in-house or with an agency, now is a great time to connect with donors over the phone. Thank them for their support, and ask if they will make their holiday donation. And if you don’t have a lot of phone numbers on your database, you can work with a telemarketing agency to do a phone append and increase your reach.
Many charities have pivoted more to online donations and this strike will encourage others to put more effort into online donations. Remember that every charity has a CanadaHelps landing page, and people can donate to any charity using CanadaHelps. Because CanadaHelps delivers funds every week electronically to thousands of charities, the strike will not slow down most Canadian charities on the CanadaHelps platform getting their payments. For charities not properly registered with CanadaHelps, now would be a great time to register to get payments more quickly and electronically. For some donors who were used to mailing cheques to their favourite charities, they may want to sit down at a computer and donate through CanadaHelps. They may be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
The strike will certainly delay and potentially reduce donations received by some organizations. Hopefully, many organizations and donors can pivot to donating online.
Grantmaking
Many grantmakers are trying to get out payments before the end of December. Typically they would mail those payments out but might have to find other ways of sending them out.
Dealing with CRA
For groups that are dealing with CRA this could be very inconvenient. For example, if your organization has requested a change of objects with CRA, the response once CRA has a letter might be delayed by weeks or months.
If your charity does not have a MyBA account, then CRA will have to wait in most cases until the strike is over to mail a response to you. On the other hand, if you have a MyBA account you’ll be able to access the information immediately.
There are many reasons to have a MyBA account. This is just another reason to do it. I was very interested to see that already 25% of charities are filing their T3010 forms using the MyBA system. This is great because it cuts back on key errors and means that the information is more quickly available to the public.
Receipting
CRA advises that “The date of donation is the date the gift is actually received by the charity. However, when a charity receives a donation by mail, the Canada Revenue Agency considers the date of donation to be the date of the postmark on the envelope. The charity should keep the stamped envelope as part of its books and records.” The problem is, what if people post items, but the strike is only over in the new year, and their mail is picked up and postmarked, say, January 5, 2025? The official donation receipt will be then for 2025, and therefore, the donor will not be able to use it on their 2024 tax return. It is not the end of the world for most, but it is a time value of money matter and will be disturbing to some.
Other impacts
Canada Post is not just about fundraising and receiving CRA letters. Many charities have communications and deliveries that go by mail, and this strike will hamper those communications and deliveries. On the bright side, this adversity will encourage charities to put more emphasis on dealing with donors and beneficiaries through email, text messaging, social media, etc. This may have long-term positive dividends for charities with donors and beneficiaries who take advantage of these more high-tech approaches.