Dear RC Forward donors,
As you might know, RC Forward has experienced unexpectedly fast growth in the donations we receive. One key driver for this growth has been your remarkable generosity and support of high-impact causes. We also grew quickly because we worked with a particular grant facilitator and followed a streamlined process.
This year has come with a wave of challenging news. Most importantly, the grant facilitator we worked with ceased operations. This event prompted a review of our internal systems and processes, through which we learned that we need to make key operational changes to ensure we strengthen our partnership approach as a Canadian registered charity.
These changes mean that RC Forward will operate very differently for the next several months. We think these changes will help us achieve our mission by improving the robustness and efficiency of our organization. However, in the short term these changes are complex to navigate. Right now, here is the impact of the review:
- The donations you made Q4 2022 or later will support charities an estimated 3-12 months later than planned. (Donations made Q3 2022 and earlier are not impacted.)
- In July we need to pause fundraising new donations for most projects. Please check back on our new donation form (link) where we will be adding additional projects.
- No donations are getting lost, they’ll just be funding projects slower than expected.
- We have a spreadsheet (link) where you can track our progress.
We wish we had better news for you today. We completely understand if you feel frustrated, disappointed, or worried about the impact of these changes on the charities you support. Our team deeply values the partnerships and trust we have built with you and our charity partners–RC Forward wouldn’t exist without you. Our goal is and has always been to help effective organizations working on important causes maximize the good they can do, and we are working hard to overcome our current challenges.
We are here to help you in whatever ways we can. We have been contacting donors for which we have contact info and permission to reach out. If you have not heard from us by early August, it’s possible we were unable to reach you. Please get in touch if you’d benefit from more information on how your specific donation is impacted. Email us ([email protected]), or book a call with us (link).
We have published a FAQ below answering some questions you may have.
FAQ
How is RC Forward supporting its partner charities through these changes? We are in close communication with our partner charities and evaluators to discuss the recent changes and their implications. We continue to provide our partners with donation and donor data according to our regular schedule, as outlined in our spreadsheet (link).
In cases where alternative solutions allow our partners to access grant funding sooner, we are covering the majority of the additional costs from our operating budget at RC Forward. For more detailed information on how we are supporting charities, please see our charity update (link).
What are the external changes? The grant facilitator we worked with unexpectedly ceased operations and new government legislation was released. We had been reliant on this grant facilitator to conduct our program. The new legislation impacts different areas of RC Forward’s work. The first area relates to donors making recommendations to charities about what their gift ultimately supports. The second area is about charities that work with organizations that are not themselves Canadian charities. These changes impact many organizations in Canada.
These events prompted an internal review regarding our systems and processes, and we learned that we need to make key operations improvements. The result of these changes is that we learned we needed to make significant changes to our operations and to change how we fundraise.
What are you doing to address this? We have retained external advisors to help us make immediate changes and to develop a long-term strategy to achieve our mission to empower you to support the high-impact causes you care about. Our focus is on addressing the situation while maintaining day-to-day operations.
Why are we hearing about these delays now? Historically we have made disbursements of donations raised in the giving season in April to June of the following year. Earlier in 2023 it seemed that we could find solutions to keep to this intended schedule. We learned in May that this timeline wasn’t possible, and it took us time to clarify our options. We appreciate your patience as we have been thoughtfully navigating our options.
If you pause my recurring monthly gift, will you automatically restart it at some point in the future? No, we will not restart a monthly gift without first contacting you for permission.
Please share more about how RC Forward is currently fundraising? RC Forward is soliciting contributions for the charitable projects listed in the new donation form (link). These projects are carried out by Canadian charities and the implementers that they work with. We fundraise for projects working on causes including global health, animal welfare, and climate change.
RC Forward gifts the donations raised to other Canadian charities, and recommends that they support a particular project based on donors’ selections. The charity receiving the gift has full control over the funds and implementers they work with to complete charitable projects.
I have a question not answered here, who can I speak with? Please get in touch if we can help you by providing more information on how your specific donation or charity you support is impacted. Email us ([email protected]), or book a call with us (link). We are here to help and support you in whatever ways we can. If you have an active monthly donation with us, we will be in touch with you via email.
Thank you for your understanding and patience,
The RC Forward team
