Glenn's little ugly blog

Do you want to see fun and exciting outreach events happen in Vancouver? Do you have ideas for music, theater, poetry, or art performances or shows that promote compassion for animals?

I am organizing another animal rights community dialogue event through Liberation BC. It's happening in July and will be focused on the topic of using entertainment (and even "fun") for outreach.

I'm still trying to sort out the exact format of the event. Some people will hopefully be coming with ideas for actual events they want to put together. Others will likely be coming to brainstorm about ideas. And other people may be there for conversation or to help other people with their ideas.

The format needs to give people space and permission to organize their own discussions – in such a way that people have a chance to hear what other people are there to work on.

I'm thinking that Open Space will likely be the best format for the event. At just 3 hours long, it will be quite compressed. Probably a half hour for the welcome and agenda setting, and four 30-minute sessions, with another half hour for a closing wrap-up. This will be a very full, but hopefully productive, afternoon.

This is the second of this series of animal rights community dialogues hosted by Liberation BC. The first event produced many ideas for ways we can work together to achieve our goals. At the conclusion of that event we determined the topics for the next 4 events. The 3 events happening later this year will be:

• Developing a local information hub: who, what, why, and how?
• Educating ourselves: becoming better activists through education and practice
• What is our message?

Register now at http://apowerfulvoice.eventbrite.com. If you have any ideas about the event, please leave them in the comments. I'd love to hear what you have to say!

There's something about using the word "fun" in connection with animal activism that seems to bother some and inspire others.

I've been organizing a series of animal rights community dialogues through Liberation BC this year. The first of these happened in April.

One of the topics that many of the people in the group wanted to focus on for one of the following meetings was using entertainment and fun for outreach. Some people in the group, though, took issue with the emphasis on fun.

It's almost as if they feel that doing good or being active is somehow not fun and should never be viewed as such. Or, if you're having fun, you must not be as focused on the animals as you should be.

Here's how I think of fun in connection with my activism.

Most of what I do, I enjoy doing. Writing, building websites, tabling, talking to people, organizing community events – these are all fun activities to me. Because I enjoy doing them I am much more willing to sustain doing them for most of my free time.

If I were just doing things because I had to, but didn't get any enjoyment out of it, what are the chances I would continue to do it? Pretty close to zero. I also likely wouldn't be very effective. If I simply hated talking to people about veganism, I probably shouldn't talk to people about veganism; they'll be able to tell, they'd be less likely to listen, and so on.

This is a lot different than avoiding what is necessary because it won't be fun. I think we can all find areas of overlap between what needs to be done, what we are good at, and what we enjoy.

If we hope to sustain our activism, we'd better learn how to have fun doing it or we aren't going to last long at it. And we won't be doing the best for animals that we can. Our mental and physical health will suffer and we might even suffer burnout or a breakdown.

How do you think about fun?

Do you use Twitter to promote your own blog, website, or events?

If so, you probably hope that people will pick up your tweet and retweet it – potentially spreading the reach of your message by thousands, if not more.

For those of you who don't use Twitter or are new to it, a "retweet" is when someone reads your tweet and shares it themselves. It's often done by adding a "RT" to the beginning of the tweet and sending it out. Try it, it's fun. It's also a nice thing to do. Twitter now has a built in retweet function that simplifies the process.

When you write your original tweet that you hope will get retweeted, my little piece of advice is to make it short enough that anyone will be able to retweet it without having to edit it at all. Let's face it, we're all pretty lazy, and if it's going to take me a minute or two to edit your tweet so that I can be nice and retweet it, I'm probably not going to do it.

Someone I know tweeted this morning about a new blog post he'd written. When I went to retweet it, I was 16 characters over the limit. It wasn't all that important to me, so I abandoned it and didn't bother retweeting.

It's just a small thing, but I think it's important. And usually easy to account for if you think about it when you're writing your tweet. Make things easy for people who want to help you.

I'm volunteering some of my time this year to help organize the second Vancouver ChangeCamp. It's happening on June 12.

Photo by Reading Is My Heroin

I attended last year's event and it inspired me to learn more about these kinds of events, which led me to organize Animal Advocacy Camp. It also inspired me to take the SFU Certificate in Dialogue and Civic Engagement.

I'm really looking forward to ChangeCamp this year. It's going to be held at the W2's temporary Storyeum location – which is an amazing space.

Here's the info on ChangeCamp from the event signup. If you register by May 15, registration is only $15!

WHAT IS VANCHANGECAMP: A participatory, web-enabled event to imagine and build new ways to collaborate for social change in the digital age. 

WHY: Change Camp is a collaborative, participatory and web-enabled event that is meant to explore the following questions:

• How can we help our governments be more open and responsive?
• How do we as citizens organize to get better outcomes ourselves?

WHO: Changemakers! Including but not limited to:
People making change at the ground level - community workers, non-profits, social enterprise, CED, foundations, activists, advocates, government employees
Decision-makers and government leaders
Technologists, developers, communicators, designers, other professions

Low income free entry

If the $20 fee presents a real barrier to you, don't let it! Simply email our Event Coordinator Elijah van der Giessen at eli@vandergiessen.ca to register for free. But be warned: he may try to recruit you as a volunteer! :-)

I sometimes hear people say "I don't know how to do that" when they are asked to take on a task. Is this just a way of passing it off or making an excuse to get out of the work?

Photo by sheila_blige

None of us start off knowing how to do much of anything, except maybe grabbing things and sucking. Those are pretty instinctual. But everything else we learn how to do. Skills like reading, walking, talking, typing, using a telephone, driving a car, riding a bicycle, and so on. We learn how to do new things all the time.

But, strangely, there often seems to be some sort of block when we are asked to stretch our knowledge a bit and teach ourselves how to do something slightly complex. It's almost as if we spend a bunch of our life learning how to do things, and then we forget that knowledge is not absolute. We start to think that if we don't know something now, then it's not worth knowing or that we aren't capable of learning it.

It might just be that a lot of what I know I learned on my own so maybe I have less of an idea of knowing something and more of an appreciation for learning new things.

When someone says "I don't know how" what I hear is "I don't care about that enough to learn how." I really think it's all about caring enough to stretch our knowledge to learn enough to get things done. Learn how to update your website, edit HTML, bake cupcakes, talk to people on the street about animal rights, give presentations, and so on. These are not impossible tasks, and if you care enough, just take some time to learn.

Raul over at Hummingbird604 recently wrote a post about keeping your desk organized. This has always been an issue for me so I figured I'd post a little response with a photo of my desk.

My work space is nowhere near as organized as Raul's. Notice the empty bowl from lunch on the left and the piles of paper everywhere.

It is, though, a very manageable mess for me – and I get work done. I guess since most of my job is done online the papers matter very little. My to-do lists are always easily accessible and any reference materials I might need can be found quickly.

I do, though, find that I need to review the papers every couple of weeks and recycle and make sure everything has been processed. But having the to-do lists ready at hand means that I know what I have to do at all times. I might have to spend a couple of seconds looking for a piece of paper with notes, but that's about it.

Family is an interesting thing. I mean the family we are born into – the family we don't choose. Our spouses, significant others, and even extended non-traditional families are built up through choice.

But family, family we just get. We are born and then we've got parents and siblings and aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents, and so on. Sometimes we like them, sometimes we agree on things, and sometimes we even get along. A whole of the time, though, we disagree and dislike each other.

Or maybe this is just my particular family.

I'm thinking in particular of my brother, who is in Afghanistan right now, as a member of the US military. We're just 16 months apart in age, although our birthdays put me 2 years ahead in school.

While he is a soldier, I am pretty close to being a pacifist. He eats meat, and I am vegan. I am an animal rights activist, and he is not an activist at all. He is a devoted and caring father, while I have sworn to not have children because I think that overpopulation is a huge and pressing problem. He keeps his dog tied (a habit he learned from our father) while I rescued a rabbit from his house.

How do I reconcile our differences? I don't. To be quite honest, if he weren't family I probably wouldn't even know him.

But still, he is family, and we are connected somehow. It might just be a cultural thing that it feels like family is to be cherished.

While I am morally opposed to war and violence, especially our involvement in the middle east, I have a real respect for his sense of duty. He is doing his second year away from his family out of a sense of duty.

There's something almost Heideggerian about taking hold of a purpose and acting on that purpose. A real authenticity to being a person who believes in something and acts on that belief, even if (and especially if) it means putting your own life in danger. We're probably a lot alike in that sense. We both feel strongly and have a deep sense of meaning in what we do. His, though, has led him to a far more dangerous place than my sense of purpose. I have to have respect for that.

Maybe family can help us to experience people who we wouldn't normally associate with. It's like a lesson in compassion and appreciation, a lesson in looking beyond the differences and finding the common ground. There is always common ground, if we look hard enough.

To me, collaboration has meant working closely together on project or forming coalitions to get work done and to achieve goals.

I wonder, though, if there might be more ways to collaborate? Ways that are less time and resource intensive and that let us do our own work while still fitting in with larger projects and goals?

Liberation BC is organizing a dialogue event around the topic of "How can we best work together to achieve animal rights?" We are hoping that a roomful of passionate animal rights activists can come up with some interesting and novel ways of working together that actually lighten our workloads. No one wants to work together if it just means more work, right?

Through collaborative thinking we may be able to rethink collaboration.

If you are interested in attending the event, you can register at apowerfulvoice.eventbrite.com. There is a small registration fee. The event is being held in Radha's beautiful dining room on April 10th, from 1:30 to 4:30pm.

Last week, when I was looking at the requirements for charitable status for Liberation BC, a friend of mine who works for a charity passed along some documents written by IMPACS (Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society). I can't link to their website because they folded a few years ago, in 2007, which was unfortunate.

Dissenting voices are vital to any strong democracy.

They were "committed to the protection and expansion of democracy and to strengthening civil society" (Source), which led them into a project to assess and improve Canada's charity regulations about advocacy activities by registered charities.

In 2000, IMPACS released a report, "The Law of Advocacy by Charitable Organizations" written by Richard Bridge. This report is one of the most concise and easy-to-understand outlines of the current law and regulations governing advocacy by charities, in my opinion.

This document outlines the difficulties in administering these rules, which are based on three different sources:

i) decisions of the courts (the common law); ii) the federal Income Tax Act; and iii) the administrative policies of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (Revenue Canada).

A major reason for reform would be to reduce the amount of time spent (wasted) on interpreting vague and poorly-written regulations.

More importantly though:

In addition, the advocacy rules impede critical public policy debates by preventing the full participation of charitable organizations, which often possess great expertise and understanding in their fields of endeavour. This loss of informed voices is particularly problematic at a time when the relationships between public, private, and voluntary sectors are in fundamental change. It can be argued that these rules in effect impede the freedom of expression of charitable organizations – a freedom enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Under the current system, an organization can offer services that treat the symptoms of a particular issue. They provide the example of an organization that provides assistance to people with Hepatitis C. They might support the creation a needle exchange in order to stop the spread of the disease, but if they were to lobby government to change laws so that a needle exchange could be set up, they would risk loss of their charitable status – even though they would be more effectively and directly helping to solve the problem.

The same problems exist for organizations dedicated to protecting the environment for future generations. If, for example, their activities include attempting to influence public opinion, legislation or government policy in relation to habitat or species protection, pollution standards and enforcement or other basic issues, they could violate the current charity rules and lose or be denied charitable status. Indeed, these problems exist for organizations in all areas of charitable activity.

There's a lot more fascinating information in the report, and it's only about 30 pages long, so I'd recommend reading it if you are interested in these issues.

The report concludes:

It is clear from a review of the issue of advocacy by charitable organizations that the current Canadian approach is inadequate and in need of significant change. Improvements should include:

• a clear legal definition of permissible advocacy;
• clear quantifiable spending rules for advocacy activities to replace the 10 percent rule;
• flexible regulatory options for the enforcement of the new rules;
• greater transparency on the part of the federal regulators of this field; and
• increased financial disclosure requirements concerning advocacy activities by charities.

Following up from this report, IMPACS (in conjunction with the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy – who merged with the Coalition of National Voluntary Organizations to form Imagine Canada in 2006) conducted a series of dialogues in cities across Canada focused on this particular topic. The results were published in "Let Charities Speak: Report of the Charities and Advocacy Dialogue."

In the late summer and fall of 2001, IMPACS launched the National Dialogue on Charities and Advocacy – a cross-Canada consultation process with voluntary sector leaders on this subject. It consisted of 17 day- long consultation sessions in the following cities: St John’s, Halifax, Fredericton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto (4 sessions), Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria, Yellowknife, and Whitehorse.

The purposes of the consultation sessions were: 1) to educate participants on the law; 2) to determine whether participants view the current law as a problem; and 3) to seek their guidance on the best option or options for reform.

The results from the process are detailed in the report, but the basic outcome was:

The National Dialogue revealed a deeply felt desire among voluntary sector organizations for change in this field. There is agreement across the country that the current restriction on advocacy by charities is an anachronism. If the restriction ever had validity and meaning, there is very strong opinion now that it has no place in modern Canada, for it is an impediment to democracy where informed and unfettered debate is essential.

There is also strong support for high standards of disclosure, transparency, and accountability to ensure virtuous practices by charities.

I just love the title. I work with a number of charities as part of my job, and this limit on advocacy and the vagueness of definition of advocacy are a fairly constant frustration.

The opening paragraphs of their later paper, "Charities: Enhancing Democracy in Canada" presents the case for advocacy by charities somewhat more strongly:

Canada's 80,000 charities form the core of the voluntary sector, and they are indeed essential to our collective well being. Unfortunately, Canada's charities face a limitation on their ability to give voice to shared concerns that is more restrictive than practices in virtually any other developed democracy.

This discussion paper is based on the assumption that vibrant, informed, and genuinely open debate, and greater civic engagement on all issues of public importance will lead to innovation, better public policy decisions, more efficient use of public resources, and a healthier, stronger democracy in Canada.

This paper argues that the impediment to charities adding their voices to the public debate adversely impacts the ability of charities to advance their charitable causes, and weakens the public policy debate and public policy development. This, in turn, ultimately weakens democracy in Canada. Removing the existing impediment to participation by charities, therefore, would be an important and achievable step in enhancing Canadian democracy.

Charities provide vital and beneficial services to their communities, but they also work to protect those who cannot speak for themselves: the marginalized, the environment, and animals. In a section entitled "Voices from the margin" the authors write:

Another related reason to encourage the participation of charities in public policy debate is that they very often speak on behalf of marginalized citizens who are unable to effectively engage in democratic processes on their own....

Allowing charities to advocate on behalf of those they serve brings voices to public policy debate that would otherwise not be heard. This, in turn, would help move toward a balance between those who are privileged and those who are not in terms of participation in public policy debates and influence on the decision-making.

A similar argument can be made for organizations that work on behalf of public causes such as protection of the environment or animal welfare. The natural environment, endangered species, and domestic animals have no voice of their own. Charities that work in these fields can enrich the public debate on such matters.

In the United States, organizations that would not be considered charitable in Canada are able to be charities, such as organizations working to protect animals and environmental organizations. Animal protection groups in Canada must devote 90% of their resources to services like veterinary care, running shelters or rescues, or spay and neuter clinics. They are only allowed to use 10% of their resources to do any work to change the systems that cause these problems.

In France, charity laws allow for organizations to advocate for their cause with whatever amount of resources they want.

With the demise of IMPACS it seems like this effort to "let charities speak" has fizzled away. Empowering charities to work to solve real problems would be beneficial to each of our causes and Canadian democracy in general. Poverty, drug addiction, animal welfare, the environment – all of these causes would be greatly benefited if our charities were able to openly enter the public debate without fearing the loss of their
charitable status.

There is a lot more to these papers than I have covered here, and I would really encourage you to read through them.

• The Law of Advocacy by Charitable Organizations
• Let Charities Speak: Report of the Charities and Advocacy Dialogue
• Charities: Enhancing Democracy in Canada

I've been reading through the Canada Revenue Agency information on registering for charitable status (for Liberation BC).

To take advantage of special tax privileges given charities under the ITA—the most significant one being the ability to issue tax receipts to donors[Footnote 6]—charities must first register with the CRA. To do so, an applicant organization must meet the requirements of the ITA; that it be charitable at law and devote its resources to charitable purposes and activities.

At common law, an applicant organization will be determined charitable only if it meets two fundamental requirements:

1. The organization's purposes must be exclusively and legally charitable.
2. It must be established for the benefit of the public or a sufficient segment of the public. (Source)

The categories that are considered charitable are:

• purposes for the relief of poverty;
• purposes for the advancement of education;
• purposes for the advancement of religion; and
• other purposes beneficial to the community in a way the law regards as charitable.

(Source)

I've been having a difficult time understanding the workings of the rules, especially since they were originally written a couple of hundred years ago. Canada also has a tradition of common law, which essentially means that the law is determined by past cases, and the courts are very reluctant to rule in opposition to preceding rulings. It's up to the government to change the laws.

Because of the ways the charity rules are written, charities are very restricted in what they can do, and basically any work that aims to change the laws or society will not be considered charitable.

It almost seems to me that the charity rules are deliberately written to restrict social change work from happening and to protect the status quo.

Animal rights organizations, advocacy groups, even Greenpeace can't get charitable status in Canada. Why? Because these organizations want to change the way the world is – an effort that is not endorsed by Canada's government.

Not being able to issue tax receipts to donors means that organizations that are not charities will not likely receive large gifts or be able to apply for grants from foundations.

Even though systemic change may be what is needed to solve issues of poverty, health, and animal welfare, the government ties the hands of organizations that might be able to work on these issues by restricting their work to treating symptoms and offering band-aid solutions.