Mr. Speaker, I have a return to written question asked by Mr. Abernethy on February 20, 2009, regarding a meeting to discuss the NGO funding policy. The Department of Municipal and Communities Affairs and the Financial Management Board Secretariat have developed a resource booklet titled Program Guide for Managers: Funding for Non-Government Organizations. The need for this booklet was driven by the valuable work done by Volunteer NWT’s Finance Action Group. Their report both highlighted the need to ensure NGOs had clear and thorough information about current GNWT funding policies and flagged some areas where NGOs would like to see changes.
As a next step, as part of the upcoming Volunteer Summit, the FMBS will be hosting a focus group on March 7, 2009, to consult with NGO representatives on the booklet and other issues with GNWT funding policies prior to finalizing it for public release. The list of potential participants and selection criteria has been distributed to Members for their review and suggestions. For the focus group we are expecting approximately 25 participants which represent a good cross-section of the NGO sector from each region of the NWT. I will distribute the final list of NGOs participating in the focus group by March 5, 2009. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
