The Elmira-based Canadian Centre for Christian Charities, which provides behind-the-scenes support to some 3,200 charities across Canada, is celebrating 50 years of operations this week.
Founded by Ian Stanley in 1972, four Cs, as it is also known, provides a wide range of supports, including legal and accounting services, an accreditation program, human resources consulting, a Christian charity job board, a community trust fund and training courses.
It’s also an advocate for the Christian community and the charitable sector as a whole, making presentations to governments and organizing legal action, for instance.
“We don’t tell them how to do their good deeds. They know how to do that. What we do is help them to operate a charity well,” said Rev. John Pellowe, the organization’s chief executive officer.
While most of the organizations CCCC supports are Christian churches, that is not a requirement. Among the groups that the CCCC provides support to are more than 2,100 churches, 245 overseas missions, and 45 pregnancy centres.
“We serve anybody. And occasionally we have non-Christian charities that join us because they value the information and they don’t mind that we’re Christians. But by and large, it’s serving the Christian sector,” Pellowe said.
The type of behind-the-scenes work that CCCC does is often overlooked, he added.
“Because most people see it when they say I want 100 per cent of my donation to go to good work and they don’t want anything for overhead and yet the quality management, the training and development, the research, the oversight and ensuring that overseas partners are doing the right things. All of that is considered overhead. And without that, you would not have a well-run charity,” he explained.
Deina Warren, director of legal affairs for CCCC, agreed.
“We have many charities that are actively engaged in doing really good work. What we want to do is provide them support and information so that it makes their workload easier so that they can focus on those activities. That engagement, that service, meeting really practical needs like food and shelter…so that they can do the frontline work. Even when you’re donating to your local food bank, you may not see a lot of that back end work, but it has to be done,” she said.
Among the highlights of the last 50 years, Pellowe pointed to the opportunity he had in 2019 to present to the Senate about the importance of church-based charities.
“There are many…benefits that are provided in terms of social supports in the communities in which the churches exist. They run programs not just for their members but for the public [as well],” he added
Warren agreed, pointing to the diversity of faith groups across Canada.
“We have all sorts of faith traditions that contribute to the rich social fabric of our society. And we believe firmly that it’s important in a multicultural, multi-faith nation to recognize that and continue to affirm that,” she said.
While there has been an increase in scrutiny of charities and churches in recent years, that is not a bad thing, Pellowe said.
“Scrutiny should be healthy in any field, whether it’s charitable or not. If we’re acting well and doing the right things we shouldn’t be afraid to be scrutinized,” he said.
