Below we have listed our organizational and financial information for the year of April 2019-May 2020 and the partial year of May 2020 to Dec 2020. Because our previously scheduled in-person AGM had to be cancelled due to COVID-19, we are now covering our fiscal year of 2019-2020, as well as part of 2020-2021, which is still in progress. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to info@lspirg.org.
Thanks so much to everyone who came out to our AGM on March 9th! For those who weren’t able to make it, you can check out our minutes at the bottom of this page.
Wow! This past year has been unprecedented for so many reasons — COVID-19, widespread Indigenous land defence, movements for Black liberation, militarized police violence and an increase in white supremacist violence. Many of us were watching this – or participating in organizing – while not being able to be close to those we love due to social distancing regulations. Of course, this has required that we shift the way we’re doing work and supporting students and community members. Often, we find it difficult to even remember what we were doing prior to COVID-19 – but check out the “events and programming” section below to see programming we hosted and/or funded.
Leading up to COVID-19, throughout the months of January and February 2020, much of our focus was on being in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en land defenders who were experiencing militarized raids on their territory by the RCMP.
LSPIRG – along with so many other folks and groups across the Laurier campuses – responded to the call for support. We worked with other groups on campus and in the community, prioritized Indigenous land defence projects during our funding periods, and supported local actions. The first COVID-19 lockdown came at a time when many folks had been growing their communities while huddled around fires at local actions and gatherings. And while much of the in person work of land defence continues to take place (such as 1492 Land Back Lane and Land Back Camp), we learned a lot about online organizing from watching as Wet’suwet’en land defenders and solidarity groups kept bringing folks together in digital spaces.
In March of 2020, shortly after the Laurier campuses were closed, we launched a one-time funding request period. We specifically chose projects or organizing that was related to COVID-19 relief and/or Wet’suwet’en solidarity work. We also decided to take the remainder of our programming budget and provide students and community members with $50 gift cards for financial support.
In September, we ran a second One-Time funding period focusing on COVID-related organizing, Black freedom movements and/or supporting Indigenous land defence movements. We also took our 2020-2021 programming budget (along with some other areas of our budget) and provided a Student Support Grant for current Laurier students. We distributed nearly $40,000 in total in grants.
As we move forward into the second year of COVID-19, we will continue to find ways to support folks to the best of our capacity. We will continue to update our resource lists, provide One-Time funding opportunities and engaging in distribution of essential items. We also want to thank all the amazing volunteers - both on and off campus - for making such important work happen this past year. None of it would be have been possible without you! We have been so encouraged to see the innovation and adaptation of our action groups and partners. Community care is what is getting us through this.
*This Annual Report contains information from May 2019-December 2020. However, any budget actuals presented here are solely from the fiscal year of May 2019-April 2020.
In Solidarity,
Karly Rath - Volunteer and Community Engagement Director (Waterloo Campus)
Jay Rideout - Volunteer and Programming Director (Brantford Campus)
May 2019: Event Series by May Day, River Run for Grassy Narrows, Turtle Island Mural, Debaj Storytelling Project, Happy Soul Project, KW Urban Harvester Fencing
September 2019: Queer and Trans Open Mic Night in KW, Cedarhill Singers at the Global Climate Strike of Waterloo Region, Social Justice Knitting and Social Circle, Brantford Feminist Snowflake Market, Brantford Take Back The Night
January 2020: WLU Palestinian Students’ Association, KW May Day Event Series, Survivors are Fighters - Brantford Concert, Writing Difficult Conversations KW, Accessible Learning Event Series - Brantford
May 2020: Generally, our next funding period would have been may 2020. But due to COVID, LSPIRG staff and Board members had an emergency meeting at the end of March and decided to move the funding period up to April. This meant that we could get funds and support to pivotal organizing that was happening on campus and in the community quicker. During this time, we also provided $50 gift cards to students.
Projects funded at this time included; Brantford Food Distro and PPE, Kanonhstaton - The Protected Place, Six Nations food justice initiative, KW Seed and Soil Distro, KW Mask Distro, Academic Research on Top Surgery for Trans Folks (KW), KW Food Distro and PPE, and the KW Postcard Project
September 2020: September 2020, we ran another one-time funding period. By this time we had also rearranged our budget to set aside 40k for a student support grant that was given out to students throughout September and Cctober 2020. One-time funding projects included; 1492 Land Back Lane, Land Back Camp in KW, The Islands events, Cooking for a Crowd kits for mutual aid in KW, Textile Magazine, and Indigenous Garden Support in KW.
While we spent most of our time this year on mutual aid, supporting our action groups, creating campaigns, collaborating on other community events and supporting student advocacy, LSPIRG staff also hosted some events. You will find some of them below.
Writing to Incarcerated Queer and Trans Folks: This was an Instagram live stream that the LSPIRG staff did about their experiences with Prisoner Correspondence Project (a pen-pal organization for Queer and Trans folks who are incarcerated) and how you can get involved! More info here: prisonercorrespondeceproject.com
Basketball or Nothing Netflix Party: In collaboration with the Brantford campus Indigenous Student Centre, we screened the full series of Basketball or Nothing in two nights. Basketball or Nothing is a documentary series following a Navajo Nation high school basketball team in Chinle, Arizona. For a team and an entire community, the sport of basketball is much more than just a game. It acts as a medicine for an area that's been highlight impacted by colonization and oppression.
From Self-Care to Community Care: This is a workshop we hosted in early June 2020. The context was to acknowledge the difficulty of maneuvering the global pandemic that continues to impact our lives and our community. Many folks wanted to save all the info and conversations we had, so we turned the content into an online campaign that you can access here: www.lspirg.org/community-care
Queer Comedy Night with Wanda Sykes: In collaboration with Rainbow Reels, we hosted a night of queer stand-up comedy. We screened Wanda Sykes’s “Not Normal” on Netflix. A sharp-witted and hilarious critique on the state of the world, addressing Wanda’s perspective on the current political and cultural climate, which she can only describe as, well - not normal.
Letter Writing for 1492 Land Back Lane: In response to a call to action from 1492 Land Back Lane, we hosted a letter writing campaign. The context was to gain attention before the enforcement of an injunction that land defenders where facing. Folks from 1492 had been requesting meetings with several ministers and asked for public support with contacting their office. This meeting has still not happened, even though demands for it have been ongoing since the summer of 2020
Day of Action in Solidarity with 1492 Land Back Lane: In another response to a call to action from 1492 Land Back Lane, October 9th was named a Day of Action. LSPIRG provided online resources including 10 actions that folks could take to be in solidarity. Including letter writing, podcasts, legal funds, online events, and more.
Highlights of 2020: Starting the Waterloo campus free distro, being able to fund so many amazing campus and community initiatives, menstrual equity initiatives, and meeting new volunteers and members of our community.
Goals for 2021: Mutual aid, providing funding opportunities, continued COVID-19 related supported, student advocacy, continue free distro in Waterloo, start free distro in Brantford
Check out more about our Research and Action Groups!
Multi-Campus Research and Action Groups: Advocates for a Student Culture of Consent (ASCC), Climate Justice Laurier
Waterloo Research and Action Groups: Food Not Bombs, KW Urban Harvesters, ShamRose for Syrian Culture, Young City Growers
Brantford Research and Action Groups: Brantford Food Forest, Fruits from Fruits
As an organization, we've been so honoured to have so many amazing campus and community partners. Through this work we've met and built relationships with so many individuals, groups and organizations.
Our formal partnerships include Wilfrid Laurier University, the WLU Students' Union, and the WLU Graduate Students' Association. Collectively, we are governed by Memorandums of Understanding. We also officially partner with Laurier's Centre for Community-based Research, Learning and Action (CCRLA).
Less officially, we work with KW Peace, the Racial Justice Network, CSEDI (WLU Centre for Student Equity, Diversity and Inclusion), the Sexual Assault Centres, the Community Kitchen Co-Op of KW, Martin Luther University College, thirdspace, Emmanuel United Church, the Sustainability Office, Black Lives Matter Waterloo Region, Belonging Brant and WLU's Indigenous Student Centres. We also sit on Laurier’s Sexual Violence Education Action Group as part of WLU’s Gendered Violence Task Force.
We partner with individuals, departments and clubs on certain projects as well. For example, we supported one of our volunteers, Destiny, in the creation of a zine on QTBIPOC experiences in Brantford.
WLU Funding (from Undergrad and Grad students on the Waterloo and Brantford campuses and Kitchener Location): $220,909.80
Community Memberships: $138.00
Miscellaneous Funds (interest revenue, donations, expense refunds): $4,619.43
Total Income $225,667.23
Administrative Total: $17,743.59
Liability insurance and contents coverage for the Board of Directors - ($2,931.12)
Bookkeeping and accounting. Part-time bookkeeper and fees for necessary year-end financials ($9,141.25)
Ontario PIRG and provincial network fees ($4,327.06)
Other expenses including website fees, computer software (Zoom, GSuite and Adobe Creative Cloud), office supplies, bank charges, and postage.
Advertising and Promotion Total: $90.12 (print materials)
Co-Sponsorship Total: $13,798.39
Semesterly funding requests for campus and community initiatives ($5,370.17)
Research and Action Groups semesterly funding - 8 groups ($5,428.22)
Laurier's Centre for Community-based Research, Learning and Action ($3,000)
Events and Programming Total: $2,039.81 (Up until COVID-19, included honoraria for guest speakers and food expenses for educational events, Radical Orientation Week, and Annual General Meeting costs). Emergency Needs Fund - In March and April of this fiscal year, COVID-19 was in full force and many of our planned events were cancelled. We used the rest of our programming budget for the year to purchase grocery giftcards for students.
Payroll Expenses Total: $102,347.37: Staff benefits ($10,976.76), Taxes, ($5,772.36), Wages - One full-time and one part-time staff and for a portion of this fiscal year, we were paying severance for a long-term staff member who had to be laid off due to Student Choice Initiatives ($84,039.11), WSIB ($1,559.14)
Total Expenses: $136,094.25
Due to the precarity of the 2019 Student Choice Initiative on our income, we had a very strict budget for this fiscal year of 2019-2020. Fortunately, this change in legislation did not severely impact our finances as we had prepared for and this legislation has since been deemed unconstitutional. This resulted in a significant surplus. We used the rest of our programming budget up until August 2020 to start an Emergency Needs Program, where we provided students in need with grocery gift cards. We then began discussing how best to support students in crisis amidst the pandemic, and in light of our surplus, we started a Student Support Grant.
Please note that the 2020-2021 budget actuals below only represent part of our current fiscal year, which ends April 30th, 2021.
Income:
WLU Funding (from Undergrad and Grad students on the Waterloo and Brantford campuses and Kitchener Location) ($131,034.74)
Community Memberships ($138)
Miscellaneous Funds (interest revenue and donations) ($97.89)
Total Income: $131,270.63
Administrative Total: $17,674.05
Insurance - Liability insurance for the Board of Directors and contents coverage - ($2,933.28)
Bookkeeping and accounting - one part-time bookkeeper as staff ($4,881.60)
Fees to Ontario PIRG, provincial network ($7,781.99)
Other much smaller miscellaneous administrative expenses including website fees (Squarespace), computer software (Zoom, GSuite and Adobe Creative Cloud), office supplies, bank charges, and postage.
Advertising and Promotion Total: $295.03 (print materials)
Co-Sponsorship Total: $49,552.86
Funding requests ($3,696)
Research and Action Groups semesterly funding - 8 groups ($6,356.86)
Student Support Grant held in the fall of 2020 which provided individual students with $100 or $400 grants ($39,500)
Events and Programming Total: $198.42 (includes honoraria for guest speakers and food expenses for educational events, Radical Orientation Week, and Annual General Meeting costs). Emergency Needs Fund - At the beginning of this fiscal year, May 2020, COVID-19 still meant nearly all programming was online. We used our programming budget up until August 2020 on grocery giftcards for students, as we began in April 2020, resulting in $1150 going to students, while we were discussing the creation of a much more substantial financial support to students - our Student Support Grant.
Payroll Expenses Total: $75,090.70: Staff benefits ($5,795.26), Taxes ($4,520.22), Wages ($64,431.66 for one full-time and one part-time staff), WSIB ($343.56)
Total Expenses: $142.811.06