P.E.I.'s community sector hopes to find strength in numbers

Some non-profit and community organizations have joined forced in an effort to provide support for each other and to have a more powerful voice with government.

Marcia Carroll says a new group, called the Community Sector Network of P.E.I., wants to increase awareness of the value of the sector, which employs about 6,000 Islanders and has more than 5,000 volunteers.

"We want those employees to be valued we want them to be pensioned and we want the powers to be to recognize that without this sector our community and our home on Prince Edward Island would not look, feel or act the same."

Share information and resources

Carroll, executive director of the P.E.I. Council of People with Disabilities, one of the member groups, said they hope that by working more closely together, they can share information and perhaps even some resources to help create "community-based solutions to some of our complex social problems."

Carroll said they want to have a dedicated provincial minister and deputy minister for the community sector. They also want to see more labour market research done by government, which the network believes will result in more funding.

Competing for money

"One of the challenges that we have is that there are pools of money and we are all competing for those same pools of money," Carroll said.

"And we feel that if we collaborate and partner and present ourselves as a more cohesive group, that gives us more strength and more value."

The group is currently inviting members of P.E.I.'s incorporated non-profit organizations or registered charities to apply to sit on its board of directors.

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