Doreen Holden does not want the Saskatchewan Women’s Institutes to die on her watch.
As SWI president, she is leading a fundraising campaign this month to ensure there is enough money for the group to continue.
Letters have been mailed to about 50 agribusinesses requesting assistance. The SWI executive is following up with personal or telephone contacts.
“A lot of head offices are in the East,” Holden said. “They may not know who we are.”
At the 90-year-old group’s annual meeting in June, Holden told members that without a cash injection of $10,000, the SWI could fold by Jan. 1.
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“We went to talk to (Saskatchewan agriculture minister) Clay Serby this summer. It was a nice visit, but no money.”
Funds are needed to pay for the group’s part-time secretary. The office on the University of Saskatchewan campus is provided free of charge and the provincial government gives SWI a $7,500 a year grant for technology transfer that pays for board meetings, seminars and The Second Penny newsletter.
The $30 annual fee collected from 250 members also helps pay for the newsletter, office equipment and the WI organization’s national and international aspects.
But most provincial and federal government funding is now based on short-term specific projects, rather than general administration. There are “no angels with money, kind of like the farmers,” Holden said.
Several SWI branches have done fundraisers. One sent $400 from an auction sale and the Kipling district sent $500.
“If half the branches did that, we’d be better off,” she said. “I do hope it has hit home.”
In Manitoba, an agricultural province of a similar size to Saskatchewan, the WI has been on an aggressive membership drive for several years. MWI numbers are about 760.
However, unlike its neighbour, the MWI receives an annual operations grant of $35,300 from the provincial government, said administrator Shirley Bell.
The Alberta, WI received an $18,000 grant from the province this year but president Maxine Brigley said there is no guarantee for her 1,000 members.
Last year the British Columbia government gave $25,000 to the BCWI. However, a new budget-slashing government will not provide a grant this year for the 1,200-member WI.
Susie Miller, Saskatchewan Agriculture’s assistant deputy minister, said there is only so much the government can do to support groups like SWI and the Saskatchewan Women’s Agricultural Network, which also received a $7,500 technology transfer grant.
She said the department provides $300,000 in general funding to the 4-H Council and it might consider core funding of other groups, depending on commodity or geographic areas or specific needs.
She said SWI could request core funding in writing and “each situation, organization has its own merits.”
