MOOSE JAW — City council’s grant funding to the Festival of Words represents about five per cent of its budget, which the executive director acknowledges isn’t much but ensures the organization can continue providing valuable programs.
Sarah Simison presented the organization’s funding request during city council’s recent third-party community group budget meeting.
Festival of Words (FOW) is requesting funding of $8,768 in 2025, compared to $8,513 this year.
“In my close to 15 years with the Festival of Words, we’ve never asked for an increase in funding from the city,” Simison said. “Like all of the other organizations here, we’re providing important programs and services to the community, which contribute to the health and well-being of its citizens.
“As a non-profit, while working on limited budgets with minimal staffing, this work is hard but vital, especially during an economic downturn,” she continued. “People need arts and entertainment and charities to get through this.”
The $253 extra in funding represents a three-per-cent increase, while the $8,768 request represents about five per cent of the organization’s overall revenues, the executive director pointed out. Stakeholders are usually surprised with how much the festival does on an annual budget of roughly $250,000.
“In the big picture, five per cent might not seem like a lot, but it makes a large impact on our programs and services and, in turn, our community,” said Simison. “For example, without line-item funding from the city, we wouldn’t be able to run our LitCon program at all.
“Five per cent (also) represents almost two years’ worth of our Performance Café program, an entire year of writers-in-schools south, and approximately five author appearances at our festival.”
FOW is usually lauded for being “highly fiscally responsible” while offering many programs, while it receives funding from several sources, including federally (33 per cent), provincially (17 per cent), donors/sponsors (19 per cent) and earned income (26 per cent), she continued. They “always budget conservatively,” which ensures their survival into the future as the economy recovers.
Similar to other non-profits, Festival of Words’ biggest challenge continues to be recovering from the pandemic’s effects, Simison said. While multiple events sold out this year, ticket sales were still down, while creating “real sustainability” for outreach programs continued to be difficult.
“These programs are fulfilling real needs in our community but are in a precarious situation when we have to look for program funding each year,” she added.
Simison noted that this year’s festival saw attendance increase by nearly 50 per cent, making this one of the most well-attended events in its 28-year history. Moreover, book sales returned to pre-pandemic levels.
However, similar to Tourism Moose Jaw, FOW did not receive intern funding from the federal government this year, even though it had received it for nearly 20 years, she said.
FOW staff learned that their federal funding application was part of a report that went to MP Fraser Tolmie’s office, and they were supposed to call there, “but it didn’t make a difference.”
“It made a huge impact. We actually hired an intern and paid out of pocket for (that person) because we absolutely need interns to run the festival,” Simison said. “… very few non-profit organizations in Moose Jaw received intern funding this year.”
FOW was told 10 years ago that all funding applications go to the MP’s office and he has direct decision-making powers over who receives those funds, she continued. This year’s process took longer than usual, prompting several community non-profits to communicate with each other and then call Tolmie’s office.
“I know of only two organizations that received funding this year … ,” Simison said, adding they never received an answer about what happened.
The next council budget meeting is in January.
