Getting Your Nonprofit Election Ready

This year is kicking off with significant political shifts, including Justin Trudeau's resignation and a potential snap election in Ontario. Nonprofits will face many challenges ahead. Regardless of the outcome, there are proactive steps you can take to prepare your nonprofit for any upcoming election.

Meta Disclosure

Whether you plan on advertising during an election or not, having your Meta disclosure set up for your page will save you many future headaches. During election periods Meta’s automatic ad flagging systems will be overcorrecting, always erring on the side of caution. Being verified to run social issue and political ads will allow you flexibility when dealing with Meta. 

If you are planning to run ads around political campaigns, remember there are three components that need to be verified:

• The page you are advertising on

• The ad account you are advertising from 

• The individual who is managing the ad

Here is a quick link on setting up your page and linking your ad account, and here is the link for individuals to go through identity verification.

Troubleshooting tip: if Meta won’t let you flag ads as social or political issues, double check that the page is linked to the ad account you are using and the person building the ads is verified and has permissions on the page and ad account. Yes this sounds repetitive, but Meta will not make the logical leap between connections and if a different user goes to edit an ad or you haven’t attached your ad account to your page, you will get stuck and it will be frustrating. This is the number one troubleshooting issue I’ve come across ever since ad disclosures became mandatory. 

Navigating Google

Google is less straightforward than Meta when it comes to navigating social issue and political ads; it is not always black and white and the focus is more on the actual content of your ads.

Here are some do’s and don’ts to keep in mind:

• Ads that include a federal candidate, leader, or party by name are not allowed during an election period. 

• News organizations are exempt to a certain extent.

• Google may still choose to flag content as political that doesn’t fall under those parameters, for example having ‘Canada’ appear in your ad headlines

• You can appeal any flags Google makes that are missing context or you believe you are exempt from

• Display and Video 360 campaigns come with additional restrictions, some of which are vague and difficult to navigate. The most vague restriction is around ‘sensitive events’.

• A ‘sensitive event’ is a broad brush that can cover political issues, natural disasters, public health, conflict, and civil emergencies.

• The intention of these restrictions is to prevent advertisers from exploiting these events for profit. However, it creates roadblocks for humanitarian aid, disaster relief, and other organizations who either need to appeal for rapid response donations or spread awareness.

• If you find yourself in this position, I recommend doing a search or Performance Max campaign instead.

Troubleshooting tip: Automated content flagging often lacks context for nonprofit work, particularly in rapid response communications. For instance, I had an ad soliciting donations for mass starvation was flagged by Google for “perpetuating body shaming.” Algorithms can't grasp context, so always have backup content ready to launch if you need to appeal an ad.

Tax Receipts

On December 30th the Government of Canada announced that the deadlines for tax receiptable donations would be extended in response to the Canada Post strike. The Prorogation of parliament does not impact the tax deadline extension. The new deadline for 2024 tax receipts is February 28, you can read more about it here. 

Election Spending Limits 

To advertise about elections, you must register as a Third Party Entity at the federal or provincial level, which involves limits, regulations, and transparency requirements. Each jurisdiction has its own rules, but key guidelines include:

• There is a pre-election budget limit on how much a third party can spend

• There is a separate writ period (official election) budget limit 

• Geographically there are separate limits for electoral districts, currently at the Federal level any organization can spend a total of $602,700 on ads, but cannot spend more than $5,166 in any electoral district. 

For more details on registration and filing, visit elections.ca.

The Elephant in The Room: Can nonprofits be political?

My sometimes unpopular opinion is that nonprofits are inherently political. Advocating for the rights of oppressed peoples? Trying to change longstanding systems? Filling the gaps of government and social support? You’re already political. 

In Canada however we can thank Stephen Harper’s Conservatives for a cultural and legislative shift into restricting charities from political activities, conducting high profile audits of charities, and sending a shockwave through the sector. But I digress, instead of writing a thesis on the topic I’d like to recommend Imagine Canada’s free upcoming webinar for nonprofits navigating elections. You can learn more and RSVP here.