Ontarians��are struggling to save for retirement – and��combined with a��broader affordability
crisis, these pressures are hitting the nonprofit sector especially hard.��Tighter budgets and fewer
resources mean retirement security often gets pushed to the back burner.��
��
The numbers tell a sobering story. According to the National Institute on Ageing, only 29% of
Canadians say they can afford to retire when they want to – down from 35% just three years
ago. For nonprofit workers, the reality is even more challenging.��
��
This is where comes in.����
��
OPTrust Select is a defined benefit pension plan designed with nonprofits in mind –
professionally managed, affordable,��and recommended by ONN. It gives organizations��the ability to offer their staff something that��seemed��out of reach��to many: a high quality��defined��benefit��pension.��
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One organization that has already seen the impact of offering��OPTrust��Select to their staff��is the��, which joined��in 2022.

Supporting frontline work in Toronto

WomanACT is a collaborative organization working to improve systems that respond to violence
against women in Toronto. Through research, coordination, and partnerships across sectors��–��including shelters, legal services, health care, and community organizations��–��WomanACT��helps strengthen the city’s response to gender-based violence.��
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Like many nonprofits,��WomanACT��competes for talented staff in a sector where compensation
can be limited. Leadership began exploring ways to strengthen their employee value proposition
while continuing to��operate��responsibly within their budget.��
��
Their motivation was straightforward.

“We wanted to ensure that our organization was competitive with what other organizations are offering.”

Offering strong benefits is especially important in the nonprofit sector, where employees are
deeply committed to their work but often face��less competitive��salaries than their for-profit counterparts. For��WomanACT, a pension was about more than just compensation��–��it was also about organizational values.

“It matters for nonprofits because it signals stability, fairness and long-term commitment��–��and that’s important in a sector where salaries are often lower than for-profit counterparts.”

Finding a pension that works for nonprofits

When evaluating pension options, the WomanACT team focused on a few key considerations:
affordability, administrative simplicity, and meaningful support for staff. 

For many smaller organizations, pensions can seem complex or expensive to manage. OPTrust Select was designed to address these concerns by offering a shared plan structure that minimizes administrative burden for participating employers.��
��
Ultimately, the��organization chose OPTrust Select because it aligned well with their needs and capacity.

A tool for hiring – and retaining – talent

Since joining the plan,��WomanACT��has already seen benefits when it comes to recruiting and keeping staff.��
��
“It’s��made hiring a bit easier because candidates really notice when a nonprofit offers a pension. And for our current staff,��it’s��given people more long-term security, which��definitely supports��retention.”��
��
In a competitive labour market��–��particularly in specialized nonprofit roles��–��benefits like
pensions can make a meaningful difference in how organizations attract and��retain��employees.��
��
Staff feedback has also been positive. According to the organization, employees appreciate
knowing their employer is investing in their future.��
��
“Staff have been very appreciative and have a sense that the organization is investing in their future.”

Changing perceptions about pensions

A common misconception in the nonprofit sector is that pensions are only feasible for large
organizations. WomanACT says their experience tells a different story.

“Pensions��aren’t��just for big organizations anymore. OPTrust Select was built with smaller nonprofits in mind, and the costs and administration are very manageable.��It’s��actually one��of the easiest ways for a small organization to stand out and show staff��they’re��valued.”

In addition to supporting recruitment and retention, the plan has also helped reduce uncertainty
about retirement planning – for both staff and leadership. 
 
With economic volatility affecting many sectors, the predictability of a defined benefit pension
can provide welcome reassurance.

“Having a pension in place makes the future feel more secure and has taken some of the guesswork out of planning for the future.”

Building a stronger nonprofit workforce

At a time when retirement security feels out of reach for so many Canadians,��the experience of
WomanACT��shows that��nonprofits��can give your��staff��the retirement they deserve. The barrier is lower than��you think.��

WomanACT��understood that. And by joining OPTrust Select, they made something that is
increasingly rare for working Canadians – a stable, predictable retirement – a reality for their staff.��You��can do the same.

Organizations interested in joining OPTrust Select can learn more by contacting: 
Email: info@optrustselect.com | Phone: 416-681-3609

Nonprofits work with and for communities to provide a myriad of services that ensure the health and well-being of people all across Canada. The sector’s most important resource is its people. The trouble is, attracting and retaining good workers has never been harder. And without good workers, the capacity to serve communities suffers.

In an effort to meet this challenge head on, 91��Ƶ’s nonprofits are increasingly turning to pension plans as an efficient and effective means to support their team and advance their mission. As the only sector-wide pension plan recommended by the 91��Ƶ Nonprofit Network (ONN), is an affordable way to ensure your team will have a stable and secure retirement income from a defined benefit pension. 

Most importantly, as a pension trust, OPTrust Select is effectively a nonprofit itself, meaning you won’t be charged fees beyond your regular contributions to the pension plan.

“Our sector and its workers deserve the same dignity in retirement and future income security as those working in other sectors. Creating access to a defined benefit pension plan for our sector is one of the ways ONN has advanced Decent Work and we are proud to recommend OPTrust Select. It is an affordable and accessible plan that strengthens the ability of nonprofit employers to recruit and retain staff. The contribution rate is 3 per cent; affordable for most workers and organizations, and this pension plan gives workers a defined benefit for life.”

Cathy Taylor, ONN

Why defined benefit pensions?

Defined benefit pension plans are the gold standard in retirement security. Unlike other forms of retirement savings, these plans pay out a predictable monthly amount in retirement for as long as you live. Benefits may also be protected against inflation to help your pension keep up with the cost of living. 

OPTrust Select is designed specifically for 91��Ƶ’s nonprofit sector. For workers, it is a simple, secure retirement income solution that is modestly priced, and your employer also contributes. For employers, it is an easy and affordable way to support employees, ensuring they will have a stable and secure retirement income.

But don’t just take our word for it. 

Job Skills is a community-based employment and training organization that has been providing solutions to job seekers and employers in 91��Ƶ for over 35 years. In 2022, Job Skills began offering as part of its benefits package.

“The fact that OPTrust Select was recommended by the ONN was important to us,” said Teresa Guillem, Special Projects Manager with Job Skills. “This is our first time offering a retirement benefit, and OPTrust Select has provided the stable, secure path that we wanted to be able to offer our staff.”

“We want to invest in our people because, one, we want them to stay with us long term, and two, we know by investing in our staff we are also investing in our community,” Guillem continued.

Advancing decent work through pensions

The desire to strengthen the conditions for decent work within 91��Ƶ’s nonprofit sector is also driving organizations to join OPTrust Select.

North York Harvest Food Bank is the primary food bank for northern Toronto, distributing over 2.3 million pounds of food last year through 77 community programs. Ryan Noble, Executive Director of North York Harvest Food Bank, takes the concept of decent work very seriously.

“We’ve taken steps to ensure that our workers don’t fall into either poverty or precarious employment today or in the future,” he said of joining OPTrust Select in 2022. “We’ve tried to increase our wages and salaries so that they reflect living wages, but we realized that public retirement offerings simply aren’t enough.”

“Expanding our benefits package has allowed us to continue to do the work we are passionate about with the peace of mind of knowing that we have security in retirement,” he added. “We see this as investment in not just our team, but in our ability to serve our community.”

A sector-wide opportunity to invest in ourselves and our communities

A sector-wide pension plan not only pools resources across a wider range of organizations, but also provides greater flexibility for employees who may work in multiple nonprofit workplaces during their careers. The more organizations that offer OPTrust Select, the easier it is for employees to build their pension throughout their career in the nonprofit sector.

A pension plan lets organizations invest in their employees’ future, fostering a culture of decent work that extends beyond their career in the sector.

This plan provides a great entry point into a pension plan for the vast majority of sector employers. It involves a contribution rate that is set, predictable, and affordable to even small employers – and their employees.

To learn more about joining OPTrust Select, send an email to info@optrustselect.com or visit their .

Let’s take a moment to celebrate women and gender diverse folks across the nonprofit sector whose transformative efforts are helping to create a more just and equitable future for all Ontarians.

We know that 77 per cent of the nonprofit workforce across 91��Ƶ and Canada consists of women workers. It’s with this staggering statistic (80 per cent in 2017) that ONN embarked on the Decent Work for Women journey five years ago. The learnings from the project identified major challenges that women face within the sector, from the gender wage gap, a racialized glass ceiling to workplace harassment, and discrimination. This journey also documented the connection between the high percentage of women working in the sector, particularly Black and immigrant women, who hold jobs concentrated in frontline or entry-level positions, and how the sector is devalued and low-waged. 

Some of our reflections include:

• While there is a strong commitment to Decent Work for Women and gender-diverse people, we’ve come along��symbolically but not systemically.��We’re proud to be a women-majority sector and inclusive of gender-diverse folks but need to implement decent work practices faster in order to advance gender equity.��
• Collective advocacy and deepening of relationships��within the sector to champion Decent Work is critical for systemic change. We collectively need to eradicate the root causes of the��nonprofit HR crisis.
• Intersectionality needs to be intentional and ongoing, it doesn’t end with one relationship or project. Indigenous women, Black women, racialized women, women of trans experience, women with disabilities, gender diverse people, and immigrant women still remain the least supported within our sector.��
• Our sector’s women-majority workers rely on care work to do care work.��Long-term investments in care infrastructure��can boost care service availability, better quality of care, and provide decent work jobs.
• Decent Work for Women must include creative solutions to address��the feminization of labour, burnout and mental health��in the workplace, as many women and gender diverse people within the sector report significant impacts.��
• Intimate partner violence for women increased significantly during the pandemic, especially lockdowns. Women in the nonprofit sector may be experiencing violence at home, while having to navigate working from home and continuing to do their work to support their community.

The theme of International Women’s Day this year is. Awareness of the biases that disproportionately impact women and gender diverse folks must be followed by action within the sector. Advocacy efforts are one tool to create systemic change, and as a network of many advocates on the frontline and within the realm of policy for Decent Work for Women, we believe that change and breaking the bias IS possible. 

The nonprofit sector must hold itself accountable for taking action on advancing gender equity in meaningful ways that matter to the women and gender-diverse folks working in our sector. 

A few ways to take action:

• Pay transparency, this means including pay scales in job postings
• Equal pay for equal work
• Offering paid sick days, comprehensive benefits, pension contributions and maternity and parental leave top-ups
• Providing mentorship and professional development opportunities
• Remove expectations of emotional labour

Explore our Decent Work for Women site for more ways to take action. 

IWD reflections from leaders in the nonprofit sector

We shared our reflections above but also wanted to highlight reflections from women and gender-diverse leaders within the sector. We asked them to tell us what they thought had changed? Where do they see hope? What actions can the sector take to advance gender equity? 

Fae Johnstone – Executive Director, Wisdom To Action

“From where I stand, one of the most pressing issues in the nonprofit sector is pay equity and gainful employment for trans, gender diverse and 2SLGBTQ+ people. While the sector has come a long way, I rarely see trans women like me in executive positions. I dream of a nonprofit sector where trans and 2SLGBTQ+ people in leadership roles aren’t an anomaly or an outlier. We need to do more than train our staff on inclusion; we need to ensure trans and gender diverse people are present in our workplaces, supported by our teams, and valued for the immense wisdom and talent they bring to the table.”

AnaLori Smith – Board Chair, Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation 

This International Women’s Day, I would like the nonprofit sector to create the conditions to reflect the communities they serve. We need to move away from tokenism within board structures, and people are not checkboxes. We must mentor those with lived experience and prioritize those individuals with lived experience. If we are going to retain diverse women, the culture must reflect those changes. As a woman living with a physical disability, I’m consistently reshaping how we “do” board work to be more accessible—moving 200-page board packages to 45- pages; moving away from 3-hour meetings to 90-minute meetings, ensuring that we have shared language around anti-oppression and diversity.There needs to be innovative responses organizations don’t get stuck in their ways that are exclusionary.”

Samantha Peters – Director,  Black Femme Legal 

“From where I stand, it is imperative that the non-profit sector address anti-Black racism generally, and misogynoir, including trans misogynoir specifically. This is because systemic, institutional, and individual [trans] misogynoir has led to pay inequities, safety issues, gender based disparities in leadership, as well as sexual and gender-based violence in the workplace. Indeed it’s dangerous when non-profit organizations become experts on the language, but not in practice. Black queer women, femmes, trans and gender expansive folks in the 2SLGBTQI+ community deserve a safe and supportive work environment. They deserve workplace policies that protect them from harm. They deserve to be paid for their work and so much more.”

Jasmine Ramze Rezaee – Director of Advocacy and Communications, YWCA Toronto

I am hopeful there is a greater desire to move away from practices rooted in colonialism and capitalism. We should expand the definition of leadership and reimagine what governance looks like at an organizational level. Nonprofits should also adequately compensate all of our staff members, being mindful not to replicate exploitative notions around skilled versus unskilled labour. Perhaps most importantly, we should hold elected officials accountable by creating dedicated advocacy positions! We need to close the gap between service delivery and political action. Lastly, I do think our staff’s well-being must be our number one priority as a sector. We have to ensure all staff – especially Indigenous, Black, racialized, disabled and trans staff – have access to culturally-affirming and affordable health supports. There is progress on all of these fronts but still so much work left to do. 

Reflections written by ONN team members, Pamela Uppal and Yamikani Msosa

Decent work practices are not simply limited to financial rewards and benefits. Organizational practices and cultures are part of a decent work environment. This simple checklist can help you think about what decent work practices look like for your organization, and identify areas where you are achieving impressive decent work practices and areas where you would like to improve.
If you download the checklist, please let us know by sending an email to randall@theonn.ca.

1. Decent Wages

Fair income is one common aspect of decent work. This involves not only salaries, but also income security: paid holiday, parental and sick leave, and steady work hours that allow for a predictable income. Support for fair income might mean promoting and adopting “living wage” policies or other standards that promote income fairness within, and between, workplaces.

2. Decent benefits

In addition to extended benefits (such as holiday pay, parental and sick leave, which are governed by the Employment Standards Act), retirement income security and access to essential healthcare are two of the most central elements decent work. These are especially important to the nonprofit sector as a key driver of dignity in the workplace and making our sector an employer of choice.

3. Decent Contract Security

There is pressure in the labour market to increase the use of “precarious” part-time and limited-term job contracts to carry out work that used to be done by full-time permanent staff. In some instances, this is done to achieve flexibility, and is a necessary part of some staffing models (for example, with relief and emergency workers). However, this can also be a practice used to avoid the added costs associated with full-time and permanent contracts. The extent to which the nonprofit sector can resist these trends will determine whether or not we can continue to provide good jobs for many people in our workforce.

4. Decent Scheduling

Many programs in the nonprofit sector rely upon flexible and on-call scheduling to meet the needs of the people served. At the same time, the capacity of staff to plan their non-work activities, attend to personal and family needs, and attain a positive work-life balance depends on having reasonable ability to plan ahead. Efforts to provide as advanced scheduling are critical.

5. Decent Opportunities for Advancement

Decent work also means thinking about the opportunities available for training, learning, and advancement. This may include formal training and advancement opportunities, and having a workplace and sector culture that is focused on learning and the development of its employees.

6. Decent Processes for Resolving Conflicts

An environment where people can express their concerns, participate equally, and feel included and safe in the workplace underpins all aspects of decent work. This includes strong employment standards, establishing codes of conduct, developing proactive policies for diversity and inclusion, ensuring the safety of workers, respecting the mental and physical health of employees, and ensuring that employees understand they have the right to organize and speak up about workplace concerns.

7. Decent Workplace Culture of Participation

Effective leadership and a participatory work culture are crucial to decent work. The leadership norms and management styles practiced in workplaces impact the ability of workers to sustain their passion and commitment to work, and contribute their ideas and skills to advancing the broader mission of the organization. They also impact the ability of workers to balance work, family, and personal time. A participatory work culture also goes beyond compliance with human rights and accessibility legislation, and actively fosters inclusion and engagement.

* Note: The (OHSA) sets out roles and responsibilities of workplace parties with respect to workplace violence and workplace harassment, including developing and implementing policies and programs, and providing information and instruction on these. The (AODA) also sets out regulations for identifying, removing, and preventing barriers to employees with disabilities.

8. Strategies to Promote Decent Work

Nonprofits can face significant structural barriers to providing decent work. These can be a result of program models that require flexible, part-time, or casual contracts, or funders that do not allow funds to be used for certain costs (for example, identifying pension contributions as an “ineligible” expense). In the case of government-funded organizations, there is often restraint and flatlining of program funds for years at a time. Some organizations may be able to overcome aspects of these barriers over time (for example, not accepting low-wage contracts). However, to make systemic change for government funders to include cost of living increases in their allocations, it will take concerted advocacy efforts collectively by our networks and the nonprofit sector as a whole.

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Checklist – pdf

Liste de contrôle du travail décent – pdf

Checklist – editable document

We’re grateful for the financial support of the Atkinson Foundation and Status of Women Canada, which is helping us to explore and build decent work in 91��Ƶ’s nonprofit sector.

Let me start with an ending: I am pleased to share that ONN’s pensions implementation task force – created in 2017 to implement the first pensions task force’s recommendations – has brought its work to a close.

Our main proposal is that ONN recommend OPTrust Select as the pension plan for the sector. And the ONN Board has accepted that recommendation. It’s a big day for me and my colleagues from both task forces. (A couple of us were on both).

It’s been just shy of three years since ONN set the process in motion: a process to examine whether a pension plan is needed, as well as to look at how the sector should deal with the then-proposed 91��Ƶ Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP). Halfway through that task force’s mandate, the province scrapped the ORPP when the federal and provincial governments agreed on improvements to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). (As an aside, I offer the view (mine, not ONN’s) that a much more enhanced CPP would have made a nonprofit sector plan, as well as many other pension plans, unnecessary, and that would have been a good thing. Alas, those finance ministers failed to ask what I think!) The CPP enhancement will replace about one-third of a retiree’s working income, up from about a quarter right now. The generation that turns 18 in 2025 will be the first to benefit from the full enhancement, with partial increases phased in for the current working generation.

Although the ORPP didn’t go ahead, the discussion around it brought much-needed attention to the issue of the woefully inadequate retirement security of many workers in 91��Ƶ, including those in the nonprofit sector. We concluded that even the enhanced CPP wasn’t nearly enough to eliminate the need for a pension plan. It also got us thinking about what kind of retirement vehicle would be best.

In the absence of any retirement plan whatsoever beyond Old Age Security and CPP, which is the case for so many sector workers, it becomes tempting to say, ��“just give them something, even a registered retirement savings plan- it doesn’t much matter what since it is better than what they have now.” We resisted that approach and instead recognized that there are different routes to take, some better than others. We concluded that being able to count on a monthly retirement benefit is a very significant factor for an employee’s retirement. That typically means a defined benefit (DB) pension.

But employers have been leery of the potential liability that goes with a single employer DB plan. So our task force recommended a pension plan structure that would minimize that risk to employers while providing a predictable monthly income.

And luck was with us. The first pensions task force report came to the attention of OPTrust, a large ($20B in assets), well-established and well-regarded public sector plan. OPTrust saw an opportunity to expand to the nonprofit sector. But it also recognized that its existing plan required contributions that are unrealistically high for most nonprofits (in the range of 10% by both employee and employer). They met with us and asked what a viable plan for the sector might look like, and they came up with .

OPTrust Select is a DB plan. It is not a totally new plan but an adjunct to their main plan. Thus Select gets the benefit of the economies of scale, experience and expertise of the bigger plan.

Contributions are set at 3% and 3% of wages for both employer and employees. It has thoughtfully dealt with the issue of potential contribution increases that a DB plan raises by creating a modest core benefit which should be more than adequately covered by those contributions. In addition, it has built in conditional inflation protection which is only granted if the plan can afford to give it. Thus the risk of a need for increase in contributions becomes minimal. They have done projections which suggest that the inflation enhancements are also very likely to be granted over the long term without a change in contributions.

OPTrust Select will allow employers to merge assets from an existing plan and these then get translated into a higher monthly benefit that the employees enjoy when they retire. It will permit an employee to buy back past service, for example with any RRSP assets they have, meaning a better pension benefit that reflects their time with the employer before they enrolled in Select. And there is a role for Select plan members in the governance of the plan. All these were things both task forces had pointed out should be in a sector plan.

I am pleased that we came to this result: access to an affordable, sector-wide defined benefit pension plan. If the plan is widely adopted across the sector it will mean employees can move between employers and maintain the same pension. It will provide a benefit in keeping with ONN’s effort to create better working conditions for the sector, meaning happier employees, less turnover, and a greater ability for nonprofits to serve their communities well. All of which makes the nonprofit world a better place. And who could disagree with that?

Read more about��the pension plan.

Prior to his second career as a documentary film-maker, Michael Kainer worked as a lawyer for 30 years, specializing in pension and benefit law and nonprofit organizations. Early in his career, he was a co-founder of the Toronto Community Law School (now Community Legal Education 91��Ƶ, CLEO). Michael assisted in the establishment of the Multi-Sector Pension Plan.