I'll say a little bit about the funding, and maybe you can follow up with Leslie a little bit about it.
Right now, say you were to give us $50,000. When you talk about $50,000 and how that spreads, everyone around this table knows that we spread that $50,000 over a population that is maybe 40 or 50.... So when we talk about dollars and cents, you're talking--and I'm just being as generous as I can--maybe even 25 cents to 50 cents per dollar. You have to think that we're getting more complicated with our organization. We've lost that ability to really look at the community as a strength in the sense of accessing the funding. What ends up happening is that applying for it becomes more extreme and intense. Everybody around this table is applying for the same funding, which could be a very small pot. Not only that, but the requirements change, and then you have to become more creative rather than looking at something that's been solid and that has been working to continue to provide funding because you know it's working.
The other whole thing about funding has to do with what government sees as a success story. What is that? Is it the percentage of people who are actually moving forward? Is it that one woman who has made a change and is no longer in domestic...or is no longer living in poverty? What is that success? Or is it the numbers that say out of the 100 families you're working with, 100 of them are going to walk out the door and be okay?
We have to realize that aboriginal communities look at oral teachings, which are not part of funding requirements. Or when you bring elders or people from the community in and we talk about complex issues of mental health, addictions, violence, the sex trade, what dollar value can you put on those pieces of it? So even though the money is coming in, we also look outside of that. But we find the challenge at times is whether we have the right person coming in, because it is challenging to hire someone who fits the profile, and to find the person we need to work with those families. Funding really has an impact when we're talking about training, and sometimes that's not even an issue. Sometimes we can only get capital when we need operational funding. Sitting down and really strategizing around what is working and why it is working and using that as the strength rather than trying to change policy because something has changed with regard to the direction of the government is something we have to look at.