The nonprofit sector in Canada is looking at: greater pressure for accountability, an evolving donor, greater emphasis on endowments, and new developments in prospect research.

Philanthropic Trends, a semiannual publication by KCI Ketchum Canada celebrating its 10^th anniversary, provides an anecdotal snapshot of philanthropy in Canada, highlighting these four main elements of the current landscape.

For starters, it says, “accountability pressures arising from the continued deepening of expectations of donors, and the tremendous impact of gifts of securities on the charitable sector: these two issues were front and centre for our Philanthropic Trends National Advisory Bord members ... It’s continuing evidence of the new complexity of managing organizations and their fundraising operations and the remarkable potential and power of philanthropy in Canada.”

More gifts are coming from fewer people, but those people are taking their philanthropic involvements very seriously, the advisers note.

Canada Revenue Agency has been getting tougher and tougher on tax shelters in recent years, but other than insisting they have a tax shelter number, it has been virtually powerless to attack such organizations directly. 

It has had to fight them through reassessing taxpayers who have been their dupes, making charitable contributions because they have been promised refunds higher than their actual investment, and through penalizing charities that, knowingly or otherwise, have provided false information on their tax receipts.

This remains CRA’s main weapon, but in a recent statement, the agency points out: "CRA’s actions with respect to tax shelters will not necessarily be limited to the revocation of charities or the reassessment of donors. The third party civil penalties (contained in 163.2) were introduced to address those persons who facilitate the provision of false information to CRA.

The Canadian Association of Gift Planners, in accordance with the request from Canada Revenue Agency for feedback on its draft guidelines on fundraising expenses (CF April 15) is asking members to review its comments on the guidelines in the most recent issue of its newsletter, The Planner, and then respond to a survey to enable the Government Relations Committee to make an association submission.

The questions on the survey ask:

If a nonprofit neglects to establish a carefully thought-out gift acceptance policy, it could put its fundraisers in a variety of awkward situations, not wanting to offend donors but unsure of the viability of a proposed gift.

This warning was noted by Elizabeth Moxham, Senior Philanthropy Officer, Gift and Estate Planing, BC Children’s Hospital Foundation, at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Gift Planners.

Gift acceptance policies, she says, are needed to “provide a framework for principled, consistent decision-making and actions”. Written policies are required when the situation is critically important, will benefit from clarification, is a legal or accountability issue, or has serious consequences in the event of non-compliance.

Canada needs a National Charities Strategy. This is one of the recommendations of a Task Force spearheaded by Imagine Canada, which is circulating a position paper on issues concerning the voluntary sector to all five political parties and asking for their support.

Changing demographics and shifts in public spending are placing increased demands on charities to meet the needs of Canadians in their communities, says the paper. Tax measures can stimulate giving, as proved by the positive response to the removal of capital gains from charitable donations of appreciated securities.

Earning praise from the task force, the Standing Committee on Finance in February cited more than a dozen possible measures for stimulating charitable giving, but a more rounded, strategic approach is needed, the group contends.

This month, restaurants in 19 Ontario communities donated a percentage of the money spent by their patrons on food and beverages (pre-tax) for one evening, all in the aid of a variety of AIDS-related organizations.

Taste for Life was started about 10 years ago in Ottawa by the Snowy Owl Foundation and Bruce House, which continue to provide supportive organization as more and more communities sign on and run their own events at a grass roots level.

In each case, patrons are encouraged to bring their friends and family to swell the numbers at participating restaurants. The beneficiary organization provides hosts for each establishment, who greet and seat patrons and encourage them to make their own donations above and beyond the percentage contribution by the restaurant.

Charities that view the Internet as a good source for myriad small gifts – only – are missing the bet that major gift donors are out there online as well, and their use of the Net is more sophisticated than that of the charities.

This is the contention of a new study by Convio, Sea Change Strategies and Edge Research. Middle and major donors, its report says, “are increasingly open to electronic communications as a means for establishing and sustaining giving relationships. There is much anecdotal evidence that in their online habits, these ‘wired wealthy’ donors have gotten ahead of the charities and organizations they support.”

The survey covered 3,443 “wired wealthy” donors who had given a cumulative total of $1,000 or more to at least one of the 23 partner nonprofit organizations and had a valid e-mail address registered with the organization.

The challenge of change faces today’s nonprofits as a new generation turns the world upsy-daisy in terms of its values, what it wants to see done to improve the social commons, and the ways it’s prepared to go about achieving these ends, says Susan Raymond, Senior Managing Director, Changing Our World.

This challenge is “not simple. It is not automatic. It is merely imperative,” she informs the audience at the 45^th International Fundraising Conference hosted by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, in a wide-ranging overview of the new world in which today’s fundraisers find themselves.

Fundraisers, she says, must become “philanthropic polymaths”. They must be able to continue to utilize traditional skills where their application is appropriate. They must be curious, asking and answering “newer, more interesting, more challenging” questions.

Widget technology has four important facets.

First, it makes it possible for fundraisers to evangelize in their own way, in their own words. This is important in an era when user-driven content is so pervasive online. Consumers increasingly expect to be treated as individuals with their own values and interests. So do donors to charity. They also expect to have a voice and gravitate toward places, products and causes where they are given a platform for personal expression. Personalization is everything.

When Network for Good designed our Six Degrees charity widget, we put the emphasis on the champion (not the charity) by allowing people to upload personal photos, video and their own text onto the widget. People wanted to see themselves in their fundraising widget, and their friends and family did too. In fact, on Six Degrees, we were contacted through Customer Service when people weren’t getting to see their face in our gallery of participants as often as they’d like.

Causes on Facebook is similar – the context of the Cause is the person’s personal Facebook page, which reflects him/her. The Cause is just one more form of self-expression.

When writing our book on collaboration, we were fortunate to find many great quotations that succinctly captured the essence of the various chapters. One I particularly liked headed up the chapter on communication. It’s a bit wordy, but the last sentence is the key – “We need to attach greater importance to the art of communicating.” This came from the former President of the Commonwealth Fund. 

Throughout our extensive research with a wide variety of organizations that completed mergers, partnerships, program acquisitions or devolutions, two of the key steps everyone talked about were planning and communication. Those that communicated early, often, and to as many stakeholder groups as possible, were invariably successful. Those that only communicated superficially or not at all were less successful, and some were spectacular failures.

There are various sources of support for philanthropic organizations to achieve the success necessary for their growth and development. The greater the number of sources of funding within an organization’s donor base, the more room there will be for increasing growth.

By far the largest percentage of donations comes from individuals, both while living, and through bequests. Corporate giving in Canada has changed dramatically over the last decade and evolved into philanthropic support, community engagement and cause-related marketing. Community foundations have grown exponentially over the last decade. Given the variety of potential funding sources, major gift fundraisers need to be adaptable. 

Woody Allen once said that “80% of success is just showing up.” He was wrong, of course. 

Just showing up in your prospective donor’s mailbox will not guarantee your success any more than just showing up for an interview will land you a job or just showing up at a front door will land you a date. Acquiring donors with direct mail fundraising letters is complicated and time consuming, and expensive if you do it wrong. Here are five common mistakes to avoid.

Mistake #1: Not mailing to enough people. Direct mail fundraising works best when you mail to tens of thousands of donors repeatedly over time, asking for small donations. The smaller your list is, the higher your costs are per piece, per dollar raised and per donor acquired. When your response rate is only1%, you need to mail in the tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, to acquire enough donors to make your efforts worthwhile. 

Telefundraising insights

Canadian FundRaiser, in co-operation with United Way Centraide and Wellesley Institute, presents a Key-To-The-Sector workshop on Straight Talk about Fundraising in Canada, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 22 at the Wellesley Institute, led by James Julien of Public Outreach.

The workshop will look at using telefundraising to convert or upgrade donors, reactivate lapsed donors, or support a major gift or planned giving program.

Price is $237 + GST until May 8, $277 + GST after that date. Multiple registrations get $10 off, and current paid members/subscribers to Canadian FundRaiser and/or Gift Planning in Canada earn a 25% discount.

Community foundations in Canada added $348 million to their coffers in 2007, a 28% increse over the previous year, says Community Foundations of Canada.

Growth was across the board, in all communities and all sizes of foundations, says CFC President and CEO Monica Patten. Collective community foundation assets grew to $2.91 billion from $2.7 billion.

Community foundations distributed $176 million to thousands of local charities during the year.