Imagine a business sector that was widely affirmed as being very important to Canada and playing an important role in meeting the needs of Canadians, understanding the needs of Canadians better than governments and exceeding governments’ performance in meeting those needs.

Such a sector exists – but not in the for-profit world. It’s the charitable sector that earned such trust and respect from Canadians, as reported in a 2006 survey by the Muttart Foundation (CF November 15, 2006) cited in The Canada Revenue Agency’s report and action plan, Small and Rural Charities: Making a Difference for Canadians. 

The CRA document opens with the findings of the agency’s extensive consultation process and a description of the service improvements to which it was committed. Those who read further will discover a 12-page sector overview filled with favourable public comment and reams of statistics emphasizing the impact of the sector that ought to be required reading for federal and provincial legislators. 

In a brief announcement issued July 29 the University of Oxford announced that Canadian fundraiser Dr. Jon Dellandrea would leave his post this autumn “to take up international consultancies.” 

Dellandrea had moved into the newly-created post of Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Development and External Affairs) in October 2005. Oxford’s official statement praised Dellandrea’s “leading role in transforming the way the University engages with the wider world.” 

His accomplishments included major changes in Oxford’s public engagement, alumni relations and development activity, and the launch in May of the biggest fund-raising campaign ever undertaken by a European university. Over half of the initial target figure of £1.25 billion has already been raised less than two months after the campaign was unveiled.

In my previous article (CF May 31, 2008) I highlighted some of the organizational differences between the United States and Canada. In this piece, I will present a very cursory examination of the tax differences between these two nations. It is important to note that I am not a tax specialist, nor do I provide tax advice through my consultancy. 

This paper is divided into two sections -- corporate giving and individual giving.

Both the American and Canadian charitable tax laws stemmed from Queen Elizabeth I in the early 1600’s. As each country has grown and evolved, these tax laws have changed as well. The basis for the current laws governing Canadian corporate giving were written in the 1930’s and while there have been changes, the core values placed upon corporate giving have not altered much.

This is something that I alluded to in my previous article and highlights the most noticeable distinction between the two sets of tax laws - the inherent structures that govern them. The American approach to philanthropy has underpinnings of the capitalist mentality of United States governance, whereas the Canadian charitable system is shaped by a more socialistic view.

In the July 14 issue of the Los Angeles Times, reporter Cyndia Zwahlen describes a growing trend in that city and the U.S. as a whole: carefully considered alliances between smaller businesses and lesser-known or smaller charities.  

Since well known businesses often receive more proposals than they can handle, it makes good sense for smaller charities to seek new opportunities with a partner at their own scale in terms of size, public recognition or geographic reach.

Zwahlen profiles the owner of Oliver’s Artisan Breads, an artisan bakery in San Fernando who decided to donate a portion of her company’s profit to Bread for the World. It’s hard to imagine a better match for an artisanal bakery than a food-advocacy charity whose name and website (www.bread.org) speak of what they have in common. 

Both are highly respected. Oliver’s breads are in demand at restaurants throughout the San Fernando Valley. Bread for the World has chaired working groups comprised of much larger charities and received a four-star rating from Charity Navigator. 

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose ... mais plus, et plus, et plus. Perhaps it’s fitting that on the 400^th anniversary of Quebec City’s founding, this should be the inescapable conclusion from my attempt, on retiring from Canadian FundRaiser, to respond to the request from John Webster Hochstadt and Lea Clearwater [Editor and Managing Editor of Gift Planning in Canada] to look back at the changes and developments in the nonprofit world since I became editor in August, 2001.

There were -athons then when they were a novelty and we covered most of them in depth. There are so many more now that they tend to be mentioned, if at all, in our In Brief department, i.e. there’s another walk or run or bike-a-thon going on in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, St. John’s, wherever. 

The fundraising community is continually, and increasingly desperately, searching for more innovative ways to pry dollars out of donors’ pockets. It must be working, to a degree, as reports each year show individuals are giving more ... albeit there are fewer of those individuals. Latest fad appears to be biking across the country on the heels of Terry Fox and Steve Hansen – with dire consequences in one case this summer.

When “a surprising number of Canadians” visited the booth of the American Association of Grant Professionals at AFP’s international conference in May, Executive Director Gail Vertch returned home to Kansas City convinced that there was potential for a Canadian chapter of AAGP in the near future. The organization has begun exploring ways to grow the handful of Canadian members it already serves, starting with a widely published invitation to participate in its tenth annual conference (see Coming Events for details).

AAGP began in 1998 with the goal of focusing solely on the advancement of grantsmanship as a profession and the support of its practitioners. It has grown from the initial five members to more than 3,000. Chapters in many states and Puerto Rico allow the local networking, support and peer-to-peer education that AFP chapter members have long enjoyed. And like AFP, AAGP has set up its own certification program, the Grant Professional Certification or GPC.

While AAGP works closely with AFP and promotes its services, Vertch sees her organization and its certification serving a niche that is not addressed by the more broadly based CFRE program. In a 90-minute written test and four-hour multiple choice exam, candidates are tested in eight core grant seeking and grant management competencies. Knowledge alone is not enough. Candidates must also provide proof of their education, grant-related experience, continuing professional development and community involvement.

We need passion, honesty, conviction, emotion, authority, urgency – but we don’t need verbal tricks. So says George Smith, a winner of the U.K.’s Direct Marketing Association Gold Award for work on a 1990 Greenpeace campaign. Smith compiles his guidelines for better writing in two small books, Asking Properly and Tiny Essentials of Writing for Fundraising. In a posting on SOFII.org he quotes George Orwell’s criticism of modern writing, penned 60 years ago:

“Modern writing at its worst...consists of gumming together long strips of words, which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.” A remarkable comment in an age that could not imagine the cut-and-paste techniques of modern word processing!

Smith’s tips come from decades of experience as a leading copywriter, fundraising executive and writing coach. Advocating brevity, he recommends the use of Saxon words rather than Latin ones where possible – “news” or “facts” rather than “information”, “show” rather than “indicate.”  The shorter Saxon words have a greater impact. Try swearing in Latin, he says, and you’ll get the point right away.

Do you dream of a board fired up for fundraising? Make that “fantasize”– as in inventing extravagant or visionary images. It can happen, says fundraising consultant Gail Perry in a Guidestar series of articles based on her recent book, Fired Up Fundraising: Turn Board Passion into Action published by John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Perry’s experience is the same as yours and mine: Board members love the organization, have a passion for the mission, but balk at making the ask. Yet the ask is just the last step in a sensitive long term journey based on sincere relationship. Perry lists six person to person strategies that enable board members to open the door, connect their friends to your organization, expand your organization’s social networks, and help you find new friends and donors—all without having to solicit.

Make friends for the cause and teach them to sneeze

There can never be enough supporters, enough people familiar with our organization’s mission and its value. So the job is clear, says Perry: we have to ask our board members to introduce our organization to everybody they know.

How many more non – profit executives will be needed to lead the Canadian third sector over the next decade? 

Has the Canadian philanthropic sector recruited and developed its senior management with robust management education to meet the growing demands of the sector?

How will the Canadian nonprofit sector strengthen and expand its mechanisms for attracting and developing future senior management?

Who must invest in building future skilled management capacity and quality?

In the September 30, 2005 edition of Canadian FundRaiser, it was reported that “the establishment of a master’s in philanthropy and development at a recognized university would enhance the actual professionalism of fundraising in Canada, and also the public perception of that professionalism.” 

The newest charity evaluation website for concerned donors is Global Giving Green™, a one of a kind scoring system that measures the climate impact of social entrepreneurs and other development projects in communities around the world, from Nepal and Tanzania to Honduras and the United States. The sitewas launched July 25 as an offshoot of GlobalGiving, which describes itself as “the leading Internet-based network for peer-to-peer philanthropy.”

 “Through GlobalGiving Green we are taking an unprecedented approach to supporting development through a climate change lens,” said Dennis Whittle, co-founder and CEO of GlobalGiving.  “The goal is to set the standard for evaluating grassroots, on-the-ground projects against criteria that take into account both environmental and other development-related ‘co-benefits.’  With this additional layer of screening, people who want to ‘give green’ have the information and tools to do so quickly and easily.”

The developing world faces a double burden, according to GlobalGiving. Climate change threatens poor communities with economic devastation in the form of floods, droughts, and ruined harvests.  But every developed country in the world today has come to its wealth and well-being through a carbon-intensive path, that if repeated across the developing world today would cancel out any efforts we have made to combat global warming to date or in the future.

Do you use direct mail fundraising letters to drive donors to your web site to make their donations? If you do, make sure your online donation page answers the three most common questions asked by donors.

Question #1. Am I at the correct place? 

What you say on your donation page needs to match what you say in your direct mail appeal. Visually, this means that if you feature in your direct mail package a photo of a homeless man eating supper at your drop-in shelter, you should feature that same photo on your make-a-donation page. If the ask in your letter is for your Tornado Relief Project, then the ask on your Donate Now page needs to match that. 

This, by the way, means you should never direct your direct mail readers to your home page to make their gift. You should send them directly to your donation form, preferably one designed specifically for each direct mail campaign.

... some interesting trends in the U.S. that could manifest themselves in Canada as well.

Fundraisers less confident, donors less enthused

In the U.S., we’ve noted more concern about the effects of a slowing economy on charitable giving, along with a survey indicating that few charities “wow” donors during the process of giving. Could it be that at least a portion of the decline attributed to the economy is actually due to donors finding their experience underwhelming in spite of all those stewardship efforts?

In July, the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University released the results of its annual study of 140 fundraisers around the U.S. Each year, the researchers massage those responses into a score that resembles the consumer confidence index. The July score for the fundraising index is 82.8, a decline of 6% from a year ago. 

It has been worse – in the summer of 2003, fundraisers who responded registered a score of 72.3. The highest ever score was 94.6 in December 1999, at the height of the dot-com boom.

Liven up the dog days of August by sharpening your skills at a Key-to-the-Sector workshop. Opportunities include 

• Straight Talk about Telefundraising in Canada with James Julien, former telefundraising manager for Greenpeace and Oxfam at the Wellesley Institute, Suite 101, 45 Charles St. E., Toronto on Tuesday, August 26 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Create a Must-Read Newsletter with Susan Sommers, media relations and marketing teacher with the Schulich School of Business, University of Toronto, and the Ontario College of Art and Design at a downtown Toronto location to be confirmed, Wednesday, August 27 from 9 a.m. to noon
• E-mail Newsletters that Work with Hugh Furneaux, former Chair of the Canadian Marketing Association and winner of the CMA Lifetime Achievement Award at a downtown Toronto location to be confirmed, Wednesday, August 27 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The Canadian Red Cross announced that well-known entrepreneurs Colin and Michael (Mickey) MacDonald of Halifax will share its 2008 Humanitarian Award in Nova Scotia. Brendan Yorke, a youth leader in Truro who has raised funds and awareness for several causes and spent part of this year doing international aid work will be its 2008 Young Humanitarian for Nova Scotia.

All three recipients will be honoured Nov. 12 at the Canadian Red Cross Humanitarian Awards dinner at the World Trade and Convention Centre in Halifax. Proceeds from the fund-raising dinner support Red Cross programs and services in Nova Scotia including disaster management, injury and violence prevention, health equipment loans, and humanitarian issues awareness. 

In addition to the Canadian Red Cross, Colin MacDonald is a tireless supporter of organizations such as the IWK Foundation, Homebridge Youth Society, Phoenix Youth Programs, the Children’s Wish Foundation, Abilities Foundation and the Canadian Colorectal Cancer Screening Initiative. 

Mickey MacDonald is heavily involved in literacy education, initiatives to assist the homeless and programs for at-risk youth, including Red Cross programs dealing with bullying and violence prevention.

Brendan Yorke established a group called CEC Active Youth in 2006 while he was a Grade 11 student at Cobequid Educational Centre in Truro. It connects young people with volunteer opportunities in schools, hospitals and extended-care facilities in the Truro area and raises funds for causes including the Red Cross, Canadian Cancer Society, Alzheimer’s Society, Nova Scotia Talent Trust and the Multiple Sclerosis Society.