Canadians like to think of themselves as generous people, as givers, not recipients of charitable services.
But consider this: the median level of giving among Canadians is only $150 annually. At the same time, the voluntary sector delivers services worth more than $3,000 per citizen.
The simple explanation for this colossal gulf between perception and reality is that Canadians lack basic knowledge about the voluntary sector and the role it plays in delivering the services and reflecting the values that define us as a nation.
Have you ever had surgery? Had a child enrolled in amateur sport? Gone to the opera? Studied English or French as a second language? Watched public television? Attended university? Gone to a church or other place of worship?
Had a family member with arthritis, Alzheimer's, cancer or heart disease? Gone to the zoo? Played with your kids at a playground? Eaten at a soup kitchen?
If the answer is yes to any one of these questions, you have been a beneficiary of "charity." And if the answer is yes to any of these questions, you, too, will soon feel the impact of government cutbacks.
The reality is that, with three of every five dollars coming from the state, the sector is quite dependent on government. Canadians are indeed generous and civic-minded, but those traits are not expressed so much by dropping coins in the Salvation Army bell or writing a cheque to the Canadian Cancer Society as they are through paying taxes and supporting the maintenance of a social safety net and universal medicare system.
Charity today is far removed from the notion of alms for the poor. Canada's voluntary sector delivers a vast array of health, social, cultural, educational, recreational and spiritual services.
There are already 75,000 charities in Canada -- double the number that existed two decades ago -- and 10 new groups being registered each week.
An analysis of registered charities according to categories set out in the law reveals the following breakdown: places of worship, 40 per cent; welfare organizations, 16 per cent; education, 15 per cent; community benefit, 14 per cent; and health, 8 per cent.
More than $90.5 billion passes through the voluntary sector each year -- the equivalent of the gross domestic product of British Columbia -- and governments are "off-loading" more programs every day.
As they seek to balance budgets and reduce taxes, however, most governments are obsessed by the bottom-line. They have little concept of the impact cutbacks will have on charities, and no coherent plan for ensuring that services -- in particular basic entitlements -- will be maintained.
While it is politically expedient to hail increased giving and volunteerism as a panacea for society's financial and social ills, most elected officials, mandarins, business leaders, social scientists and even key players in the charitable field itself would be hard-pressed to articulate the scope, the economics and the limitations of a sector which plays a central role in the lives of citizens.
The favoured approach of governments, expecting ever more from charities for ever less funding, is driven more by wishful thinking than thoughtful policy, more by candy-coated nostalgia than by coherent vision, more by a desire to slash spending than to build communities.
This informational and policy void is troubling, and becomes more so when you realize that the voluntary sector is struggling for recognition and respect at a time when it is increasingly expected to fulfil society's desire for collective assistance -to replace faceless bureaucracy, and serve as a cornerstone of civility and a social anchor.
As Judith Maxwell, president of the Canadian Policy Research Networks, a non-profit think-tank, says: "The voluntary sector is the glue that holds everything together. Charities are the only institutions in society that have as their specific mission to do good."
Until recently, little attention was paid to other benefits of doing good, namely the sector's contribution to prosperity, as a source of economic activity and key contributor to social stability.
Despite the moniker "voluntary," the sector employs more than 1.3 million Canadians, one in every 11 jobs. Charities already pay out salaries and benefits of more than $40 billion a year; most of the other $50 billion that passes through the sector goes to program delivery (65 per cent) and administration (15 per cent) and they are repeatedly touted as a principal growth area in the so-called "new economy."
In addition to paid employees, more than 1.6 million people do volunteer work for charitable organizations every month, a contribution valued at $12 billion a year to the economy.
More important still is the increasingly accepted notion that activities promoted by the voluntary sector build social capital, that business cannot prosper where basic health and social services are not assured, where the arts do not flourish, where children cannot play, where neighbours do not speak, and where you cannot safely walk the streets.
Registered charities own equipment and buildings ranging from the Optimist Club hall to the volunteer ambulance, that, in countless towns and villages is the foundation of community activity or a lifeline to the outside. The value of those assets is conservatively estimated at $109 billion.
Consider that the voluntary sector has revenues that are 3 1/2 times the value of all crops and livestock. Charities in Canada have revenues about eight times as large as the transportation sector (and many more clients).
Yet, there are no federal and provincial ministers for the voluntary sector, but there are ministers of agriculture. There is a National Transportation Safety Board, but there is no Canadian Charities Commission.
In short, despite these staggering statistics and the indisputable role of the voluntary sector, it has not been given its political due nor the social clout it deserves.
"It's quite unconscionable that government is overlooking a major component of our economy," says Michael Hall, director of research at the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy. "There is a huge amount of activity in our society that is not adequately understood. It's really an invisible sector."
If there has been a positive impact of government cuts, it has been to awaken this sleeping giant to the fact that it is being marginalized. The charitable sector is realizing that if it is going to survive -- let alone thrive -- in an era where fiscal concerns seem to take priority over social justice, it has to start flexing its muscle and mobilizing its army of volunteers. The first step has been to increase its visibility, and to begin demanding a place at the table as governments and corporations reshape the social and economic agenda.
"A new era has begun for the voluntary sector because of political, fiscal and economic realities," says Shira Herzog, vice-president of the Calgary-based Kahanoff Foundation, which has sponsored much of the research on the sector in recent years.
"The social contract is changing, the relationship between citizens and government is changing and civic engagement is changing. Yet, the basic information is not there to allow for informed debate," she says.
For example, Statistics Canada compiles monthly data on unemployment, but no statistics on the voluntary sector, the guardian of the country's social safety net. In fact, the last time it even measured something as pervasive as volunteer work was 1987. (A new survey is now under way and should be released in the new year.)
What leaders in the voluntary sector believe they can offer is not miracle solutions, but options and alternatives at a time when debate at the political level has become almost monolithic.
As the Kitchener-Waterloo Social Planning Council pointed out last year in a research paper, it is fallacious to think that the sole choice available to governments is deficit reduction or tax cuts. It noted that, had the $4.5 billion in income tax cuts by the Ontario government instead been invested in job training and programs, 155,000 jobs could have been created in the voluntary sector.
The issue is really one of choices. In building a social welfare system that is the envy of much of the world, Canada has chosen, quite wisely, to fund most basic services through tax collection, while contracting out much service provision to community-based groups.
Unfortunately, many politicians today conveniently ignore the first part of the equation, promoting the fiction that charities can miraculously fill the gap if we all "dig a little deeper. "The truth is that we have to lower expectations or make tough choices about our priorities as a society.
Right now, those choices are being made in a back-handed fashion, by dumping programs on groups that cannot afford to maintain them, rather than make strategic decisions.
The first casualty of blindfolded cutbacks has been the infrastructure of compassion. Food banks find themselves unable to purchase vehicles that would allow them to pick up donations of food; hospitals are laying off their volunteer co-ordinators and discharging patients to home-care programs that don't exist; job training programs are eliminated and participants churned back into provision programs whose resources are shrinking; institutions like universities and nursing homes are steadily hiking their fees and systematically limiting accessibility despite the fact that the bulk of their funds come from state coffers; billions are spent on treating illness and disease while investments in research and prevention are phased out.
Al Hatton, executive director of the National Voluntary Organizations, an association of some of the country's biggest charities, says the ability of the sector to articulate its importance in society is fundamental to its survival.
"We used to just take the money, say thank you, and do what we could. Now, we're starting to insist that we have a role in influencing policy decisions. We want to sit down at the table with government and our other partners and say: 'This is a sound investment so let's commit to it,'" Hatton says.
The road to respectability, however, has been a rocky one, and the pain is far from over. Cutbacks have left thousands of groups in dire straits. Fundraising, always difficult, has become cut-throat. As damaging as the drying up of government money, has been the void in leadership, notably in establishing priorities and standards.
Susan Phillips, a professor at the school of public administration of Carleton University, says that, after long ignoring the voluntary sector, governments suddenly have grand expectations. "It is anticipated that voluntary organizations will enliven a spirit of community, foster a sense of self-sufficiency, provide new avenues for training the unemployed and deliver services in cheaper, less bureaucratic and more targeted ways."
She warns that governments cannot continue to off-load costs at the expense of social justice. "We are making some fundamental, and possibly irreversible, choices about the future of the country," Phillips says.
Yet, as the voluntary sector increases its profile and carves out its rightful place in the public policy framework, Canadians and their elected leaders will be forced to grapple with a host of difficult issues.
The toughest question is one of the most fundamental, that of definition.
Later this year, the Supreme Court of Canada will decide whether the Vancouver Society of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women is a charity. On the surface, the ruling, which will clarify the definition of "charitable activity" for tax purposes, will interest only a handful of accountants.
But the fact that a cash-strapped community group needs to turn to the highest court in the land for an answer to the question "What is a charity?" points to a much larger problem. Deciding who is "in" and who is "out" is an exercise replete with potentially divisive dilemmas. And making such choices is doubly difficult when there is a virtual absence of basic information, and no proper forum for discussion.
Despite their omnipresence, we treat charities from a policy point of view as nothing more than a minor taxation issue, an approach that is laughably out of date and belies the complex role the voluntary sector plays in Canadian society.
The common law that guides our tax laws -- and, by default, much of our social policy -- has its roots in two ancient documents, the preamble of the Statute of Elizabeth of 1601 and the ruling of Lord Macnaghten in the Pemsel case, an 1891 decision that set out the principal categories of charity.
Elizabethan poor laws may have been considered adequate for all-white, male-dominated feudal England, but they are hardly a sensible foundation for the social policy of an advanced democracy heading into the 21st century. Reform is long overdue.
Under our tax laws, charities fit into six principal categories: Advancement of religion; health; advancement of education; relief of poverty; culture; other purposes that benefit the community. Matters that have come to the fore in recent centuries, like women's rights, civil rights, multiculturalism, free speech and national unity, are excluded.
Consider that the University of British Columbia, a $1 billion public institution, the Fraser Institute, a right-wing economic think-tank, the Native Communications Society of B.C., a small newspaper publisher, and the Vancouver Regional Free Net Association, a community computer utility, are charities, but Greenpeace, an environmental group, Positive Action Against Pornography, a women's group that does education work about the harmful effects of pornography, the Polish Canadian Television Production Society, a group producing TV programs for the Polish community, and Canada UNI Association, which promotes tolerance of linguistic and cultural differences, are not.
The Vancouver Society of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women, which helps marginalized women find employment and tap into social services, is arguing that this kind of distinction violates the equality provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that the common law, no matter how ancient, should be interpreted in a progressive manner. If the court agrees, federal Revenue Minister Herb Dalliwal will find himself having to deal with a volatile issue that governments have side-stepped since income tax was introduced.
Don McCrae, head of the Voluntary Action Directorate of Heritage Canada, is one of the country's most knowledgeable and eloquent civil servants. He says bluntly that the governments' failure to deal with fundamental issues like that of definition is keeping the voluntary sector from achieving its potential.
"The system, as it exists ... not only encourages the status quo, it practically institutionalizes it," McCrae says. One need only examine the list of the country's top 100 registered charities, which is dominated by universities, school boards and hospitals, to realize how the line between public and charitable organizations has become blurred.
What the public often forgets is that most money spent by charities comes from the public treasury. Fifteen cents of every tax dollar paid, about $50 billion, is transferred directly from government to charities, and the state forgoes at least $5 billion more by providing various tax breaks.
As in society in general, there is an unstated class system within the charitable world, a few haves and a lot of have-nots. Half of Canadian charities have revenues of less than $50,000, and fully 80 per cent have revenues of less than $250,000. Almost two-thirds of charities have one or no employees. As competition grows more fierce, they sometimes have trouble being heard.
The big charities (the 10 per cent or so of groups with revenues of more than $1.5 million), on the other hand, are not only the most adept at getting government funds, they scoop up three-quarters of donations. At the same time, they are the most likely to charge revenue-generating user fees and the only ones with the capital and expertise to enter into income-generating business ventures.
The Canadian Red Cross Society, the country's biggest charity in the classic sense of the term, has revenues of $500 million and more than 7,000 full-time employees. While it has another 2 million volunteers, and raised $34 million in donations in 1995-96 (half of it from United Way), 90 per cent of its revenues came from government.
As a society, we have to ask ourselves, is that a charitable organization, or a de facto government agency that is not accountable in the same manner as public institutions? The question is as pertinent for para-governmental institutions like universities and hospitals, which, technically at least, are charities. Between them, teaching and health-care institutions account for 58 per cent of "charitable" revenues, but less than 5 per cent of charities, and that skews the true picture of the voluntary sector. Another little-analyzed fact is that the charitable sector is clearly dominated by religious institutions.
More that 40 per cent of registered charities are places of worship. Almost two-thirds of individual donations in Canada go to religious institutions, making them the biggest beneficiaries of tax credits for giving.
Churches, temples, mosques and the like are also granted exemptions or discounts on property taxes. Consider that in the Montreal area alone, more than $14 billion in properties have reduced tax rates because they are owned by charitable institutions.
The appropriate distance between church and state is just one of the tough questions that needs to be asked when you try to define the place of charities in modern society.
Another controversial aspect of Canada's regulation of the voluntary sector is the restriction placed on advocacy, the fancy name given to speaking up for what you believe in. In an era where lobbyists are an accepted part of the political process, and where governments provide funding for various groups to advocate on behalf of consumers, charities still risk losing their status if more than 10 per cent of their receipted donations are spent on advocacy. (There are, interestingly, no restrictions on non-receipted donations.)
Lynne Toupin, executive director of the National Anti-Poverty Organization, says the advocacy rule creates an absurd situation that is particularly detrimental to small, activist organizations. Her group, for example, could spend its entire budget buying bread and handing it out to poor people amassed on Parliament Hill; but, if the same group purchased bullhorns and marched to demand that MPs allocate more money to the poor, it would risk losing its status.
But, again, fundamental decisions about politically charged issues like advocacy are difficult to make without basic information about the activities of charities today and without an infrastructure to facilitate its collection and dissemination.
In the U.S., this task has been taken up by a number of groups who are funded by wealthy foundations. The U.K., on the other hand, has created an independent, government-funded body called the Charity Commission, an approach that would be quite workable in Canada.
The commission is not only responsible for the registration of charities, but for making information available to the public. At a time when we are all being bombarded with fundraising appeals, this clearing house for factual data would be most welcome, especially in a country where regulation is virtually non-existent -- Alberta is the only province that has legislation designed to curtail abusive fundraising activities -- and where unethical groups can hide behind the secrecy provisions of the Income Tax Act.
Given that the voluntary sector is not an adjunct to the lives of Canadians but rather an essential component of everyday living and quality of life, we need a forum in which to address these issues.
Charity today is far removed from the collection plate and the outstretched tin cup. It is about building an inclusive, caring community.
Just as we are willing, as a state and as individuals, to invest in traditional infrastructure like roads and sewers, so should we be willing to make a commitment to organizations that uphold our values of compassion, social justice and generosity, organizations that put people first.
Social marketing is the new buzz word, but some companies focus more on marketing than on social causes
Like many of their corporate brethren, executives at Glaxo Wellcome Inc. in Mississauga were frustrated. They were spending millions of dollars a year on charitable causes but couldn't shake the feeling that it was little more than a drop in the bucket.
Rather than throw up their hands, they threw open the boardroom doors, turning to their employees for guidance and advice on how to have an impact in the community. The result is a revamped giving strategy that features one of the most extensive social marketing campaigns that Canada has seen. The pharmaceutical company is setting out to create awareness and support for hospice care.
"We aren't giving money to specific hospices; our goal is to change society's view of hospice care," says Tara Addis, manager of community relations at the Glaxo Wellcome Foundation. "This isn't traditional philanthropy, it's social marketing." The cause was chosen by Glaxo Wellcome's 1,200 employees after extensive consultation and a company-wide vote. The process was the brain child of Eric Young, president of E.Y.E. Inc., a Toronto-based company that works with a number of corporations and charities.
"Social marketing is very hot, but it's misunderstood as a concept," he says. "Many corporations are harnessing a cause for marketing effect, but what I'm promoting is harnessing marketing skills for a social cause."
The idea, Young says, is becoming much more attractive and important as charities grapple with cutbacks and companies look for ways to spend their limited charity dollars more wisely.
"The reason this is interesting is because when you look at the mandate of many organizations in the voluntary sector, a lot of it can only be achieved if they engage large numbers of people, if they really change attitudes," he says. "And for corporations, it's a way of making a significant contribution, of getting away from giving by rote."
Canadian corporations have a reputation not only for conservative giving habits, but for being miserly, and soaring stock markets and record profits have served to underline that image. Corporate Canada gives only about $1.2 billion of the $10.5 billion donated to Canadian charities annually.
The big five banks have served as a lightning rod for critics of philanthropy. Among them, they recorded profits of almost $6 billion in 1996, and gave a total of about $51 million, less than 1 per cent of their profits.
While that is not a particularly impressive figure, the banks are nonetheless among the country's most generous donors -- which speaks to the lack of philanthropic tradition in corporate Canada.
"For some reason, people tend to think of us as public institutions instead of corporations," says Nada Ristich, corporate donations manager at the Bank of Montreal. "There is this mindset that the corporate sector should pick up everything, that we should make up for government cuts."
Realistically, that is not going to happen: For every 1 per cent in government cuts, corporations would have to increase giving by 50 per cent. And, between 1991 and 1995, a period when governments started cutting grants to the voluntary sector in earnest, corporate donations also fell, from about 1.4 per cent of profits to 0.8 per cent. There is anecdotal evidence, however, of increases over the last couple of years, owing in large part to public anger.
In 1988, the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, a non-profit group that promotes the voluntary sector, launched Imagine, an initiative to increase charitable giving. At the time, "there was a sense of malaise in the corporate world," says Martin Connell, the former chair of Conwest Explorations Co. and co-founder of Imagine. "Government was almost the sole provider of funding and philanthropy was dying . . . but we could see that the party was coming to an end."
Under the program, more than 400 companies (including four of the Big Five banks, the Toronto Dominion being the exception), have pledged a minimum of 1 per cent of their pre-tax profits to charity. Connell, who now owns Ace Bakery in Toronto, continues to lead by example, giving 10 per cent of his profits to charity.
Chris Pinney, the director of Imagine, says the program has been successful not only in generating new money but in helping change attitudes. "There has been a cultural shift. It's now accepted business practice to donate corporately."
The process was not an easy one. Before government started slashing, corporations were doing so, and their charitable budgets shrank dramatically. Imperial Oil, which in the mid- 1980s was Canada's biggest giver at $12 million annually, cut its giving by more than half. (Today, it is creeping back up, with a budget of $7 million in 1997.)
While charitable giving is now accepted, however, giving is far from universal. Consider that fewer than 5 per cent of companies report charitable contributions to Revenue Canada, and that more than half the 3,200 Canadian corporations with assets of more than $25 million do not give a penny to charity. Consider that the profit of the Royal Bank last year, $1.43 billion, exceeded all corporate giving in Canada combined.
Unlike in the U.S., Canada's super rich are particularly stingy. Ted Turner's gift of $1 billion to United Nations agencies (over 10 years) was widely publicized, but he is still far from being the most generous American business leader. Currency trader George Soros already gives about $350 million annually and he has just announced a new $500 million gift to promote civil society in Russia.
By contrast, of the three Canadians on the Forbes list of the world's richest, only one is renowned for his generosity. Charles Bronfman, Number 98 on the list, is worth an estimated $3 billion (U.S.), and is probably the country's most generous individual giver, while his Seagram Co. is estimated to give a modest $4 million annually, making it one of the country's biggest business givers.
Kenneth Thomson, Number 16 on the list with a net worth of $11 billion, is better known for his parsimony than his philanthropy. Similarly, New Brunswick's Irving family, with assets of $3.5 billion (Number 84), has never distinguished itself through its giving habits.
Still, there are signs that role models are emerging. Jim Pattison, the flamboyant Vancouver entrepreneur who is worth an estimated $1 billion, has made it known that, when he dies, his wealth will go to charity, not to his children. And a number of Hong Kong entrepreneurs are bringing their generous giving habits to Canada along with their investments, putting many of the old money families to shame.
Pinney readily admits that the challenge is to expand the donor base, but cautions that "we can't look strictly at cash. If corporate cash donations doubled overnight, it wouldn't have much impact on charities, given government cutbacks." Increasingly, companies are giving in kind and providing much-needed expertise, up to and including ,10 CEOs sitting on boards of directors.
"Companies increasingly understand that in order to be successful, to improve performance, and to remain competitive, they must incorporate the consideration of public perception, confidence and trust into their business development process," says Janet Rostami, senior research associate at the Canadian Centre for Business in the Community.
She says companies are beginning to recognize that charitable giving is not so much an expense as a strategic investment and a long-term asset. Put another way, business is accepting that it can flourish only in communities that are healthy, well-educated, culturally rich and socially secure.
While the voluntary sector has long made this argument, it is now being put forward by leading business thinkers. Rosabeth Moss Kantor, a business professor at Harvard University, has become one of the leading proponents of the notion of business investing in social capital out of enlightened self-interest.
She argues that the factors that are important for cities to attract and retain business are "magnets and glue." The magnets are the usual business stuff such as low taxes, good transportation, a skilled work force. But the glue is social capital, social agencies, sports groups, cultural institutions and a sense of community.
To get a grip on the "glue" that matters, companies have turned increasingly to their employees, and to citizens.
Take a company like Canadian Pacific, whose success has always been linked directly to the health of communities along the railway. In 1883, William Van Horne made CP's first donation, $2,000 for construction of the Winnipeg General Hospital. For more than a century, donations were dictated largely by the chair. But in 1994, the Canadian Pacific Charitable Foundation was created to ensure a more sustained and imaginative giving program.
Earlier this year, that new philosophy bore fruit when the foundation unveiled its "adopt-a-shelter" program, in which each of the 26 CP Hotels paired with a shelter for battered women, providing furniture, bedding, toiletries and volunteers. Everyone attending the announcement was asked to donate a women's business suit, and the hotels collected donations from customers at Mother's Day brunches.
The foundation also decided to underwrite a $150,000 violence prevention program sponsored by the Canadian Women's Foundation. "We had been giving to shelters for years," says Sheila Carruthers, donations officer at the CP Foundation, "but this new focus allowed us to reach into the community, to reflect the interests of our employees."
It also caught the attention of top company officials, who increased the foundation's annual grant by 50 per cent, to $4.5 million from $3 million.
Another eye-catching project is that of Saturn Canada, which completed 41 "play-oriented projects" across the country in the past year, including building 24 playgrounds and refurbishing soccer fields and baseball diamonds.
Chuck Novak, advertising and promotions manager at Saturn, says the company had a tradition of customer appreciation but people wanted something more community-oriented.
"The feedback from the playgrounds has been tremendous," he says. "This idea has legs, so I think we're going to repeat it. And, if we can accomplish nothing else, this will inspire other companies to do something for the communities they do business in, too."
Novak is quick to point out that the Saturn project "is not charity in the classic sense." But the classic type of giving, with big cheques going to universities, cultural groups and perhaps to a disease charity that the chair felt an affinity to, is quickly falling out of favour.
Take the example of Texaco Canada, which has made room at its corporate headquarters for both convicts and wildlife. The oil and gas company provides a $15,000 annual grant, free office space and staff support to the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society. The charitable group, in turn, hires prisoners from a nearby minimum security prison to care for injured or orphaned wild animals.
The notion that business gives to conservative, risk-free causes is increasingly being challenged. An analysis conducted by the Canadian Centre for Business in the Community found the following breakdown of donations among 143 corporations surveyed: 28 per cent give to education (almost exclusively post-secondary); 22 per cent to social service charities (most of it via the United Way); 21 per cent to health organizations; 12 per cent to arts and culture; 8 per cent to civic causes, and 4 per cent to environmental projects.
At Noranda Inc. facilities like the Horne smelter, members of the community actually decide how charitable dollars will be spent. Sensitive to public perceptions, the company has also invested heavily in the environment, creating the Daly Point Reserve at a salt marsh in New Brunswick and the King George IV Ecological Reserve on sensitive land in Newfoundland.
Noranda chair Courtney Pratt has also become a high-profile spokes-person for corporate philanthropy, and for investing in education in particular. Among other volunteer roles, he is chair of the Learning Partnership, a non-profit group committed to improving public schools, which he calls the "foundation of democracy in our neighbourhoods."
As Pinney of Imagine says: "Business is jumping into education with both feet because they're scared. They realize there is a link between social infrastructure and their future prosperity."
This realization is not taking place only in large corporations. For example, Tecsys Inc., a software firm based in Dorval, Que., invests more than $100,000 annually in Education Plus, a school for high school dropouts. In addition to spending at least 10 per cent of company profits on educational causes, chair Dave Brereton has purchased a summer camp that he makes available free of charge to a number of community groups.
The other reason there is a growing shift to social causes is that customers generally approve. Research by the Centre for Corporate Community at Boston College found that consumers reward socially responsible companies; 80 per cent of those surveyed said they "decided to do business with a company because of its community involvement" and 74 per cent said they "chose not to do business with a company or buy products from companies" that were not acting in the best interests of the community.
Molson Cos. Ltd., a company known for its marketing savvy, is quite aware of consumer perceptions. The beer maker raised eyebrows years ago when it become the country's biggest corporate sponsor of AIDS groups. But the biggest per capita beer sales are in gay bars, and three of the five biggest bars in Canada are gay bars, so the commitment made good business sense.
Similarly, Avon Canada has thrown its considerable sales expertise into raising money for the Breast Cancer International Centre. The sale of Avon Flame Circle of Hope pins for $3.50 has raised about $3.2 million for cancer research, but also served as a good ice-breaker for the sale of other products.
While the lines between marketing, sponsorship and charity are becoming blurred, corporations are also expanding the ways they give beyond the traditional cutting of a cheque for a photo opportunity.
WIC Western International Communications Inc., which operates 14 radio stations and 10 TV stations across Canada, donates an estimated $20 million a year in air time for advertising and for fundraising vehicles such as the Variety Village Telethon. "Through corporate facilitation, we have been instrumental in helping charities raise money, more money than we could ever give them," says John Lacey, president and CEO.
Corporate citizenship does not begin or end with paying taxes or with voluntary giving. It entails a myriad of responsibilities, social and economic -- from promising employability (if not employment) through to community health -- a notion that corporations have been even slower to embrace than the seemingly simple act of philanthropy.
As Noranda boss Pratt says: "There is a striking difference between just making money and really creating wealth. As we look ahead, social capital is the foundation of economic success in the civil society."
In the new world of fundraising, targets are soaring to dizzying heights
On April 7, the B.C. Cancer Agency Foundation launched one of the boldest fundraising initiatives in Canadian history: Raising $100 million during the last 1,000 days of the 20th century to fund the search for a cure for cancer.
Not to be outdone, B.C. colleges and universities have begun preliminary discussions about joining forces to kick off the millennium with a $1 billion fundraising campaign.
Welcome to the new world of fund-raising, where the campaign targets are soaring to dizzying heights, but where the dollars sought cannot keep pace with demand.
Don't be fooled by the number of zeroes and glitzy campaigns.
While universities, hospitals and a few mega-charities can afford professional fundraisers with six-figure salaries to aggressively seek out million-dollar gifts, most fundraising is still done by volunteers, racking their brains for new ways to persuade you to donate a few more dollars for a good cause.
You can give by fasting, eating, surfing the Net, rolling the dice, rowing -- or the old-fashioned way, by writing a cheque or stuffing a few dollars into the kettle.
Canadians already give more than $10.5 billion a year to charity, 80 per cent of it in gifts from individuals. Corporations kick in a another $1.2 billion and private and community foundations just under $1 billion more.
Despite all the letters you receive, the phone calls that interrupt your dinner, the pleading advertising, the proliferation of special events, and the lottery tickets and sundry merchandise being sold for charity, only 11 per cent of the voluntary sector's revenues come from fundraising.
A little bit comes from service fees, less from investments. The vast majority comes from taxes.
For every dollar donated, the government contributes $5.80 to charitable organizations, which in return provide Canadians with social services, health care, higher education, recreation and cultural events.
But in this age of downsizing and budget balancing, fundraisers have to increase donations by $6 for every dollar the government cuts, just to keep services at their current level.
The competition is so fierce that charities are spending big dollars to get your gift about $1.2 billion annually and growing.
At the same time, charitable groups, particularly the smaller ones, are taking big risks to make a buck and turning to dubious sources of income like fundraisers paid on commission. There are horror stories, but also tales of innovation and success.
The B.C. Cancer Agency created a foundation only last October. Before that, it received modest gifts, about $2.5 million a year, without much active solicitation. Its 1,000-day Millennium Campaign, which aims to raise $100,000 daily, is a "quantum leap," admits Michael Petrie, the vice-president of development.
Harvey McKinnon, president of Vancouver-based Harvey McKinnon and Associates, is a former Oxfam employee who has become one of the country's best-known fundraisers. He now spends much of his time training others in the burgeoning field.
Over the past 20 years, McKinnon has experimented with virtually every approach to fundraising, but retains two simple truisms.
"The single most important thing to do is listen to the donors," he says. Second, is to ask for money for a cause they care about, and to do so in a simple, straightforward manner.
"That's why the best fundraisers come out of causes. You can teach anyone basic skills, but you can't teach commitment and sincerity and, ultimately, that's what donors respond to."
In today's world, asking is anything but simple.
In Canada, the most successful form of fundraising by far (notwithstanding the public's professed hatred for junk mail) is direct mail. It accounts for one in five dollars raised and serves a key "prospecting" function -- identifying donors who support the cause and will give in other ways.
McKinnon says nothing beats a well-written letter -- about 10% of recipients give and it costs only about 8 cents on the dollar once the campaign is established. The problem is "there are a lot of bad letters being mailed out."
His personal favourite form of giving, however, is monthly donations.
"If you really want to get a bang for your buck, this method is virtually cost-free," he says. And, as an added bonus, monthly givers, many motivated by environmental reasons, are removed from mailing lists.
The most popular form of fundraising is special events, an approach used by two-thirds of charities, although it accounts for less than 15 per cent of money raised from the public.
The best-known recurring special event is the Terry Fox Marathon of Hope, which started as one man's dream and ended up as a mass participation event of unparalleled scale, with more than 4,500 runs in 60 countries this year.
To date, the Terry Fox Foundation has raised almost $195 million for cancer research -- with negligible overhead costs, making it the envy of charities around the world.
It has benefited from the fact that Darrell Fox, Terry's younger brother, has remained intimately involved as the executive director. As driven as his hero brother, Darrell Fox shuns the spotlight, but his managerial brilliance has turned the annual run into the phenomenon it is today.
The problem with special events, however, is the unpredictability of their success.
"To be honest, if Terry Fox had come to me with this cockamamie idea to run across the country on one leg, I would have said: 'You're nuts. Use your energy to do something more useful,' " says Patrick Johnston, president of the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy.
"Thankfully, he proved people like me wrong. But he also proved that giving is a very, very personal thing. No amount of market research will allow us to find the magic formula for enticing people to give."
Today, many cash-strapped charities are actually cancelling events rather than use precious volunteer labour for an event that might not have a big payoff.
The drive for cash has sent many charities into the commercial realm. Product sales, everything from chocolate bars to furniture, are a mainstay of many groups, but the scale is getting grander and the risks greater.
The Salvation Army, for example, has gone from thrift shops to superstores. The Victorian Order of Nurses has spun off a for-profit healthcare company to fund its tradition of charitable assistance to seniors.
Countless groups sell trinkets like cookies, pins and T-shirts, but it is an expensive and inefficient way to raise funds. The money-maker tends to be the manufacturer or wholesaler. The charities, if they are lucky, are left with a few dollars. Unlucky, they are left with rooms full of melting chocolate bars or rotting fruit.
Even established charity businesses have run into trouble. When they are successful, they raise the ire of for-profit business, which can bring challenges to their charitable status and the costly loss of tax advantages.
Versatech Industries Inc. of Winnipeg was started by families of adults with mental disabilities as a job-creation and socialization project. Now, it has become a successful recycling business -- and the target of competitors and Revenue Canada.
In these times when the bottom line is paramount, charities are shutting down services that serve other important functions. The CNIB, for example, closed Caterplan -- a cafeteria-newsstand that was, for 40 years, a training ground for blind workers -- because its profits were deemed inadequate.
Increasingly taking the place of product sales are alliances with businesses, and they are no longer limited to huge corporations. When the Great Canadian Bagel Co. wanted to celebrate its 100th store late last year, it decided to give away 100 cents for every dozen bagels sold, a move that raised $30,450 for juvenile diabetes.
Only 4 per cent of fundraising revenues come from product sales. The only popular methods that bring in less are door-to-door canvassing and telephone solicitation.
Again, there are exceptions. The Canadian Cancer Society, for example, raises tens of millions of dollars going door-to-door and many other disease charities do proportionally as well. Their secret is a vast network of volunteers that ensures that many donors know the canvasser personally.
Similarly, phone solicitation, while an irritant to many, can be lucrative. The trick again is calling on people who already have given to the cause. Cold calls, where telemarketers phone randomly, have a deservedly poor reputation for being the preferred method of fraud artists.
Charities have long turned to gaming as an easy source of money, but they have become increasingly dependent in the five years since governments began seriously budget cutting. More than half of non-religious charities now raise a percentage of their revenues from gambling.
At the same time, there is a move away from homey bingos to high-stakes casinos, and from $1 raffle tickets to $100-a-ticket lotteries. As the prize money increases, however, so do the risks, with potentially disastrous consequences. For example, the United Way in the Peel Region last year lost a whopping $1.6 million on a lottery because of poor ticket sales.
Most fundraisers are quick to admit that there is no philanthropic impulse at work in this form of "donation." The voluntary sector is rushing into the area because it is seen as new money; gamblers are not typically donors to charity.
After a few years of raking in this new cash, however, there is a realization that the bounty is limited.
For example, when video lottery terminals are introduced in a province, proceeds from bingos and break-open tickets tend to fall about 75 per cent.
But while charitable gaming brings in about $4.5 billion a year (a fraction of Canada's $27 billion-a-year gambling industry), even success can be problematic. A small charity that has a windfall $100,000 casino night has a legal obligation to spend 80 per of that money delivering charitable services. It also may have to wait two years for its next turn. (Casinos and bingos are now assigned by government and with demand growing, so is the wait.)
As well, three-quarters of charities receive unsolicited donations, accounting for one in every 10 dollars raised. The vast majority come in the form of bequests.
No other area of fundraising is hotter than so-called planned gifts. Many fundraisers get positively giddy when they cite research about the "$1 trillion inter-generational transfer of wealth" that will take place when Baby Boomers move to the great beyond. This purported legacy has become a sort of Holy Grail for charities.
Less than 5 per cent of people leave money to a charity in their will, which is why it is such an area of opportunity. Today, the big charities have lawyers, accountants, tax planners and actuaries on staff to help donors plan the financial details of their demise.
Another major trend in fundraising is the rejection of the traditional hard sell and "open wallet extraction."
Charities are learning that holding on to donors, rather than continually looking for new ones, is the key to keeping the money rolling in. The way to do that is to ensure that donors are active participants in an institution rather than mere cheque-writers.
At UBC, which collects an impressive $33 million to $40 million annually even in down years (between major campaigns), almost half the money that comes in now is in planned gifts, says Shannon von Kaldenberg, director of the development office.
UBC still runs the country's biggest fundraising campaign for its $280 million World of Opportunities campaign, which ran from 1989 to '92 (although the University of Toronto will largely surpass that figure when its current campaign winds up).
The reason the big cheques tend to go to institutions like hospitals and universities is that they listen to the donors and answer their questions, says Blake Bromley, a Vancouver trust lawyer who helps many of Canada's wealthiest people plan their philanthropic gestures.
"My clients tend to be straightforward people. As an outsider, you often think that the problem is writing the cheque, but it's not. When you have a certain amount of wealth, it's philosophical, it's about making a commitment to a cause."
For many charities, however, getting into the fundraising game is getting in the way of the cause. The quest for new sources of revenue eats up a lot of time and sometimes a lot of money.
Lynne Toupin, executive director of the National Anti-Poverty Organization, says her group's foray into the field was almost the death of it. After seeing its federal funding cut by one-third overnight and being told Ottawa was phasing out its grant entirely over three years, the group hired a professional fundraiser.
The organization had 4,000 small donors and set a target of 20,000 more with an aggressive direct mail campaign.
"The short version of the story is that it bombed entirely. We lost $90,000 just like that," Toupin says, shaking her head in disgust. "But you know, one of the results of cutbacks is that we're being forced to gamble, to take crazy risks."
Laurie Beachell, executive director of the Council of Canadians With Disabilities, says the group mulled over the issue for a long time before it decided fundraising was more trouble that it was worth.
The council also refuses to engage in any campaigns that portray the disabled as objects of pity, up to and including the Jerry Lewis Telethon. In fact, telethons have fallen out of favour as fundraising vehicles. They are extremely expensive (about 40 cents on the dollar), even if air time is donated, and largely ineffective in the 100-channel universe.
As a general rule, groups with revenues of less than $250,000 cannot afford to have a fundraiser on staff -- and that's 80 per cent of them -- so many contract out the business. While there are many honest, credible private-sector fundraisers, this is the one area of the charity business to which the unethical and the criminal are attracted.
According to the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, one-quarter of charities that hire outside fundraisers pay them on a commission basis. The fundraising equivalent of clear-cutting, commissioned-based programs (almost all by telemarketers) irritate donors and burn many of them forever.
"With the growth in the field, there are bound to be some poor practices and that hurts us all," says Bill Hallett, vice-president of the YMCA of Metropolitan Toronto. "One of my pet peeves is the cost of fundraising, the groups that hire fundraisers who take 95 per cent for themselves. We really have to educate the public so we can put these people out of business."
One of the main obstacles is that most groups that have been ripped off refuse to speak out, fearing the attention will hamper their efforts even more. And while the practices employed are unethical and disgraceful, they are rarely illegal.
The National Society of Fund-Raising Executives has a strict code of ethics, and charities whose fundraisers are members must adhere to those rules.
The best protection for consumers, however, remains knowledge. Get to know a charity before you give them money, and don't hesitate to ask questions if you have any doubts.
Don Livingstone, president of the Vancouver General Hospital Foundation, which launched a $52 million campaign in September, says good fundraisers welcome the questions.
But there are many worthy causes today battling for the same commitment and the same cash, and that is the real challenge, Livingstone says.
"Whether it's $10 or $1 million that someone is willing to donate, I hope I can get to them before somebody else does."
Firms even give workers time off so they can help community agencies
CALGARY
"I don't intend to learn to golf and move to Arizona," says James Gray, with a self-deprecating laugh, answering a question about his retirement plans.
Given the energy and enthusiasm of the 63-year-old chairman and CEO of Canadian Hunter Exploration Ltd., it is not surprising to learn he will not be putting his feet up. But it is noteworthy that, as he eases his way out of the corporate world, Gray is planning to flip over the hour glass, increasing his already-formidable workload as a volunteer to make it a full-time vocation.
"People have to move from the earning phase of their careers to the giving phase. The theory is called reciprocity," he says, quoting Daniel Yankelovich, a U.S. social scientist and author of Making Democracy Work In A Complex World.
He sees volunteerism flowing naturally from paid work, and urges corporations to free up time for employees to allow them to be active in social causes beginning at age 50 and continuing the relationship through retirement on to age 75 or beyond.
Gray is one of the leading proponents of corporate volunteerism, an idea that is attracting a lot of attention in the era of the changing workplace.
"I've been deeply engaged in the community for decades and there is no question that it's a business advantage -- and not in an indirect way. Employee involvement is good for morale, it's good for the community, and it's good for the company," he says.
Gray's twin passions are the Calgary Academy, a school for disabled children, and the Calgary Women's Emergency Shelter for battered women, and he has flexed his corporate muscle to fill their coffers. He has been a board member of the YMCA for more than a quarter century, and an active volunteer at the Indian Friendship Centre, Child Friendly Calgary, the Achievement Centre for Youth, the United Way and a host of other charitable endeavours.
Gray jokes that his lunchtime conversations tend to be a little different from others at the Petroleum Club, but he remains convinced that other CEOs will come around to his way of thinking about community involvement.
"If I had done nothing but talk about the oil and gas business for the past 40 years, it would have been a pretty damn boring life," he says with his legendary frankness.
Not too far down 5th Ave., Chevron Canada Resources has created one of the country's most active employee volunteer programs, called Employees In Action.
Under the program, employees can take paid leave (up to 10 days annually but negotiable upward) to do volunteer work, and the company makes cash donations to groups where its employees volunteer. Chevron organizes three annual events in which employees fan out into the community and do good deeds such as painting shelters and cleaning up the banks of the Bow River.
Gillian Ramsay, Chevron's community affairs representative, says a well-organized volunteer program can boost morale, improve employee skills and build the company's image in the community. "We believe inherently that there is a sense of pride that develops in employees. I know when I do volunteer work, I feel proud, I feel good," she says.
Ramsay says the influx of talented people is as valuable to most charitable groups as a cash contribution. "While money is great, they need more bodies."
At a cash-poor company like Canadian Airlines, employee time is one of the few contributions that the company can make (aside from air travel), and its most dynamic initiative is called PROPS, Proud Retirees Offering Positive Support.
Dan O'Grady, the manager of community investment, says: "Retirees are getting younger, and they have a lot of skill and energy, so we provide them with a structure and some basics." Some of the initiatives of Canadian Airlines retirees include distributing used blankets from planes to street people, a free wheelchair repair service and a meal program for senior shut-ins, as well as group participation in the Easter Seals campaign, Children's Wish Foundation and UNICEF.
"For us as a company, it's a win-win situation," O'Grady says. "We help retirees ease out of the paid work world, and they are out there in the community making a difference."
At Flint Canada Inc., a private construction firm, an impressive 75 per cent of head office staff volunteer regularly, and the company pays for the training of anyone who wants to improve their skills.
An employee committee chose three charitable groups that it would focus on, Child Find Alberta, Wood's Homes and William Roper Hull Child and Family Services, the latter two centres for mentally and physically disabled children. They raise money and do other work at the charities.
"I first got involved because I wanted to build my leadership and management skills," says Danny Stephen, chairman of the Flint Cares committee. "You go out there, you have fun and you become a better employee at the same time."
Martha Parker, executive director of the Calgary Volunteer Centre, says volunteers used to emerge out of religious institutions, but today the workplace is becoming a primary entry point.
The challenge is to "convince corporations they are not just edifices of concrete, they are filled with people who are members of a community," Parker says. And, in an era when people no longer expect to remain employees for life and where opportunities for promotion are rare, volunteerism gives workers a way to showcase their talents and broaden their employment options.
There is even a link to downsizing and early retirement packages. At Nova Corp., for example, employees who are laid off are eased out more gradually, with the company offering to pay half their salary for working at a charitable agency.
Nova, Flint, Canadian Airlines, Chevron and Canadian Hunter are all members of the Workplace Council on Volunteerism, formed to share their experiences and ensure that they and newcomers get the most out of their volunteerism programs.
Now, the Calgary council is exporting that knowledge, helping to establish workplace councils in Edmonton, Winnipeg and Vancouver.
Watch for it, coming soon, to a workplace near you.
147 Minnesota firms promised to donate at least 5 per cent of their profits to charity
MINNEAPOLIS
Entering the main lobby of the international headquarters of Honeywell Inc., you expect a gleaming, high-tech display, or some such paean to corporate success.
What you find instead is a high school and day-care centre that cater exclusively to unwed teenage mothers. New Vistas School pays no rent for the prime real estate; Honeywell pays to bus the students and their children, provides each girl with a mentor, and hires the teen mothers for summer jobs.
This is corporate philanthropy Minnesota-style: bold, innovative, generous and public.
"Business people cannot sit back and say: 'That's not my problem.' They are needed to solve community problems, and it's in their best interest to do so," says James Renier, the now-retired CEO of Honeywell, who got New Vistas up and running in 1990.
While he is a compassionate individual, he prefers to argue the merits of New Vistas and other philanthropic endeavours in terms that his peers understand -- stressing the bottom line and the need for leadership.
"The best return on investment we can get is by spending on the little ones, giving them a decent education and keeping them out of poverty. For every dollar we spend on these kids today, society will save six. Those are good numbers," Renier says.
In his home state, he doesn't have to do a lot of convincing. The notion of corporate philanthropy is so ingrained that it has been dubbed the Minnesota Tradition. Last year, 147 members joined the Keystone Club of the Greater Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce promising to donate at least 5 per cent of their pre-tax, domestic profits to charity. Another 90 corporations pledged at the 2 per cent level.
The granddaddy of givers is the Dayton Hudson Corp. The retailing giant, which operates more than 1,100 Target, Mervyn's, Dayton's, Hudson's and Marshall Field's stores in the U.S., has given more than $350 million since it established a charitable foundation in 1946.
In that year, the government allowed corporations to write off charitable contributions up to 5 per cent of profits. In the decades before, founder George Draper Dayton had given generously, but it was not recorded.
A decade after the tax laws changed, then Senator Lyndon Johnson complained to one of the five sons, Bruce Dayton, that corporations weren't doing their part, and said that, if business wouldn't take advantage of the 5 per cent rule, it might be eliminated. (The figure is now 10 per cent .)
Dayton took up the challenge. Not only did the family company never waver from the pledge, but it also set out to convert others. One of the first on board was John Cowles, a newspaper publisher and owner of Cowles Media Co.; this is important because the media has played a key role in publicizing and perpetuating the Minnesota Tradition.
In 1976, the first "Five Per Cent Club" was formally created in Minneapolis, with 23 corporate members, and membership has grown ten fold since.
"Some businesses are so bottom-line driven that the idea of giving up a nickel is unthinkable. We think that's very short-sighted," says Christine Park, director of the Dayton Hudson Foundation. The company gives about $37 million annually to arts and social groups, with its focus increasingly on retraining unemployed adults. She says stores have thrived, even in hard times, because customers are loyal to firms that care about the community.
Robert MacGregor, president of the Minnesota Centre for Corporate Responsibility, says business executives cannot simply sit back and complain that the education system is inadequate and that cities are deteriorating, they have a responsibility to their shareholders, employees and clients to counter that deterioration.
"Our own cash registers do not ring as often if the community is not healthy," MacGregor says.
That philosophy has helped make Minnesota an economic powerhouse. Despite its relatively high taxes, cold climate and isolation, MacGregor notes that it is the envy of many a state: It is home to 32 of the Fortune 1000 companies, sports a 2.7 percent unemployment rate (half the U.S. average) and a $2 billion (U.S.) budget surplus, all the while maintaining relatively generous social programs.
"Encouraging volunteerism is part of our corporate culture," says Barb Elfrey, volunteer programs manager at the Pillsbury Co. Foundation. Its biggest grant is to Big Brothers/Big Sisters, where many employees are mentors. It also funds KAPOW (Kids and the Power of Work), a program that creates partnerships between schools and businesses.
"Philanthropy and volunteerism have a direct tie to the bottomline," Elfrey says. "It matters to consumers that we're out there in the community. It influences their product choice."
Renier, the ex-CEO of Honeywell, says Minnesota's business leaders are blessed because they have a home-grown tradition of giving.
But he is convinced that any senior executive who does his homework will soon become a committed giver. "The Minnesota tradition can be exported," he says. "This isn't rocket science, you know. It's common sense. And it's in the corporate interest."
Volunteering proves 'one person can make a difference'
In 1977, Pat Power was working as a switchboard operator at a Toronto law firm. Her husband, Steve, a construction worker, wanted to go home to Newfoundland to try his hand at fishing again.
Power agreed to give life in a tiny southern shore village a try for six months and set out "looking for something" to pass the time. That "something" was volunteering, now a life-long passion.
She started by getting involved in the 4-H Club, then helped establish a Home and School Association and Brownie and Girl Guide troops that her daughters could join.
In the early 1980s, Power started attending meetings of the Southern Shore Development Association, soon to find herself on numerous committees. That led to volunteer work at the local folk festival, to the establishment of the Folk Art Council, a seat on the community health board, and to a key role on the Newfoundland and Labrador Development Council.
In places like Calvert, volunteerism is part of the social fabric.
For hundreds of years, fishermen and miners have depended on their neighbours to lend a hand. Public institutions are built by volunteers and social events are planned by them.
There is an informal care network for children and the elderly, an unofficial social safety net that ensures no one goes hungry or lacks firewood, no matter how unforgiving the sea or the bureaucrats have been that year. Fire brigades, municipal councils, school boards, health boards and sporting associations are all led by volunteers.
In other words, volunteers are the extended family of the modern world. "Why do I do it? Because I believe what all volunteers believe, that one person can make a difference," Power says.
Today, volunteers are tackling their biggest challenge yet, trying to reshape an economy devastated by a cod moratorium, trying to keep communities like this one alive.
The ray of promise, oddly, is a pile of ruins up the road in Ferryland.
The archeological site, featuring the ruins of an early 17th century colony intermingled with evidence of Portuguese mariners and Beothuk encampments, is one of the richest in the country, attracting big crowds and spawning dozens of new businesses like bed and breakfasts, craft shops and bird-watching tours.
The dig attracted thousands of visitors during last summer's Cabot celebrations and expanded to include an interpretation centre.
Pat Power has been a central figure in the volunteer initiative, dubbed the Colony of Avalon Foundation. Yet, she downplays her role.
"I've been part of some wonderful things over the years and this is one of them. We didn't set out to create hope but I like to think we increased people's sense there is a future," she says.
In any given month, an estimated 1.6 million Canadians are working, without remuneration, in soup kitchens, blood-donor clinics, ringuette leagues, hospital wards, libraries, schools, zoos, seniors' homes and art galleries. They canvass for arthritis research, clean up the ravages of flooding, build parks, do bookkeeping, dig wells overseas and so much more. Consider, for example, that 80 per cent of Canada's firefighters are still volunteers.
About 27 per cent of adults across the country do volunteer work for an established organization, on average 190 hours a year -- half an hour daily. Half as many again regularly do informal volunteer work, like shovelling an elderly neighbour's driveway.
Two-thirds of volunteers have jobs and the most active age group is 35-45. Most have kids, but women are still more likely to give their time.
In 1987, Statistics Canada estimated the value of volunteer work at more than $12 billion annually. (The research is now being updated.)
More important than the economic impact is the social one. Just try to imagine what the community you live in would look like without volunteers.
"It would be a pretty poor place, and not just economically," says Sylvia Manning, executive administrator of the Newfoundland and Labrador Women's Institutes.
"A community without volunteers would have no heart. It would be unlivable," she says.
Sandra Murphy, executive director of the Volunteer Centre of St. John's, says far too little attention has been paid to the role volunteers play in building community and democracy and as promoters of social discourse.
"Volunteering is more powerful than casting a vote. It allows you to mold your community and your country in a very real way," she says.
Murphy, who has worked in the field for 25 years, can also rhyme off a seemingly endless list of benefits to the individual, including getting work experience, learning new skills, making contacts, making friends and personal fulfilment that comes from helping others.
She also points to U.S. research that shows volunteers are happier and healthier.
"It's better than aerobics," Murphy quips.
While these matters are getting far more attention, and there is a sense that many more people are willing to volunteer today, be it for reasons of career advancement or altruism, there are also real concerns at charitable groups that depend heavily on volunteers. (In fact, most charities in Canada have fewer than five employees and they would be unable to function without unpaid help.)
"One of the things we have to remind government is that volunteerism does not come free," says Moyra Buchan, executive director of the Canadian Mental Health Association, Newfoundland and Labrador.
"And volunteers aren't a panacea. There are appropriate and inappropriate uses for volunteers."
Paddy Bowen, executive director of Volunteer Canada, echoes those sentiments.
"The biggest enemy of volunteerism is short-sighted government," she says bluntly.
In fact, there is evidence that since cutbacks began, volunteer activity has actually fallen because the infrastructure of voluntary and non-profit groups is crumbling.
For example, when the Ontario government cut hospital budgets, one of the first positions cut was the volunteer co-ordinator.
What charities need, in the jargon of bureaucracy, are "enabling funds," money to hire professional staff to recruit, screen, train, supervise, motivate and recognize volunteers.
When those base funds are available, the payoff is great: It is estimated that one paid employee is required to oversee every 40 volunteers.
Another worrisome trend, Bowen says, is that volunteers are being asked to perform more complicated tasks, too often without adequate training. For example, people who acted as companions to shut-in seniors are being called on for home-care duties like changing dressings, and Children's Aid volunteers are being asked to monitor supervised parent visits involving violent abusers.
She fears that when someone dies in one of these situations, the backlash will be against volunteers rather than against underfunding.
And governmental and social service agencies are dumping their clientele on voluntary organizations in other ways.
For example, severely disabled people who require a care-giver are sent to do "volunteer" work and groups, not wanting to discriminate, spend tremendous resources trying to accommodate them.
Similarly, instead of providing new immigrants with language classes, they are sent to volunteer, leaving cash-strapped groups to scramble for translators and tutors.
Non-voluntary "volunteerism" also is posing a dilemma in the milieu. Increasingly, courts are sentencing criminal offenders to community service, but what agency wants to take on a petty criminal?
Governments are introducing workfare programs that oblige recipients to "volunteer" to get their cheques, and a growing number of schools are making volunteer service a requirement of graduation.
Again, these programs add a tremendous burden of supervision and paperwork, and it is doubtful that participants will remain loyal after they have done their time, making them a poor investment of resources.
"Regardless of what you think of these programs, mandated volunteerism is a contradiction," Bowen says.
Michael McKnight, executive director of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Canada, says many people have a romanticized view of volunteerism, one in which heroic figures breeze in off the street to do good deeds.
The reality is that recruiting, screening and training -- particularly in agencies that work with so-called vulnerable clients like children and seniors -- are complex, time-consuming and expensive.
The organization, which provides mentoring to 10,000 children of single parent families, has a budget of $17 million. "If you divide that into a cost per child ($170), it looks expensive, but most of the money goes to screening," he says.
Police charge about $100 to do a criminal background check of a potential volunteer and trained staff do interviews and verify references. (Some groups also are turning to psychological testing to root out potential abusers.) But McKnight says the key is education of children and their parents about sexual abuse.
For dedicated volunteers like Loyola Hearn, a long-time hockey coach in Renews, Nfld., the increased scrutiny is a negligible inconvenience. "When a kid walks up to you at the end of the season, shakes your hand and says, 'Thanks a lot, coach,' that's a feeling that money can't buy. It's really special."
In many parts of Canada, sport is the glue that holds community together, it is an important part of social life and the team spirit carries over into everyday life, Hearn says.
Myrle Vokey, executive director of the Newfoundland and Labrador School Boards Association, is a legend in the voluntary world.
He grew up in the mining community of Bell Island -- "a place where volunteers were the backbone of the community" -- and worked his way up from Church Brigade volunteer to be the voluntary president of the Canadian Red Cross Society, a $500 million-a-year charitable organization.
After 40 years in the trenches, he suddenly finds himself vulnerable to legal liability, another new source of grief for volunteer directors. (The Red Cross is being sued by victims of the tainted blood tragedy and there is a remote possibility of directors being dragged into the proceedings.)
"At this point in my life, I'm going to take my chances. Nothing is going to discourage me from volunteer work because the rewards are too great," Vokey says.
Governments can't do everything for society. Business has its own agenda. That's why we must empower the community-based voluntary sector.
The planned Lifetime Advocacy Network is a small group of parents with adult intellectually challenged children. When the parents die, they want their kids to remain fully integrated members of the community, not merely to be "taken care of" by a faceless system.
To that end, the Surrey, B.C., group is building a network of friends and volunteers that will rally around and offer support like the extended family of old.
Food 2002 is a different kind of network, one that brings together such social-welfare agencies as food banks and community kitchens, food retailers and wholesalers and various levels of government around the same table. Their goal: to develop a plan to make nutritious food available to all Ontarians within five years.
RESO Investissements Inc. is a $5 million venture capital fund created jointly by the Quebec Federation of Labour and the Corporation for the Economic and Social Revitalization of Southwest Montreal. Its projects include a literacy program for factory workers, a clean-up plan for the Lachine canal, and training programs for jobless and employed workers alike.
Teen mothers are often the poorest of the poor. But at Black Creek Community Centre in Toronto, the members of the Teen Moms group are leaving a rich heritage, joining together to ensure their own babies are well cared for and delivering a powerful prevention message in local schools.
For its part, knowledge @ work is a group of cyber-volunteers determined to stimulate discussion and come up with creative solutions to problems tossed their way, particularly those coming from the voluntary sector.
What these disparate groups have in common is that they are charities of the future, on the cutting edge of the revolutionary transformation taking place in Canada's voluntary sector.
What makes them different from the more traditional groups that dominate the 75,000 charities in Canada today -- such as the Salvation Army and the Red Cross -- are a few important traits. They are, in the words of management experts, "cross-sectoral," meaning they rally business, government and volunteer leaders into coalitions. Rather than depending heavily on government, they get funding from a variety of partners. Their approach is to prevent problems rather than solve them.
The charities of the future embrace technology, they are financially astute, they are fearless advocates, and they are profoundly attached to their communities and causes.
These groups have sprung up in response to a growing sense of longing in society, one that finds echo in citizens' worries about crime, their disillusionment with organized politics, anger that the social safety net is fraying, concern about the changing nature of work, sadness about the breakdown of families, and bemoaning lost values. It is not so much a longing for what was as it is for what could be. It is, in essence, a longing for community.
"A vision-driven social system is what we need, as opposed to a problem-driven one," says Julie White, executive director of the Toronto-based Trillium Foundation, which distributes some of the proceeds of Ontario lotteries to community-building projects. "We have to tap into the strengths of communities rather than focusing on the weaknesses."
That means creating jobs instead of cutting welfare, preventing disease rather than treating it, making streets safer instead of building gated neighbourhoods, forming community kitchens instead of building food banks, fashioning education programs to reel in dropouts instead of abandoning them to poverty and prison.
It means expanding co-op housing, not building homeless shelters that can accommodate families, investing in community centres instead of hiring more riot police, shielding children from abuse rather than healing their scars as adults, building pride instead of trying to quell despair.
White says many of the systems in place have ceased being solutions, and become part of the problem. As a wealthy society, we used to paper over our inefficiencies with money; today, in large part as a byproduct of the deficit battle, we are forced to confront them.
White and many others believe the voluntary sector can lead the way in shaping a fundamentally different approach by developing projects that proactively build a more just society instead of perpetually reacting to injustice in a piecemeal fashion.
A striking example is the new approach to child poverty, like the United Way-initiated early intervention programs Success By Six and 1,2,3 Go. By feeding, vaccinating, nurturing and protecting children from abuse, it is expected that the number of high school dropouts, prisoners, physically and psychologically ill and drug addicted adults can be dramatically reduced.
Studies have shown that for every $1 invested in an "at-risk" child, $6 can be saved down the road.
"Our notions of prosperity are changing. There is increasing evidence that our economic well-being is dependent on our social well-being," White says. "The sector has a role in creating social capital, the potential to become a vital player in shaping our future instead of being perceived as the dumping ground for society's problems."
In this brave new world, charities would be forward-looking and innovative. Ideas would rise up from the grass roots rather than rain down from the boardrooms of bureaucrats. In this model, individuals, corporations and foundations would also have to dig a little deeper, but they would supplement, not replace, funding from the state.
Governments would also have to change their approach radically, funding infrastructure, adapting to local concerns and making long-term commitments. Politicians would recognize that building social capital is as important as traditional economic concerns, and they would tout community not as a substitute for government involvement but as a starting point for establishing the priorities of a compassionate society.
Much of this is already happening around the country, but it is the latter point, the need for elected leaders to recognize the charitable sector not as a collection of special interest groups or a motley bunch of low-wage service providers but as a living expression of participative democracy, that will require a quantum leap in thinking.
Richard Mulcaster, chairman and CEO of the Vancouver Foundation, says for that to occur, politicians -- many of whom began their public lives in Kiwanis Clubs, hockey associations, YMCAs, parent associations, Girl Guides, church associations and theatre productions -- have to get back in touch with their own communities, and realize the potential for tapping into the forces of citizen involvement to shape a better society.
"I've never heard a politician speak out intelligently or positively about the voluntary sector, but it affects people more than governments, unions and corporations. This is where people lead their daily lives, and not a day passes when they are not touched by the sector in a very real way," he says.
Patrick Johnston, president and CEO of the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, says the sector has to take some of the blame for failing to convey its importance, and inability or unwillingness to speak with a coherent, united voice.
When money was plentiful, he says, charities were complacent, but when they began to adapt creatively to cuts -- which started in the 1970s with deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients but increased in scope and ferocity beginning in 1993 -- they did a poor job of explaining their shifting roles.
"Philanthropy is an awful word for what the sector does today. Our challenge really is to reinvent the notion of citizenship and personal responsibility, to build on this notion -- even if it's become a bit of a cliche -- that it takes a village to raise a child, or to help out a war vet." It is a puzzling paradox that Canadians keep clamouring to maintain their beloved social entitlements while voting in governments committed to dismantling the welfare state, Johnston says, but part of the answer may come from educating the public that there is a middle way, that with proper support and a vision of the future, the sector can do a lot.
"Governments can't do everything; the private sector can't or won't do things; so we need to think of how to shape the third sector so that it can. The health of our communities depends on meeting that challenge," he says.
Yet, there are bureaucratic, legal and legislative problems that exacerbate the sector's political invisibility and misunderstood public perception.
Community economic development is far removed from the concept of charity that exists in Canadian tax law, which is rooted in Victorian mores. Official government policy is to discourage advocacy; groups lose their charitable numbers, their lifeline, if they spend more than 10 per cent on championing causes publicly rather than delivering services. But it is precisely at a time like this that we need to stimulate public debate.
Building civil society seems far from the minds of politicians as they fixate on deficit elimination, and doing things differently. Investing public funds more wisely does not seem a high priority as governments turn the corner, chalking up surpluses and musing about social dividends.
For their part, many of Canada's 75,000 charities are also enmeshed in the present; trapped in a social, economic and technological maelstrom, they have little time to digest such high-minded concepts.
Many can barely keep their heads above water, never mind perform a marathon synchronized swim called the shift to capacity-building in communities.
Yet, there are strong indications that good things will come to those who do not wait, that charities that fundamentally change their way of doing things will prosper. Demographers have found that baby boomers, the fiftysomething generation, and to an even greater extent Gen-Xers, the generation after them, are not bound by the charitable conventions of their parents; the older generation gives loyally to established charities; the younger one is quite willing to take risks on new ideas, and it has the facility with technology to get information on even the most obscure or inventive voluntary groups.
Foundations and corporations, too, are eschewing grant applicants in favour of seeking out groups to fund; and the detailed data that are now emerging about the profitability of companies in healthy communities, and the weight consumers are starting to place on community investment is shifting charitable spending patterns. When governments catch up, the stand-pat group will be in trouble.
Still, these times of flux are frightening, confusing and sometimes even stimulating for charitable services providers, their funders, and donors.
Tim Brodhead, president and CEO of the Montreal-based J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, a private funder that has developed a reputation for taking on innovative projects, describes the situation by quoting Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset: "We don't understand what is happening to us, and that is what is happening to us."
Our actions, he says, contradict what we say we believe in as a society. For example, we recognize work as important to our sense of identity, but government policies do not allow everyone to be fully productive; we clamour for sustainable development while reaping the short-term benefits of destructive environmental policies; we profess to cherish equality and social justice while implementing policies that further marginalize the poor and that institutionalize stop-gap measures like food banks; we talk boldly about the global village while spending on international development sinks to new lows.
In short, Brodhead says, we have a situation that is untenable for society at large: The manner in which we are spending on so-called human services -- more than $200 billion a year on health, education and social services -- offends our values.
But what are Canadian values? Suzanne Peters, director of the Family Network at the Canadian Policy Research Networks, a non-profit think tank, answered that question in a fascinating 1995 study called "Exploring Canadian Values."
She found that Canadians cherish seven core values: self-reliance, compassion leading to collective responsibility, investment in children as the future generation, democracy, freedom, equality and fiscal responsibility. Not surprisingly, these are the very notions of success and prosperity being touted by the voluntary sector.
Peters' research, which combined analysis of opinion polls with discussion groups, found widespread anger with the failure of the current system, but an overwhelming desire to fix rather than discard social programs.
"Building a new social contract will require a more holistic approach; for many Canadians it will mean putting more on the table for trade-off than just social programs," she concludes.
The welfare state that was created in the years following World War II is no longer appropriate. The nature of work has changed radically, as have patterns of economic growth; women's place in society has been altered dramatically, as has the shape of families. Societal responses, therefore, must change.
Ed Broadbent, the former leader of the federal New Democratic Party who is now a lecturer at Vancouver's Simon Fraser University, says advocating change is seen by some as a betrayal or rejection of principles that Canadians hold dear, but that is not the case.
"The major contribution of the founders of the welfare state is not to be found in the details of their prescriptions. Rather it is an understanding of the related points, that economic and social rights at a level beyond scarcity require a market economy -- and that a market economy-based democracy requires an active, intervening government if it is to avoid growing inequality and instability," he said in a speech earlier this year at Oxford University.
In other words, off-loading service delivery to the voluntary sector cannot be equated with the state washing its hands of the matter. Government must establish and enforce standards, and it must use the redistributive and legislative powers of taxation to ensure there is a system, not just a hodgepodge of services, and to ensure that rights are respected. What the voluntary sector can do, in addition to delivering services, is mobilize and engage people in the social contract, he says.
What is sorely lacking, Broadbent says, is visionary leadership, like that which emerged in the postwar period. "The evolving welfare state, with its mix of political, civil, economic and social rights, has been the supreme achievement of North Atlantic countries. It will be tragic if the welfare state turns out to be a momentary blip in history."
Charles Pascal, executive director of the Atkinson Charitable Foundation, says that to avoid the death by neglect of some of our fundamentally defining characteristics as a nation, there must be some form of national debate. "We never ask: 'What do we owe each other as Canadians?'' he says.
Like many in the sector, Pascal expresses frustration at the inability or unwillingness of governments to pose that question, to articulate a direction and goals for the nation beyond those on a balance sheet.
"We're making progress on the bottom line, but we have no idea where we're going," he says.
The goal we must have is the creation of a societal infrastructure that has as its principal feature not a safety net but a springboard to equality, says Laurie Beachell, executive director of the Council of Canadians With Disabilities. The voluntary sector must take the lead in shaping such a model, and have as its guiding principle respect for rights, he says. "The old model of exploiting crippled kids for pity and the blind guy standing on the street with a tin cup only serves to entrench us as second-class citizens," Beachell says. "Rather than trying to 'fix' individuals, we should be changing attitudes in society. We don't want to talk about charity any more, we want to talk about citizenship -- full citizenship."
Take the example of a woman who suffers a spinal cord injury in a car crash, or a workplace accident, the kind of person increasingly found in food banks and other social agencies that were designed primarily as transitional aids to fully able workers down on their luck. What she needs are not handouts of food, clothing and medicine, but an income to maintain basic lifestyle needs, including adapting her home to a wheelchair.
Her injuries might mean she requires the help of a home-care nurse, or for the neighbours to shovel the walk. The woman needs a couple of years of rehabilitation, not money to be spent on making the soup kitchen accessible. Rather, she needs access to the local arena to see her daughter play hockey, and to the park where her son plays cricket.
Her husband might need a little counselling, or to attend a support group at the community centre. She needs a job, and perhaps job training to adjust to circumstances. And to get to work she needs public transit, and day care for the youngest.
In short, she needs the benefits of community, and to get them she and her family must remain full members of society, not marginalized dependents of a system.
The role of the voluntary sector today is to facilitate and foster the community, or those communities, that ensure this holistic response.
But what is this much-ballyhooed community? John McKnight, director of the community studies program at Northwestern University in Chicago and author of the seminal work The Careless Society: Community And Its Counterfeits, explains it this way:
"To some people, community is a feeling, to some people it's relationships, to some people it's a place, to some people it's an institution," he says. But the definition McKnight prefers is: "Community is a place where people prevail."
One of the places in our society where people always come first is the YMCA, a bedrock of many communities. "Our approach stresses getting people to participate in society at every level," says Sol Kasimer, CEO of the YMCA of Canada. "Our concept of charity and caring has as its underpinnings self-reliance and responsibility, both personal and societal. It's a holistic approach: You care for yourself, your neighbourhood, your community and the world. It's not altruism, it's mutual benefit."
Kasimer emphasizes that building community and social capital is expensive -- at least in the traditional economic sense -- though the long-term payoffs are undeniable. "As a society, we underestimate the value of community infrastructure," he says, shaking his head at the frustrating reality that government will pave roads and build fire stations without a second thought, but it will balk at spending relatively piddling amounts to build community centres or playgrounds, or to maintain youth job training.
Once community-based structures and programs are in place, they are relatively cheap to maintain, and they can do wonders, Kasimer argues. "What bothers me about the cuts is how short- sighted they are. If it costs $20,000 to bring a high school dropout back into the education system, or to help someone deal with a drug problem, or train them for a job, so what? That investment will save hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's not a cost, it's an investment in people and in society."
For Nancy Neamtan, director of Montreal-based RESO, a community development group in Montreal's depressed southwest, the good news is that the social investment argument has a receptive audience in the general public and with business leaders, and that is making it easier for voluntary organizations to position themselves as an essential part of the economic and social fabric.
"Investing in the social economy is a good business decision, not a way of carving out a place in heaven," she says. The problem, as Neamtan sees it, is that "there is a crisis in our society over the role of government;" having put so much emphasis on deficit reduction, it seems to have lost sight of its more fundamental role of supporting programs and services that the collectivity wants.
Yet, she is heartened by the Quebec government's decision to invest billions of dollars in a plan to guarantee $5-a-day child care, in the belief that it will promote women's equality, assist families and make children healthier and better educated.
Anne Golden, president of the United Way of Metropolitan Toronto, says her worry is that the voguish shibboleths that governments cannot afford to invest in people and that they do not have fundamental responsibilities to foster social justice and caring are beginning to undermine the high expectations that we have developed of the state and of ourselves in the decades of building a social welfare state.
"By all definitions, we have a civil society in Canada. But I worry that we are losing our sense of collective responsibility, that we are losing our interest in the public interest. Do I believe that's a cause for concern? Very much so," she says.
Golden, who did her doctoral thesis on how public opinion is shaped, says the point of view can be turned around, but leaders, both elected ones and those who emerge out of the community, have a duty to create more positive climate and foster caring, both in government and in the voluntary sector.
Jacqueline Thayer Scott, president and vice-chancellor of the University College of Cape Breton, says we must find a way of expressing our values and our sense of community as Canadians.
"We are horribly inarticulate about civic society. We don't have a language in this country for talking about public good."
A starting point, Thayer Scott says, is teaching civics in high school, and giving these ideas an airing at the meetings and sundry gatherings of all the charities that are the very foundation of civil society.
Joey Edwardh, executive director of the Halton Social Planning Council and Volunteer Centre, agrees.
"Canada is being transformed by a systematic limiting of debate. The neo-liberal, business agenda is being imposed on us and there is no forum for alternative views," she says. "I passionately believe in justice, fairness and equity, and I think most Canadians do, too. Unfortunately, there aren't many of us around any more who utter those words out loud -- and proudly. That's really a tragedy."
Edwardh, who worked for development agencies in Latin America for many years, says Canadians fail to appreciate their wealth, and how the marshalling of that wealth has created rich communities, economically, socially and culturally.
We also pay too little heed to the lessons of history. Despite the nostalgia, the so-called good old days weren't that great; that's why charities sprung up, and why social programs were created when they proved inadequate. Besides, creating effective youth job-training programs is far more complex than gathering neighbours for a barn-raising.
Every major social movement of this century has had its genesis in the voluntary sector and the faith communities that spawned charities: the emancipation of women, civil rights, universal health care, the environmental movement, native rights, equality. Community is perhaps than these other social revolutions, but a worthy addition to the annals of social justice.
And, as we search for the magic ingredients of community, as we struggle to recapture the spirit of true charity, pursue the principle of mutual reliance and curse the obstacles that will no doubt arise, it is worth retaining the words of wisdom that children learn when studying the Torah (Book of Deutoronomy): "Lo tuchal le-hitalem."
"Thou shalt not remain indifferent."
Cynthia Page owns Page Ad Net, which designs ads for Web pages. Mark Roberts runs Island and Brew Shoppe, a beer and wine-making supplies store. Elizabeth Ashley-Knickle heads Beks, a gardening and landscaping company. Dennis Wardell is the butcher-proprietor at Ye Olde Meat Market. Kathy Noble operates Turning Point, a human resources management consulting firm.
Together, they call themselves Five Alive. Listening to the dynamic entrepreneurs talk about their burgeoning businesses, their love of community and their dreams of economic security in this pretty seaside town, the last thing that comes to mind is charity.
Yet, the five have all arranged business loans through Calmeadow Nova Scotia, an off-shoot of Calmeadow, a Toronto-based group that is world renowned for its microcredit programs in developing countries like Bolivia and Bangladesh.
"This isn't charitable in the traditional sense. It's dignified. It's a contract as opposed to a gift. It's transformative in a powerful way," says
Martin Connell, president of Calmeadow.
The co-owner of Ace Bakery Ltd. in Toronto, he donates 10 per cent of his profits to the foundation, which was established in 1983. Calmeadow now has a base of about 500 donors, and disbursements of about $2.5-million a year.
Mr. Connell is what you could call an entrepreneurial philanthropist, a believer in the notion that the voluntary sector should not provide services, but be a catalyst for communities to resolve their own problems and create their own opportunities.
Take Five Alive. Each of the members has a contract not only with Calmeadow, but with the others. If one of them fails, they all fail, a very real reminder of the interdependence of citizens.
They actually borrow the money from the Royal Bank of Canada, an enthusiastic supporter which has donated $500,000 to the foundation, and accepted 50 per cent of the risk. For banks, which are often criticized for snubbing small entrepreneurs, this is an opportunity to partner with a group in the voluntary sector and do business with clients where it would normally be prohibitively costly.
What Calmeadow does is all the backgrounds checks, analysis of the business plan (not through paid employees, but largely with group members themselves), and then guarantees the loans.
Initially, each group member can borrow $1,000; if all the loans are repaid (with interest above market rates) within six months, they can move to the next level, $2,000; then, later, to the maximum of $5,000 each. In essence, the program helps people build a credit rating. "It's a great idea," says Ms. Page. "I couldn't get a loan from the bank, so I would have just borrowed on my Visa, and that's expensive. And the real benefit is you're not alone, you have all this support from others in the group."
From the process of lending money emerges an outlet for creativity, job creation, and a way of keeping communities intact.
"We can't really survive in little communities like this anymore unless we build linkages," says Ms. Noble. "But this makes me think that special places like this will still be around when my children grow up."
The level of reneged loans is less than two per cent, far better than "regular" bank clients. The bank sees the added benefit that when the businesses flourish, the microcredit borrowers will probably stick with the Royal.
In total, Calmeadow has about 300 loans in Canada. Outside Nova Scotia, Calmeadow has also created the First People's Fund for aboriginal people, and the Metrofund in Toronto, which has focussed on loans to immigrants and refugees.
As word spreads of their potential, microcredit schemes are springing up all over. The Montreal Community Association, which operates differently from Calmeadow, began in 1990 and has provided money to about 50 community ventures. The Mennonite Central Committee has a start-up program.
Van City Co-op, a Vancouver credit union that has long backed community-building initiatives, also has a small loans program, called Communi-K. In Edmonton, there is the Community Loan Fund, and in Victoria the Women Work! Society makes loans to women.
Another innovative microcredit program is The December 6 Fund, which was established after the massacre of 14 women at Montreal's École Polytechnique on Dec. 6, 1989.
It offers loans of up to $500, not for commercial ventures, but to help battered women flee abusive spouses. The interest-free loans, now available at many shelters, are generally used help to pay for necessities like children's clothes and rent, and have proved to be a life-saver for women with no credit.
It was a typical, blazingly hot Georgia summer night, the neighbors sitting on their front porches, sipping iced tea and complaining about the kids hanging around in the empty lot across the street, selling drugs.
Typical until a blue Cadillac pulled up, its occupants emerged, ordered the youths to hand over their crack cocaine (about $500 worth) then lie face down on the scorched red earth. Within seconds, three boys -- Toria Pope, 16; John Davis, 16 and Tony Daniel, 19 -- were dead, shot execution-style.
Maggie Files' initial reaction was to run for cover. Instead, she ran across the street to comfort the teens.
Ms. Files vowed that night -- June 03, 1990 -- she would never again cower in her home. Like her neighbors, she was tired of being a prisoner of her surroundings. "I was so afraid to go outdoors after dark, I lost my job," she says. "That's no way to live."
Ms. Files started the group Red Oak Against Drugs and soon realized that most her neighbors in the 174-house complex shared her consternation, and her values. Police rarely entered the project, so residents started chasing out drug dealers themselves, often with broomsticks.
Ms. Files, a high school dropout and single mother of four children, had never heard academic terminology like social capital and civil society, but she new innately that if Red Oak was ever going to be a place the residents wanted to raise their children, it would need an injection of pride and a feeling of community.
The parents decided the first step was to clean-up the lot, but they lacked the money and tools to do so. Luckily, their story made its way to the Metropolitan Atlanta Community Foundation, which provided a $5,000 grant, money that went to buy rakes, shovels, gloves and garbage bags.
The group was renamed ROPES, Red Oak Parents for Excitement and Safety. Convinced that boredom was the root of many kids' fascination with drugs and criminality, they set out to build a playground.
Word of this initiative springing from a "hopeless" housing project soon became the talk of the voluntary sector. Architecture students from Georgia Tech volunteered to design a playground but, before they drafted blueprints, they took Red Oak kids to the suburbs to see what real playgrounds look like.
Working class residents got their employers involved. Delta Airlines, which has a massive employee volunteer program, sent workers and equipment to help in the clean-up. Home Depot donated materials, and many others kicked in money to buy slides and monkey bars.
"You wouldn't believe the kinds of people who had the nerve to come here and dirty their hands digging our red dirt," Ms. Files says with a broad smile. "My objective was to not have kids dying outside my door, to not have my own kids shot up....It's hard to believe we ended up with this."
"This" is a splendid $100,000 playground crawling with happy children, one that features a plaque to the memory of three dead boys.
Residents have dubbed the playground Red Oak Castle. It is the centrepiece of a rejuvenated community. While the area is far from problem-free, in the four years since the play area was inaugurated, the crime rate has plummeted, the high school graduation rate has soared, even the unemployment rate has fallen.
One of Ms. Files' sons so impressed Delta managers with his work ethic as a volunteer that they hired him. The no-nonsense Ms. Files was recruited by Nation's Bank to work in their customer service department.
But more important than the financial and physical improvements has been the change in attitude. Most people in Red Oak now know each other by name, and they know where they can turn for help.
After the playground, ROPES built Granny House, a foster care centre for children whose parents are in drug or alcohol rehabilitation. The grannies, most in their early 30s, ensure minimal disruption to the kids' lives, and help the parents stay clean when they return home.
And, in the coming year, the community group will launch a job training program for youth.
Suzanne Morse, executive director of the Pew Partnership for Civic Change in Charlottesville, Virginia, cites Red Oak as a prime example of how charitable groups can build social capital through wise, civic-minded investment.
"Social capital is the stockpile of trust, relationships and norms that people can draw upon to solve common problems," Ms. Morse says. "Like physical and financial capital, social capital allows things to happen that otherwise would not."
That a $5,000 investment from a community foundation could be parlayed into a sense of community, particularly in an area where massive amounts of social assistance dollars had been spent over the years, is proof that money alone is not the answer, Ms. Morse argues.
"We need to use our civic common sense to build communities....We need to listen to people. You can design the best social programs in the world, but if people don't buy into it, forget it," she says.
He started by giving the price of a cup of coffee. Now, his donations amount to five hours' pay a week
When David Ollett took his first job at Kelsey-Hayes, fellow workers told him there was a tradition at the wheel plant: Everybody donated the equivalent of a cup of coffee a day to the Red Feather campaign. So, the newly minted high school graduate, class of '65, tossed his "buck a week" into the pot.
Thirty-two years later, Red Feather has become the United Way and Ollett has gone from giving up a cup of coffee to donating big bags of groceries.
An electrician at Ford Motor Co., he donates $130 a week to United Way Windsor-Essex County, and fistfuls of dollars to other worthy causes. In total, Ollett gives about 15 per cent of his income and each time he gets a cost-of-living increase, half goes automatically to charity."
Sure it causes me a little bit of hardship sometimes, but I do what I can," he says with a shrug. "The way I look at it is that each week I give five hours' pay before taxes to help others out. I don't think that's such a big deal for somebody with a job, his health and his faculties."
Individual Canadians give about $8.3 billion to charity each year (seven times more than all corporations combined). Yet, only about one-third of taxpayers actually make donations that they claim as a tax deduction, and the median level of gift-giving in this country is a paltry $150 a year.
It is a far cry from the days of tithing or what in Quebec was called la dime, one-twenty-sixth of the harvest or two weeks' pay. Still, half the money donated continues to go to churches; one-third goes to social welfare agencies, and only 5 percent to schools and hospitals combined.
These numbers do not inspire confidence in those who must makeup the shortfalls in the wake of massive government cutbacks. Their task is daunting: For every 1 per cent cut from the state, individual donations need to increase by 6 per cent.
But giving has not increased, in real terms, over the past decade. When you factor in inflation, Canadians give less to charity today than they did in 1984, and the number of people making donations has fallen steadily since 1990.
Fundraisers spend about $1.2 billion a year trying to extract dollars from your pockets, and trying to find out what makes donors tick.
Windsor is a good place to start. It is, arguably, Canada's most generous city. For 27 years running, the border city has had the highest average donation to the United Way - $29.52 per capita. And many other national groups, like the Muscular Dystrophy Association, report their Windsor chapters are among the most successful.
"I've lived a lot of places and I'll tell you what makes Windsor the charity capital: It has a very strong sense of identity, it has a sense of community," says Durhane Wong-Rieger, a University of Windsor psychology professor and volunteer president of the Canadian Hemophilia Society.
Situated in the shadow of Detroit - Windsor nurtures and promotes the sense of national identity that most Canadians take for granted.
Since it is a blue-collar town, workers here know all too well the perils of economic downturns. The proximity to the United States also gives residents a well-honed appreciation for Canada's social safety net.
Some actually believe that U.S.-style giving has had an influence here, but the fact is that individual Canadians are just as generous with their cash as their American counterparts are.
Stingy is never a word you would use to describe Windsor.
"People here have some common values, whether they're labour or management," says Pat Leonard, a canvasser for Canadian Auto Workers Local 200. "We realize that no government could truly meet every need, so we do our part for improving quality of life in the community. And that doesn't mean letting them off the hook.
"Catherine Arpin, a quality administrator at Ford who canvasses her fellow white-collar workers to give, adds that one of the secrets in Windsor is that people actually get asked. "We don't do a hard sell at all, but most people are glad to contribute if you ask them personally," she says.
More than 90 per cent of Ford's 6,000 workers have signed up for payroll deduction, contributing an impressive $2.6 million to the United Way.
Pat Strome, a dental hygienist, gives money the way many parents and sports volunteers do, as a way of setting an example. "We're the first ones buying the T-shirts, the pins, the chocolate bars, you name it. It's hundreds of dollars a year," she says.
Strome heads the bingo committee at Southwood Elementary School and her husband is a minor hockey volunteer. Public schools are getting into the fundraising game big time; at Southwood, located in a middle-class neighbourhood, parents have raised more than $200,000 to buy playground equipment, computers, library books, sports uniforms, musical instruments and academic awards.
"When we started this we had no money, but we kept seeing needs," Strome says. So far, the fundraising events have been so lucrative that the parents aren't interested in donations. "Right now, we want people to give time, to get involved. Money is impersonal," she says.
Lois Comartin has been a volunteer for 19 years at the Hospice of Windsor. But in 1996, she felt the benefits of the service first-hand, when her husband, Don, fell ill with lung cancer and died.
"Over the years, the hospice was our family and we were blessed to have family there when Don died," Comartin says.
Aside from her tireless volunteer work, she is a dedicated financial supporter. Each time a friend dies, Comartin makes a donation in that person's name. And when her husband died, more than 1,000 people visited the funeral home, and most left a donation in his memory.
The hospice, the largest in Canada, is the charity of choice in Windsor, raising more than $500,000 from the public. Last year it held 38 fundraising events, everything from a skate-a-thon to a gala dinner.
"People see their friends and family getting help and they remember us. That means a lot more than some slick pamphlet in the mailbox," says executive director Carol Derby-shire. "The attitude around here is: 'We'll be damned if we're going to go without because of cutbacks.' "
VANCOUVER
On a LOVELY afternoon in June, Gary C.K. Ho hosted one of his monthly tea parties. Guests, many of them the elite of Vancouver's Chinese community, mingled, sipping aromatic tea, chatting and listening to short, inspirational speeches about the wisdom that comes from giving selflessly. All the guests left a little wiser, dropping cheques discreetly in the box by the door on the way out.
The tally that afternoon: a cool $3 million. Ho, owner of Taipei-based Chi Hon Development Co., is also chairman of the Buddhist Compass-ion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation Canada. The money raised will go to the Tzu Chi Institute for Complementary fund Alternative Medicine at Vancouver Hospital, as part of an $8 million pledge by the five-year-old foundation.
As the face of Canada changes, so does that of its donors, creating new opportunities and new challenges for fundraisers. No where is that more obvious than in multicultural Vancouver, where an influx of Chinese philanthropists is changing the landscape, particularly that of hospitals and universities. "There is a misconception that Chinese people are all rich," says Lilian To, executive director of the United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society, better known by its acronym SUCCESS. She also stresses that the community, while often portrayed as monolithic, is extremely diverse. Some families have been around for several generations, while others are newcomers; they come from a variety of countries; and there are numerous religious backgrounds represented.
What is true, To says, is that there is a tradition of giving in many Eastern countries, particularly to support social services, health and education.
Cultural differences are also obvious in other ways. To generalize, direct mail, the most successful fundraising tool in mainstream Canada, is a bust in the Chinese community. Door-to- door canvassing is equally frowned upon.
But public events, like fundraising banquets and walkathons, are very popular. SUCCESS, which raises half its $6 million from the public, makes more than $1 million from its annual gala dinner that is the highlight of the Vancouver social calendar. The annual Walk With The Dragon in Stanley Park makes half as much again.
Charan Gill, executive director of the Progressive Intercultural Community Services Society, also stresses that "fundraisers have to realize that being culturally appropriate and culturally sensitive is crucial." Surrey-based PICS, which helps immigrants and refugees settle in Canada, raises 40 per cent of its $300,000 budget annually, most of it in the Indo-Canadian community. As in the Chinese community, Gill says, public recognition is important to donors.
"To speak someone's name publicly, such as at a dinner, is a great honour," he says. That tradition comes from Sikh temples, where "naming" is commonplace.
In the Indo-Canadian community, mail and phone solicitation is considered rude, but door-to-door canvassing is an accepted practice. "I never leave a house empty-handed," Gill says. In fact, he is often seen as collecting dhaul, the community tax that elders collect in many Indian villages.
Canada's aboriginal people, often viewed primarily as recipients of charity, are, in reality, among the country's most generous donors.
"The philosophy of the hunter is that you take only what you need, and you share the rest," says Chief Leonard George of the Tsleilwaututh people.
The potlatch ceremony, popular among West Coast Indians, is fundamentally a gifting ceremony, one whose generosity has no parallel in non-native society, he says.
The religious underpinnings of giving are often overlooked. Many religious groups, notably fundamentalist Christians, still practise tithing. In Islam it is called zakat, in Judaism, tz'dakah, not charity but "doing the right thing."
"The federations making up the Jewish community, for example, are one of the country's biggest fundraisers, bringing in more than $85 million nationwide. Their philosophical underpinning, of course, is that the community comes ahead of the individual, a notion that finds resonance in many religious and political movements.
Eyob Gostom Naizghi, director of settlement services at Vancouver-based MOSAIC, which like PICS assists refugees and immigrants, says newcomers are often poor and unable to give to charity. But as recipients of services, the future views of refugees and immigrants, are being influenced, he says.
In other words, providing decent social services now will reap benefits when people are in a position to give years down the road.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to get a handle on individual generosity in Canada. This country's philanthropists are notoriously discreet, and our tax system does not require detailed disclosure. The following is an attempt to shed light on some of the country's biggest philanthropic families, based on searches of databases and anecdotal information from people in the voluntary sector. This list is in no way definitive, nor is it in order of generosity.
| THE BRONFMAN FAMILY, Charles R. Bronfman, Montreal: |
Heads the Chastell Family Foundation, with assets of $132-million and grants of $15-million annually, and the CRB Foundation, with another $12-million in charitable activity. (Mr. Bronfman is the sole source of funds in both cases.) Seagram Co. Ltd., which he heads, also sponsors 20 symphony orchestras. Some of his biggest grants include $2.2-million to McGill University and $1.6-million to the United Israel Appeal of Canada.* Phyllis Lambert, Montreal Founder of the Canadian Centre for Architecture. She is president of Samuel and Saiyde Bronfman Family Foundation, with grants of $4.1-million a year. Some of its biggest gifts include a total $2.8-million to the Combined Jewish Appeal and grants totalling $350,000 to One Voice Seniors Network |
| MARTHA COHEN, Calgary: | Has reputedly spent upwards of $100-million on the CCA. Her husband, the late Harry Cohen headed Sony of Canada, as well as Saan and Metropolitan department stores |
| JOEY TANNENBAUM, Toronto: | Canadian donations total to date are estimated to exceed $60-million, and he has made significant donations overseas as well. His biggest gifts include $3-million for gallery spaces and another $3-million in paintings to the Art Gallery of Ontario and $1-million to the Canadian Opera Company. The Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Charitable Foundation makes grants of $185,000 annually. |
| GEORGE R. GARDINER, Toronto: | Has donated nearly $50-million to The George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, which he founded 13 years ago. Donates more than $500,000 annually to healthcare charities, including the Alzheimer's Society and Princess Margaret Hospital. Is also a key director of the Max Bell Foundation, which makes grants of more than $2-million a year, and president of the George R. Gardiner Foundation. |
| DR. BARRY SHERMAN, Toronto: | Donated $25 million to the United Jewish Appeal, and significant amounts to the United Way's Tomorrow Fund and the University of Toronto. Founder of the pharmaceutical company Apotex, he dissolved the corporate foundation after a dispute with Revenue Canada |
| TOM CHAN, Vancouver: | Donated $10-million toward the $25-million Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. He is chairman of the Chan Foundation of Canada, which makes grants of almost $1-million annually. He is chairman of Burrard International Holdings Inc., a real estate development company. |
| THE IVEY FAMILY, London, Ont.: | Richard Ivey contributed $11-million to the business school that bears his name at the University of Western Ontario. The Richard Ivey Foundation makes grants of $4.1-million a year, half to the business school. The Richard and Jean Ivey Fund made grants totalling $766,500 last year. Mr. Ivey's corporation, Canada Trust, gives more than one per cent of its profits to charity. |
| SEYMOUR SCHULICH, Toronto: | Donated $15-million to the business school that now bears his name at York University. The S. Schulich Foundation also gives grants of more than $300,000 annually. He is CEO of Franco-Nevada Mining Corp. |
| PAUL DESMARAIS, Montreal: | Gave $10-million to the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal for the Pavilion Jean-Noël (UMLAUT E) Desmarais. Is also the principal patron of the Montreal Opera Company and Montreal Symphony Orchestra. The company he controls, Power Corp. gives well over one per cent of its pre-tax profits to charity. |
| WALTER CARSEN, Toronto: | Known as the "Care Bear" due to his generosity in the arts community. He donated in excess of $4-million to the National Ballet of Canada, and spent $500,00 to restore the Shaw Festival's Royal George Theatre. |
| GALEN AND HILARY WESTON, Toronto: | Have given approximately $1-million each to the Royal Ontario Museum, Ford Centre for the Performing Arts and Art Gallery of Ontario. The W. Garfield Weston Foundation makes grants of $2.9-million annually. The George Weston Co. Ltd. is also committed to giving at least one per cent of profits to charity |
Who suffers when governments tighten the purse-strings?
EDMONTON
Marvin Jahn is a handsome man of 45: muscular, mustachioed, rugged, steely blue-eyed. Eyes that are eerily empty, a face that is profoundly forlorn. His is the face of poverty in Canada, a poverty so dismal that few can imagine it, a poverty that, for many, looms menacingly, only a couple of pay- cheques away, a divorce away, an accident away.
He is sitting on the steps of Mustard Seed Church, in Edmonton's inner city. His bottom lip quivers as he tells of being denied workers' compensation, of exhausting his employment insurance, of being deemed ineligible for welfare, cut off from disability, of struggling to live through a bitterly cold Edmonton winter without a penny of income.
Government cutbacks have been so swift and sweeping that children, women and men like Marvin Jahn can crash through Canada's fray