But 2009 will likely be the year of giving less.
I think of the donations that I made in the recent past. A few cheques in the $50 range to Vancouver-based arts groups. A $20 monthly stipend to Amnesty International for a year. A regular on-the-street donation to people canvassing for the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter. A minimal contribution to my alma mater at UBC. A one-time, two-figure vote of confidence to a politician in whom I briefly invested some faith.
More and larger donations to a broader range of worthy organizations were important goals as I imagined the gifts I would bestow while working to amass my fantasy fortune. I don’t want to see that ideal sucked into the vortex but I recognize that even small change feels more substantial these days.
Times have changed due to the increasingly scary economic situation. People quite naturally think more about creating personal safety nets more than generously supporting social agencies.
At the same time, job losses and the other side effects of the downturn are placing larger demands on charities.
It’s not only in terms of individual donations that charities will feel the crunch this year.
The Community Foundation of Ottawa recently announced that it will suspend its grants to arts, education, health and environmental groups in 2009. The foundation granted $5.4 million to 470 charities last year. The Victoria Foundation as well cannot afford to give out money in the coming year. Vancouver Foundation spokeswoman Catherine Clement recently said the 700 recipients that receive support would see about a 25 per cent drop in grants in 2009.
The Ottawa, Vancouver and Victoria foundations, like others, collect bequests and donations from a wide array of sources, pool the cash, invest it in the market and then grant the dividends to worthy causes. But with the stock markets crashing through the trading floor, those dividends have disappeared.
With the governments of Canada and Ontario looking at budget deficits in 2009 it’s highly unlikely charitable organizations will be getting much relief from the public sector.
Individual donations are key, then, in getting non-profit work done. Approximately half of the donations that Canada’s over 80,000 charities take in are mailed off in the six-week holiday season.
Earlier this fall, a spokesman for the United Way-Centreaid Canada said the organization expected to raise more money as individuals realized the increased needs of soup kitchens and homeless shelters. In some places that support is on an upward climb. Just the same, however, President Al Hatton, recently told Canwest News that his organization may have to lay off some of its own staff if it doesn’t meet targets by year’s end.
Personally, I have maybe $100 to offer between now and the New Year. My first impulse is to give the full amount to one organization, hoping my gift would have more impact. Another impulse is to see that money go to people desperately in need of the basics: food, clothing, shelter and safety.
Conflicting with those impulses, however, is that art, culture and environmental causes are important as well if we don’t want to live in a sad-sack, polluted world while the economy pulls itself out of the red.
The solution to keeping my impulses and conflicts in balance seems to be spreading my meagre holiday gift thinner but wider.
Looks like I’ll be signing $10 cheques — while hoping more people do the same. Charity work, after all, isn’t individual. It’s collective.
I think of the donations that I made in the recent past. A few cheques in the $50 range to Vancouver-based arts groups. A $20 monthly stipend to Amnesty International for a year. A regular on-the-street donation to people canvassing for the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter. A minimal contribution to my alma mater at UBC. A one-time, two-figure vote of confidence to a politician in whom I briefly invested some faith.
More and larger donations to a broader range of worthy organizations were important goals as I imagined the gifts I would bestow while working to amass my fantasy fortune. I don’t want to see that ideal sucked into the vortex but I recognize that even small change feels more substantial these days.
Times have changed due to the increasingly scary economic situation. People quite naturally think more about creating personal safety nets more than generously supporting social agencies.
At the same time, job losses and the other side effects of the downturn are placing larger demands on charities.
It’s not only in terms of individual donations that charities will feel the crunch this year.
The Community Foundation of Ottawa recently announced that it will suspend its grants to arts, education, health and environmental groups in 2009. The foundation granted $5.4 million to 470 charities last year. The Victoria Foundation as well cannot afford to give out money in the coming year. Vancouver Foundation spokeswoman Catherine Clement recently said the 700 recipients that receive support would see about a 25 per cent drop in grants in 2009.
The Ottawa, Vancouver and Victoria foundations, like others, collect bequests and donations from a wide array of sources, pool the cash, invest it in the market and then grant the dividends to worthy causes. But with the stock markets crashing through the trading floor, those dividends have disappeared.
With the governments of Canada and Ontario looking at budget deficits in 2009 it’s highly unlikely charitable organizations will be getting much relief from the public sector.
Individual donations are key, then, in getting non-profit work done. Approximately half of the donations that Canada’s over 80,000 charities take in are mailed off in the six-week holiday season.
Earlier this fall, a spokesman for the United Way-Centreaid Canada said the organization expected to raise more money as individuals realized the increased needs of soup kitchens and homeless shelters. In some places that support is on an upward climb. Just the same, however, President Al Hatton, recently told Canwest News that his organization may have to lay off some of its own staff if it doesn’t meet targets by year’s end.
Personally, I have maybe $100 to offer between now and the New Year. My first impulse is to give the full amount to one organization, hoping my gift would have more impact. Another impulse is to see that money go to people desperately in need of the basics: food, clothing, shelter and safety.
Conflicting with those impulses, however, is that art, culture and environmental causes are important as well if we don’t want to live in a sad-sack, polluted world while the economy pulls itself out of the red.
The solution to keeping my impulses and conflicts in balance seems to be spreading my meagre holiday gift thinner but wider.
Looks like I’ll be signing $10 cheques — while hoping more people do the same. Charity work, after all, isn’t individual. It’s collective.
