Chronicle of Philanthropy

Thank you to Nadine Riopel, Bob McInnis, Derek Brechtholdt and the others who tweeted out the draft of this brief, and most especially provided valuable feedback.

This brief was developed in response to a call from the House of Commons Finance Committee as they undergo a review process of Canada's charitable sector and the tax laws that govern the sector.  Recommendations range from the creation of a government appointed Ambassador of Philanthropy, creating clearer legislation around "reasonable profit" and social enterprise, and addressing the inconsistencies in the T3010 tax filing that do not address the critical information that donors need in order to make informed charitable decisions.

In a recent presentation to the Banff Community Foundation we discussed how information flows to donors thereby influencing charitable giving and social investing decisions.

Charity scams are alive and well in Canada.  In 2003 the Chronicle of Philanthropy released a report that in North America over $1.28B is lossed due to fraud (and that is only the fraud that is caught!).  This hit home this week when Ashley Kirilow was denied bail for her part in a cancery charity scam. Read more »

Twitter Unveils New Effort to Boost Online Giving

Twitter is taking an approach similar approach to Facebook’s to help charities raise money and visibility for their causes, the technology-news site TechCrunch reports.

A new feature, TwitCause, will highlight a different charity every Thursday and ask followers of its Twitter account to alert readers about the cause. When people post the alert, or “retweet” it, they will also include a link to a place to donate to the charity using PayPal. The service started Thursday by featuring the V Foundation, a cancer-research charity.