The White Edition 2011

Playing for possibilty Moira Gookstetter

supplements grants by increasing membership

to Gymnastics BC

Ship shape Simon Robinson starts new school programs

to help Maritime Museum stay afloat

Dream world Laura Grieco has people celebrating in the street for Public Dreams Society

Legal roots Jessica Clogg uses dispute-resolution fund to extend West Coast Environmental Law’s reach and garner supporters

philanthropy

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tContents

6 Developing strategies You don’t have to be a major non-profit to be engaged in worldwide activities

8 Serving children Kids’ charities turn to tech to simplify process for donors

10 Sinking feeling Maritime Museum rethinks its strategy when faced with donor fatigue

12 Action plan Public Dreams garners support by presenting community celebrations

14 Good connections Environmental groups see collaboration as key to fundraising success

16 Sport check Amateur athletes need to find other avenues of funds besides ticket sales

18 Street view Homelessness seen as one of more complex problems in Vancouver

Business in Vancouver 102 East Fourth Avenue Vancouver, BC V5T 1G2P: 604.688.2398 F: 604.688.1963 E: [email protected]

THE PRIMARY COLOURS OF BUSINESS EXCELLENCE

Non-profits are not often thought of as businesses, but they are in the business of fundraising; and when it comes to strategic planning, innovation plays as much a part in a non-profit as it does in a Fortune 500 company. With this in mind, Business in Vancouver takes a look at fundraising in eight key sectors to see what creative solutions have been successful in raising awareness and money.

This paves the way for the BIV Non-Profit Innovation Awards to be launched in 2012. To hear more on the topic, join our White Breakfast speakers on Tuesday, December 6, at the SFU Segal School of Business, 500 Granville Street, Vancouver. Visit www.biv.com/colour.

– Baila Lazarus, news features editor, Business in Vancouver

PUBlIcATIoNS MAIl AGreeMeNT No: 40069240. reGISTrATIoN No: 8876. return undeliverable canadian addresses to circulation Department: 102 east Fourth Avenue, Vancouver, Bc V5T 1G2. e-mail: [email protected]

Bo Gembarsky

The “wear pink” campaign to foster awareness of cancer, particularly breast cancer, has become a popular way of drawing attention to various efforts to raise funds for re-search. It has even coloured one of the most widely played video games ever made.

For the past two editions of the cornerstone Madden NFL franchise, Electronic Arts division EA Sports has featured a “pink” presentation option that replicates the real-life branding used by National Football League players and stadiums.

“We came up with the idea [of implementing ‘pink’ mode] on the development team,” said Madden NFL 12 creative director Mike Young. “We are very passionate about repli-cating everything that happens in the real NFL. We saw the fans’ and players’ excitement [for] the program the year before, and we thought it would be a good way for us as game developers to increase awareness for a great cause.”

Young said the idea was an easy sell to EA’s marketing department, as well as the league itself. “The NFL was thrilled and was a great partner, getting us all the materials we needed to replicate what they do.”

It wasn’t as easy as it appears. Hundreds of pink details had to be implemented includ-ing the gloves, cleats, captains’ patches, sideline hats, field art, commentary lines, broad-cast graphics, and even the logo on the ball.

“It was surprisingly challenging,” Young said. “None of our uniform art was set up to dynamically change based on the event type. Our programmers and technical artists had to change all of our pipelines to accommodate this. In the end, it’s totally worth it.”

The video game giant also gave $100,000 to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Founda-tion in 2010, the latest in a long line of donations EA has made to the organization.

“EA has a long history of involvement with the Susan G. Komen Foundation and with the cause of finding a cure for breast cancer,” said Julie Wynn, U.S. manager of EA out-reach and corporate giving. “EA has sponsored their annual walks to raise awareness

Raising cancer awareness and benefiting people – “pink” or not

Businesses and charities align for good

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and funds for the past 10 years, and additionally has fielded teams of employees, their friends and family for each event.

“We will continue to field a team and raise money for the walks local to our offices.”

Alternative viewsWhile the “pink” campaign has gained traction in the past few years (every NFL and NHL game viewed at some point in October featured it in some way) another co-oper-ative effort is taking root in Canada to directly help cancer sufferers – without any col-our scheme.

The Vancouver-based Thrive Alive Foundation, co-founded by naturopath oncologist Walter Lemmo and fundraiser Stephanie Klaus last April, will give people living with cancer in Canada access to life-saving, life-enhancing cancer treatments not normally covered by governments or health-care plans. They range from surgeries to chemother-apy, diagnostic treatments to non-traditional modalities such as acupuncture, massage and emotional counselling.

“We are very different from the whole ‘pink’ movement,” said Klaus, the foundation’s president. “We’re new, we’re grassoots, we’re not raising money for research: our benefit is directly helping people.”

The Canada-wide “Thrive Support Program” begins January 1, 2012, granting up to

Madden NFL 12 creative director Mike Young: “we thought it would be a good way

for us as game developers to increase awareness for a great cause”

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At PacBlue Printing giving back has always been

part of our company culture.

We live our values and we do the right things for the

right reasons.

We care about each other, our customers, the

environment and our community.

To us and the PacBlue staff, philanthropy is about

what is in your heart, not what is in your pocket.

As individuals, and as a company, we give gifts of the

heart and spirit to support local causes and issues.

We feel a special connection to organizations

promoting health and humanitarian aid, the arts,

prevention of animal cruelty, and the environment.

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Giving Back Part of PacBlue Culture

$1,000 to eligible recipients who apply at the organization’s website, www.thrivealive.ca. One of the first compan-ies to get on board was Nature’s Way Canada, one of the country’s most wide-ly distributed manufacturers of herb-al medicinal products. It was also nat-ural for the company to partner with ThriveAlive.

“Their vision and values are very sim-ilar to that of Nature’s Way,” said gen-eral manager Ben Morello. “We’re in this business to help people. It’s a great business to be in, but we’re also helping people get healthier, and ThriveAlive’s vision is the same. It’s funding med-ical protocols to help people get bet-ter through natural medicine, and that’s what we’re all about.”

The feeling is mutual for Klaus, and she believes it’s important for ThriveAlive to be philosophically aligned with their anchor sponsors. “Having that initial participation from a company in Vancouver was really important to

Stephanie Klaus, co-founder and president of the ThriveAlive Foundation (c), with volunteers and “thrivers” Jenny Boreham (l)

and Eden Macdonald, who attribute their health to the integrative program in which they participated

building our brand and our credibility.”According to Morello, Nature’s Way

Canada will initially commit approxi-mately $5,000 to ThriveAlive along with supplies of the company’s hundreds of products. While that will surely increase the company’s brand recognition, Mor-ello said there’s a deeper purpose.

“Anything that you do out in the community contributes to your brand awareness, but for us it’s more about

“Anything that you do out in the community contributes to your brand awareness, but for us it’s more about giving back to the community. I think that’s more important than anything else”

– Ben Morello, general manager,

Nature’s Way Canada

giving back to the community. I think that’s more important than anything else. Giving to those in need is more im-portant than branding our product. The whole purpose of getting involved with ThriveAlive was not to brand our prod-uct, it was more to give back to the com-munity.

“Branding will come with it; as with anything in life, I believe if you give, you get back.” •

4 the white edition December 2011 business in Vancouver


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PacBlue started out as a small family run business and quickly grew to a full service printing company. Many things changed over the years but

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We contribute to causes close to our hearts and the hearts of our team members, as well as offering special pricing to charitable organizations

and non-profit associations.

At PacBlue, we truly care.

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wLorne Mallin

We’ve all heard about big global non-governmental organizations like the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and Ox-fam. But smaller Vancouver-based non-profits like the Shanti Uganda Society and CoDevelopment Canada are also making a difference in the developing world and punching far above their weight.

Measured by its Vancouver staff of only two part-time workers, Shan-ti Uganda is tiny. They put their an-nual budget of $150,000 to work on the ground, employing 15 in Uganda and in-viting Canadians to volunteer in the East African nation.

In a village in central Uganda they built and now run a birth house with sev-en local midwives, guide an income-gen-erating group of HIV-positive women, and offer holistic health workshops for dozens of teen girls, among many pro-jects.

Vancouver-based NGOs find low-cost or no-cost ways to help make a difference in international development

How do they do it? “It’s about engagement” through part-

nerships and volunteer networks, said Natalie Angell, executive director and founder. “I think this is a great compon-ent of non-profits, specifically smaller non-profits and it definitely supports the work that we’re doing.”

A prime example is Off the Mat and Into the World, a San Francisco-based non-profit that mobilizes yogis to sup-port global service projects like Shan-ti Uganda, which was founded by yoga teachers. Women throughout Canada and the U.S. fundraised for the Vancou-ver non-profit.

“Off the Mat is the organization that provided the funds to build the birth house and has been working with us over the years to fund additional pro-jects, such as our [Canadian] project co-ordinator’s salary in Uganda,” said An-gell.

Another creative way Shanti Uganda attracts funding is through organizing a 10-day trip to Uganda in January with a safari, rafting and a few days’ service at the birth house. Each participant con-tributes $500 to the organization.

Shanti Uganda recruits volunteers it calls ambassadors, who hold home par-ties and sell colourful, fairly traded jewelry, handbags and yoga mat bags made by 21 women in the income-gener-ating group in Uganda.

“Part of the income goes back in cash to the women to accomplish their own goals,” said Angell. “And the rest goes into the work we do in the community in Uganda.”

CoDevelopment Canada, known as CoDev, also uses fair-trade product sales to support its goals. It created Café Etico, a social enterprise that buys direct from Lat-in American farmer associations and gives 100% of its coffee, tea and chocolate profits to promote human rights.

small non-profits big on the ground in third World

Shanti Uganda executive director Natalie Angell at Uganda

construction groundbreaking, with members of the women’s

income-generating group

international Development



Founded in 1985 by public-sector union activists, CoDev builds partner-ships between like-minded organizations in Canada and Latin America to foster learning, social change and community empowerment.

Executive director Barbara Wood said the office of five full-time employees doesn’t use a hierarchical staff system.

“We’re a relatively small organization and we’ve found the best way to struc-ture is a flat structure where each of our staff members is responsible for their own areas of work,” she said. “The body that is responsible for management is our board of directors. The board meets monthly and the staff and the board re-late directly during those meetings.”

Working with a budget of $1.5 million, Wood said CoDev offers a unique model in providing expertise and knowledge as well as financial resources.

“When CoDev was founded, they thought it was important to involve Can-adians not just as donors but to look for ways of understanding issues that are af-fecting global poverty and justice and to act on that,” she said.

For example, in March, CoDev or-ganized a delegation of experts in oc-cupational health and safety from B.C. to travel to Honduras at the request of a women’s organization there that tries to improve the working conditions of

women in clothing factories.Wood says CoDev uses “low-cost

or no-cost” ways of getting its work known. “We do have a website that we relaunched last year, that is brighter and more interesting, and we’re on Twitter and Facebook. We’re trying to use the social media as much as possible to reach out to people who may have never heard of us before.”

While CoDev gets most of its funding from public-sector unions and the feder-al government’s Canadian International Development Agency, the Vancity Com-munity Foundation has been a major supporter.

Executive director Derek Gent said the foundation, which is the

Vancity Community Foundation

executive director Derek Gent: the

foundation is a host for donors and

helps match them with organizations

seeking funding

CoDevelopment Canada

executive director

Barbara Wood: “we’re

trying to use the social

media as much as

possible to reach out to

people who may have

never heard of us before”

philanthropic arm of Vancity Cred-it Union, has given CoDev close to $100,000 since they first became con-nected in the early 1990s. A recent com-munity project grant was $10,000 for Café Etico’s new marketing plan.

“We love the work that they do,” Gent said. “A big tenet of our foundation is supporting development rather than aid and that’s very much part of the ethos at CoDev.”

Gent said the foundation is a host for donors and helps match them with or-ganizations. “Rather than a group set-ting up its own charitable foundation, we effectively provide the back office, do the receipting and help manage the funds,” he said. •

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“A big tenet of our foundation is supporting development rather than aid and that’s very much part of the ethos at CoDev”

- Derek Gent, executive director,

Vancity Community Foundation



KNoa Glouberman

Kids aren’t the only ones becoming tech savvy these days. Charities benefiting children, like Variety – the Children’s Charity of British Columbia, are using technology to boost their fundraising ef-forts.

“About a year and a half ago, we were looking at reaching a younger demo-graphic – donors who might not send in a cheque or go online to donate,” said

Danielle Lucas, marketing and com-munications specialist for Burnaby-based Variety. “Since most people use their cellphones as a primary form of communication these days, text donat-ing seemed like a great option.”

The charity turned to Ontario firm ZipGive (a division of Zipstripe Corp.) to facilitate its text donating program, which lets donors text the word “KIDS”

to 45678 to contribute a preset amount of $10. The donation appears on their monthly bill.

“We are very excited to be using tech-nology in a way that simplifies the do-nating process and increases the number of potential Variety donors,” said execu-tive director Barbara Hislop in a release. “Variety is always looking for new ways to fundraise and the opportunity to give

no kidding!

Professional athletes, like former Vancouver Canucks player Trevor Linden, pictured here with students from

Killarney Mini School, do much to raise the profile of a fundraising event

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Children’s charities are turning to technology, pre-paid credit cards and other creative forms of giving to attract donors

health



donors as many ways as possible to give.”Text donations, Lucas adds, peak each

time the program is promoted on Var-iety’s Show of Hearts Telethon and its six annual radio-thons because “people hear the message, grab their mobile and text their donation in. It’s instant giving.” The campaign has raised $6,500 since its launch in 2010.

Donors can also support Variety through prepaid Visa cards that contain an embedded charitable gift of 20% (the other 80% can be used by the cardholder anywhere Visa is accepted). Vancouver’s Rare Disease Foundation also uses “Give & Go” prepaid Visa cards to raise funds because, explains board member Roberta Pak, “it’s a competitive market out there [and] we are a small organization that needs to be really creative when it comes to giving.”

Not only does the program raise money for the foundation, which works to find solutions for children affected by rare diseases, Pak said it “gets our name out there because it’s printed on every card. Hopefully, out of that, someone will click on our website and that will multiply into more support in the long run. As a young organization, it’s an in-novative way to reach out to people.”

Activities boost interestThe Rare Disease Foundation’s also had success with events that ask for donor participation – not just financial con-tributions. “Our Diamond Race is a fun activity that sees teams of two running around downtown Vancouver, competing with other teams for a prize diamond,” she explained. Like the reality show The Amazing Race, teams are given clues that lead them to different destinations or dir-ect them to perform a task.

“There are a lot of innovative charitable events going on out there. You just have to find what works for you,” said Pak.

Besides hosting its own “Amazing Journey” fundraiser, Ronald McDonald House (RMH) BC – where out-of-town families with seriously ill children can stay while their kids receive medical treat-ment at BC Children’s Hospital in Van-couver – is big on “active” events that get bodies moving.

“Activity helps engage participants in

who we are and what we do,” said CEO Richard Pass. “As opposed to just coming to an event and giving a donation, they’re able to golf, ski or do some other fun ac-tivity that connects them with our fam-ilies.”

In 2011, RMH BC hosted several suc-cessful golf tournaments, plus a two-day Whistler Ski Challenge that saw corpor-ate team members race for the kids – and even test their skills against Olympic ath-letes like snowboarders Alexa Loo and Crispin Lipscomb, freestyle skiers Veron-ica Brenner and Deidra Dionne, and Para-lympic alpine skier Lauren Woolstencraft.

“Having the opportunity to ski with an Olympian was certainly a highlight,” said Pak, who is busy planning the next Whistler Ski Challenge in April 2012. “It takes a great event and makes it even more.”

Professional athletes figure largely in children’s charities’ fundraising activities. Gloria Cuccione, mother of the late

roberta Pak, board member, and Dr. Millan Patel, research director and co-founder,

rare Disease Foundation: parents of children with rare diseases, such as Pak, work

with clinician scientists, such as Patel, to raise funds for research

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Michael Cuccione and executive director of his Port Moody-headquartered founda-tion, says celebrity does much to raise the profile of a charitable event.

“We absolutely love it when the Van-couver Canucks or the Whitecaps partner with us to do fundraising for kids who are fighting cancer,” she said, pointing to the Michael Cuccione Foundation’s Skate for a Cure and Kick for a Cure events. “It helps get people to come out and partici-pate … and it’s very touching to see these big, tough, burly guys tearing up when we show Michael’s video. It really becomes a family affair.”

Though Cuccione admits the founda-tion’s social media activities on, say, Twit-ter and Facebook, are limited, she said “it’s something we might look at more closely in the future.” For now, the char-ity is “blessed with media and other part-nerships that help us get the awareness out there. We put a lot of faith in word of mouth – it’s worked for us so far.” •

“Variety is always looking for new ways to fundraise and the opportunity to give donors as many ways as possible to give”

– Barbara Hislop, executive director,

Variety – the Children’s Charity of British Columbia



t

Speaking from the heart when asking for funding resonates with donors

Corey Van’t Haaff

The Vancouver Maritime Museum (VMM) was in danger of sinking. There had been a years-long debate about re-locating the museum, which exists to preserve, educate and inform locals and visitors of maritime activities, present and past.

Early in 2010, when the concept of building a National Maritime Centre in lower Lonsdale was abandoned, some thought VMM might close, and visitors would lose the chance to see such reminders of history as the RCMP

them our news. We had to engage them as partners not funders.”

There were face-to-face meetings with donors who traditionally had a connec-tion with VMM. Robinson hired a fund-raiser, the museum’s first. He also intro-duced exciting school programs to bring people back and to fulfil the educational component of the VMM’s mandate. Rev-enue through school programs doubled because he doubled the number of ven-tures in that area, including the new in-ner-city school program that received

Follow your passion; the money will follow

Simon robinson, Vancouver Maritime Museum executive director, in

front of a model of the hMS orion, a Napoleonic-era warship

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Culture

schooner the St. Roch, the original Newt Suit and the Arnold chronometer carried by Captain Vancouver in 1792.

“The board of directors emphatic-ally stated that Vanier Park would be the permanent home of the Vancouver Mari-time Museum,” said Simon Robinson, executive director, adding that the on/off plans created a high degree of donor fa-tigue.

“They had become jaded,” he said. “It wasn’t just a question of asking for money; we had to keep in touch and tell



Karim Salemohamed, volunteer

convener, World Partnership Walk. The

walk started as an ismaili fundraising

initiative but now attracts 40%

non-ismaili participants

Villagers in Kenya sort beans they have grown as a result of help from the Aga

Khan Foundation and CiDA. Two hundred local women work at this processing

facility. The initiative fed people in the village and beyond, and now packages and

exports some of its crops

multi-year private funding. “Programs are the easiest to raise

funds for, as donors can see them. Ask-ing for money for operating is not a com-pelling sales pitch,” he said.

In 2010, government grants made up 52.25% of VMM’s revenue. By September 2011, government grants only comprised 44.91% due to an increase in earned rev-enue.

Robinson also looked inward. He de-veloped an operational plan with de-partmental objectives so staff knew what was expected and could follow through. “There was a clear focus around what needed to happen. The old message was that we were failing,” Robinson says.

That’s changed now. “We’ve become more productive.

People see the results and are inspired. They see success, and we re-engaged with our partners and they see it. More people show up for exhibits. It sounds cliché but when you put in the energy and there’s a good vibe, it finds its way out into the broader world – and it’s at-tractive.”

“The money comes as a by-product,” he said of that good vibe. “You have to have a passion and believe deeply about what we do. People can smell a rat right off.”

Walking the talkPassion for the cause is the raison-d’être at the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) Can-ada, a non-denominational charity rais-ing funds to find and share lasting solu-tions to the challenges of global poverty. One of the key fundraising activities is its World Partnership Walk.

“Ismaili Muslims – five women – start-ed this walk 27 years ago to raise money locally to make a difference globally,” said Karim Salemohamed, convener of the walk, which raised $7 million last year through individual and corporate dona-tions. And, because the Aga Khan him-self covers all administrative costs, every penny raised provides direct funding to the projects.

Salemohamed says that the ambitions of Canadian women and African women are the same: to put food on the table, have shelter, and provide their children with an education.

“In Canada, we take that for granted; in East Africa, they have to work for it. If we do something here it makes a differ-ence there.”

The AKF often selects projects that qualify for matching grants from private groups or from government organizations like CIDA, which provides up to eight

times the AKF’s original contribution. One project in Kenya wanted to elim-

inate hunger in a village. The AKF and CIDA provided knowledge, equipment and seeds to allow farmers to grow beans and peas. The project was successful; the village fed people beyond its own bound-aries and now packages and exports some of its crops. AKF monitors progress but self-sufficiency means funding is no long-er needed.

“When I talk to individuals and cor-porations,” said Salemohamed, “I tell them the exact amount they donate goes to the project and that if they provide $1 and CIDA gives $8, their donation al-lows $9 of work to happen. It makes them more eager to give as their dollar will be spent correctly and transparently.”

To reach a wider audience of potential donors, AKF employs the concept of am-bassadors or champions.

“They are passionate about the cause,” said Salemohamed. “They speak to 10 people who then speak to another 10. It’s all done one-on-one. We relate by talking about the project and the work we’re do-ing. I have to get the right volunteer who believes in the cause so passionately and emotionally. They then go in and talk to a company and find someone to become a champion in that organization.” •



MIngrid de Jong Joffe

Many charities find it challenging to get people to attend their community events. For the Public Dreams Society, it was just the opposite problem. Their East Vancou-ver-based celebrations became so well-known they overshadowed the society’s identity in the public consciousness.

Large crowds attended the annual Pa-rade of Lost Souls for the past 18 years, but may not have realized it was hosted by a non-profit society that’s been around for more than 25 years. Public Dreams lost funding from the BC Gaming Direct Ac-cess in 2009 and the Halloween-themed

event was called off the same year due to difficulties in raising fundraising support.

Founded in 1985 by Dolly Hopkins, Paula Jardine and Lesley Fiddler, Pub-lic Dreams was created based on a shared vision to lift the spirit of community in Vancouver through cultural celebration.

“Public Dreams exists to strengthen communities, neighbourhoods and cities by inspiring creativity in everyday life,” said managing director Laura Grieco.

“In some cultures, if a person has a dream that affects the life of their community, they have to perform it in

public. We create modern rituals for a so-ciety that has become disconnected.”

Early on, the society developed a cre-ative services arm to help businesses pro-duce their own community events and support its mandate.

“From the beginning we knew that other than donations we received, we needed another way to fund our work,” said Grieco. “Long before many other charities considered social enterprise, we started a for-hire creative events business to offset the costs of putting on our large scale community events.”

nurturing community spirit

Laura Grieco, managing director, Public Dreams Society: supporting

the arts by getting people out to community celebrations

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Connecting people and raising awareness through active participation

Community



A blue heron puppet takes flight in Stanley Park thanks to the creativity of Public

Dreams and the support of the BC Arts Council and a former Cirque du Soleil

designer

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Krystal Vrba, founder, Footprints

Conservation Society: sharing a

message of environmental awareness

and gardening among children in local

schools

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This year, the society has begun work-ing to brand its community celebrations as Public Dreams events. It reinvented the Lost Souls parade into a smaller Secret Souls Walk by partnering with the Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret, an East Vancouver group of community artists.

Last year, the group applied for a $30,000 innovation grant from the BC Arts Council and created a Heron Walk in Stanley Park with the help of a former Cirque du Soleil designer, as well as pup-peteers from the film industry and com-munity centres.

The grant was a result of $7 million allocated to the Arts Council in 2010 by the British Columbia government, and was designated for programs “sup-porting innovation, commissioning, cap-acity building, sustainability and men-torship.”

“We created a large-scale innova-tive and artistic project to draw people in from different environments and help them work together,” said Grieco. “We chose the heron as an emblem as it’s an elegant creature that is still living in Stan-ley Park today after 125 years, despite drastic urbanization.”

Community support is vital to any non-profit, and Public Dreams was chosen as a charity of choice for Whole Foods Market’s 5% Day in February. The store’s four locations pooled 5% of their combined net profits and donated it to Public Dreams.

“We believe in giving back to the com-munities that support us,” said Christine Robertson, marketing and communica-tions lead for Whole Foods Market Kitsi-lano.

“Public Dreams is a fantastic organiza-tion, and we share a customer base within our store. Many of our team members are artists and performers so we understand how underfunded the arts are.”

The four Metro Vancouver stores raised a total of $17,855.16 for the non-profit. Performers visited each of the stores to tell Whole Foods shoppers about their events and programs.

Neighbourhood unityConnecting with youth is another area non-profit groups are focusing on. The Footprints Conservation Society is a rela-tive newcomer. Krystal Vrba founded the society three years ago with her brother after she became very ill due to environ-mentally related causes.

“I’d always been sensitive to my en-vironment,” she said, adding that her health scare made her more aware of the environment we live in. “I wanted to edu-cate people and especially children how to create a world we can live in for future gen-erations.”

“There is a growing initiative in schools to help students discover where their food comes from. It’s amazing but many kids don’t know that food doesn’t come from a grocery store. It’s important for them to understand how to grow and cook their own food.”

Footprints works closely with schools, teachers and parents to create workshops, field trips and community projects that get kids out of the classroom, into nature for fun, hands-on learning. In June 2010 Foot-prints promoted its first fundraising gala to plant trees at Panorama Park, and, as word spread, so did community support.

TD Canada Trust donated $4,000 to the project, and the City of Coquitlam pledged $15,000 to the project.

“We wanted to make sure the seedlings would survive, so we had the support of a nursery through the city that started grow-ing the trees so they were more established when we planted them,” said Vrba, adding that some of the seedlings were taller than the children who were planting them.

Said Grieco: “We have become densely urban, diverse, and reliant on technology, and this seems to make people appreci-ate these [community] events all the more. This means healthier, more vibrant neigh-bourhoods with a greater sense of unity.” •

“Many kids don’t know that food doesn’t come from a grocery store”

– Krystal Vrba, founder,

Footprints Conservation Society



nBo Gembarsky

No environmental non-profit is an is-land. Keenly aware that everything is interconnected, they network, collab-orate and innovate to make a great-er impact than their staff numbers and budgets might allow.

“Pretty much everything we do is col-laborative,” said Jessica Clogg, execu-tive director and senior counsel of West Coast Environmental Law, a non-profit group of environmental law strategists and analysts with offices in Vancouver and Victoria.

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green groups rooted in connectionsThey network, collaborate and innovate to increase effectiveness beyond their limited financial resources

“Since 1974, we’ve had a hand in every significant piece of environmental legis-lation in B.C.,” said Clogg, who heads a staff of nine operating on a budget of $1.2 million.

“We’re five lawyers and we work darn hard,” she said, but it was West Coast’s creation of the Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund that significantly in-creased its effectiveness.

“We have a network above and beyond our organization of about 80 lawyers around the province who offer reduced

rate services to citizens. Any group in a local area that has a concern can apply to us for funding to get a lawyer to help them achieve their goals. It’s an amazing tool for extending our reach.”

Clogg said that from the perspec-tive of organizational development, the hundreds of people helped by the fund, which distributes $200,000 a year, often express their appreciation by becoming donors, supporters and advocates. That builds their base.

So does social media. West Coast used

West Coast Environmental Law executive director Jessica Clogg: the Environmental Dispute resolution Fund “is an amazing

tool for extending our reach”

environment



to publish a paper newsletter but have instead invested heavily in social media and online tools to stay connected. Their environmental law alert blog allows them to communicate in a more timely and nimble way about emerging issues.

“We’ve increased our audience by 20,000 people since we relaunched our website and introduced the blog,” said Clogg. “A lot of people have a Facebook site but we have a communications com-mittee that every week is saying, ‘What is it about what we’re doing and the kind of change we’re trying to create that is of interest?’ and making sure it is on Face-book and on Twitter.”

West Coast works innovatively with indigenous peoples on land issues. Clogg’s leadership was recognized in 2007 when she was named an Ashoka Fellow, a global network of social entre-preneurs, and cited for “introducing a new approach to land preservation that incorporates both the practical and spiritual knowledge of First Nations people and Western legal codes.”

The business achievements of Maureen Jack-LaCroix, executive director of Be the Change Earth Alliance, were recognized almost 20 years ago. In 1992, Business in Vancouver named her a Top Forty Under 40 Award winner.

That was the era when Jack-LaCroix was CEO of Jack of Hearts Produc-tions and organized major events such as MusicWest and Slam City Jam. Later, earning a masters degree in Eco-Psychol-ogy and Creation Spirituality put her on the path to making a difference for the planet.

Jack-LaCroix founded Be the Change as a non-profit in 2005, basing the name on a saying by Mahatma Gandhi: “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” This year to the end of October, it’s been operating on $156,524, with two full-time staff besides Jack-LaCroix, who has deferred her wages.

Their programs include interactive en-vironmental workshops and presenta-tions, small group dialogues, training and resource tools that have been inte-grated into schools, faith communities,

Be the Change Earth Alliance

executive director Maureen Jack-

LaCroix: training is a constant in the

organization “so that we’re being the

change ourselves”

Spirit of the West Adventures co-owner

Breanne Quesnel: giving $5,000 to

West Coast Environmental Law, which

defends the environment “and in turn

they’re protecting our business”

workplaces and community centres in Canada and internationally.

“We’ve organized our structure al-most like the rings of a tree, in concen-tric circles,” Jack-LaCroix said. “I work with our ‘leadership circle,’ which is our staff and working volunteers, on a week-ly basis.” Then monthly, she meets with the “wisdom circle,” a larger brain trust that includes the current board, past board members and others. Quarterly, she meets with the board, which reviews policies and budgets. And then every-one comes together at the annual general meeting. Training is a constant.

“Really upgrading everybody in the organization on an ongoing basis is a core philosophy,” Jack-LaCroix said, “so that we’re being the change ourselves. We recognize that we have to do this great social change movement differently.”

One technological innovation is a Be the Change Facebook app that will help members of small community-based groups called “action circles” track their progress in meeting sustainability chal-lenges, such as recycling. It’s being beta tested.

Organizations like West Coast En-vironmental Law and Be the Change de-pend on donors, large and small. Spirit of the West Adventures Ltd. is a kayaking vacation company based on Quadra Is-land with annual sales of about $500,000.

Co-owner Breanne Quesnel said that as a member of U.S.-based 1% for the Planet, which encourages businesses to donate 1% of sales (not profits) to en-vironmental groups, Spirit of the West is giving West Coast about $5,000 this year.

“Our business is dependent on a healthy and intact ecosystem,” Quesnel said, “so West Coast Environmental Law helps protect and defend the environ-ment in various ways, and in turn they’re protecting our business.” •

“We’ve organized our structure almost like the rings of a tree in concentric circles”

– Maureen Jack-LaCroix, executive director and founder,

Be the Change Earth Alliance



oNelson Bennett

One of the challenges for most amateur sports is that, unlike professional sports teams, they can’t generate revenue through ticket sales.

Their financial survival therefore relies heavily on government grants, member-ship fees, fundraising and corporate spon-sorships.

High profile sports, like downhill skiing, can command lucrative sponsorships deals, because sponsors get good exposure.

But even BC Alpine has struggled re-cently to keep sponsorship money coming in. While the organization had no prob-

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amateur hourSports groups in B.C. get creative to boost membership, sponsorship and volunteerism

Gymnastics BC CEo Moira Gookstetter: trying to increase membership in the wake of a revenue hit when the provincial

government mandated all-day kindergarten

sports

account for about $500,000 of the organiza-tion’s annual revenue. Rio Tinto Alcan and Teck Resources are BC Alpine’s two big-ger sponsors. Their logos appear on skiers’ jackets and hats.

Sponsorship is a two-way street, Gold-smid said, and part of his job is to make sure that sponsors get good value for their money.

“I have to not only sell it, I have to ser-vice them to make sure they make a good return on investment,” Goldsmid said.

Non-Olympic sports like lacrosse and gymnastics have a tougher time attracting

lem signing up sponsors in the lead-up to the 2010 Winter Olympics, it lost two big brands after the games were over.

“After the Olympics, quite frankly, the strategy of some of the sponsors was that ‘we’re going to get out of it now,’” said BC Alpine CEO Bruce Goldsmid. “My job now is to go out and find new sponsors.”

Fortunately, Goldsmid has some very valuable “properties” he can sell, like the provincial ski team and Nancy Green Ski League.

BC Alpine has 5,000 members and an annual budget of $1.8 million. Sponsorships



“Quite simply, we would not exist without volunteers”– Rochelle Winterton,

executive director, BC Lacrosse Association

sponsors, so they rely more on membership fees and ingenuity to keep funding rolling in.

Less than 10% of the BC Lacrosse Association’s $1.7 million annual budget is covered by sponsorships, for example. Gymnastics BC, which has a $1.6 million annual budget, has no sponsorships at all, so it is even more reliant on membership fees, fundraising and government grants.

Gymnastics clubs throughout B.C. recently took a revenue hit when the provincial government mandat-ed all-day kindergarten. Parents often enrolled their kindergarten-aged children in morning or afternoon gymnastics classes, instead putting them in daycare.

“The implementation of all-day kindergarten has seen a whole lot of empty gymnastics spaces,” said Gymnastics BC CEO Moira Gookstetter. “Our clubs have certainly seen a downturn in the five-year-old category.”

The organization has 40,000 members, 50% of whom are under the age of eight. Provincial govern-ment grants cover 18 to 20% of its budget. The rest comes mostly from membership fees.

In an attempt to boost membership, and help its existing members, the organization recently launched a new web portal (playgymnastics.com) and a mar-keting campaign called Play for Possibilities. Among other things, the new portal allows all the local gym-nastics clubs in B.C. – some of which do not have their own websites – to list their club’s basic informa-tion the site.

The BC Lacrosse Association provides a similar

web portal that its member clubs can use. By using it to distribute things like the organization’s newsletter online, rather than by post, the association has re-duced annual costs by $15,000 to $20,000.

BC Lacrosse Association executive director Ro-chelle Winterton said the organization’s most im-portant resource is its 7,000 volunteers, which the or-ganization has calculated provides $11 million worth of human resources.

“Quite simply, we would not exist without volun-teers,” Winterton said.

To get the most out of their volunteers, the organ-ization applied for and received funding – $90,000 over three years – through the BC Sport Participation Program to create programs that train volunteers how to do things like write job descriptions, update websites and write manuals.

The BC Lacrosse Association has 16,498 members, and is always working on ways to build its member-ship. One way of doing that has been to promote la-crosse in B.C.’s First Nations communities.

Ironically, despite the fact lacrosse was invented by First Nations on the East Coast, the game has not been played extensively in Aboriginal communities in B.C.

BC Lacrosse is trying to change that with its Ab-original Lacrosse Development Program, which helps train First Nations coaches, who then help build the support in their own communities.

So far, 10 aboriginal communities have participat-ed in the program to develop their own leagues. •

s p o n s o r ’ s m e s s a g e


Efficiency comes

standard

Progress. It’s the ability t o l o o k f o r w a r d w h i l e o t h e r s l o o k b a c k . A conviction that the status quo is never good enough. It’s the courage to have a vision, and the passion to see it to life. For over 100 y e a r s , o u r a p p r o a c h t o p r o g r e s s h a s b e e n summarized by our motto, Vorsprung durch Technik – or, loosely translated, a d v a n c e m e n t t h r o u g h technology.

But a better future doesn’t r e l y s o l e l y o n b e t t e r techno logy. Tha t ’s why at Audi, we believe in the importance of charitable giv ing. We’ve partnered w i t h B e s t B u d d i e s In te rna t iona l , a char i t y that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment and leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

This spirit of philanthropy lives in every dealership and with every employee at Audi. We encourage you to join us in this commitment to a better future by joining us in our approach.

After all, giving fuels the spirit that Audi embodies most: progress.

in an attempt to build

membership, the BC

Lacrosse Association

promotes the sport

in B.C.’s aboriginal

communities



FSimone Rothe

For Dick Vollet, the problem of homeless-ness is one of the most complex problems in society.

“The solutions are very clear though,” he said. “We need to build housing. And we need to build it as quickly as we can.”

Vollet, fresh from working on the VAN-OC dream team at the Olympics, has been in his new job as CEO of the Streetohome Foundation for just over a year, and has al-ready seen some improvement in the num-bers of people who are “street homeless” in the Vancouver area.

According to the 2011 Metro Vancou-ver Homeless Count, since 2008, overall homelessness (sheltered and unsheltered) dropped by 1%, but literal street homeless-ness (unsheltered) has plummeted by 54%.

“We are making progress,” said Vollet. “We’ve opened hundreds of units.”

The Streetohome Foundation has con-tributed $20 million in funding for eight of 14 supportive housing projects being built in Vancouver, which, by the end of 2011, will have added 570 units of housing for the homeless, or those at risk of homeless-ness. The foundation is also a partner in At Home/Chez Soi’s Bosman Hotel Com-munity project on Howe Street, and helped fund emergency shelters in 2008.

The Streetohome Foundation was estab-lished in 2008 as a public-private partner-ship with the aim of eradicating homeless-ness in Vancouver by 2015.

“We have to stop managing the prob-lem, and start solving it,” said Vollet. “So

partnering to end homelessnessHousing First model is driving change and generating results

the first way to solve it is to deal with supportive housing. The other thing we focus a great deal of effort on is preven-tion.”

To that end, Streetohome most recent-ly announced the establishment of a rent bank, whose initial funding of $750,000 was donated by mining magnate and Stree-tohome board member Frank Giustra.

“The rent bank allows some people who are one to two paychecks away from home-lessness to remain in their current housing situation,” said Vollet.

“If you do business in this community and if you employ people in this commun-ity, it’s to your advantage to actually help support the efforts to solve homelessness,” said Vollet.

“From a business perspective, you could say it will reduce people sleeping in the street in front of their business every mor-ning, or reduce the number of panhandlers that will be out in any given day.”

Karen Young, the director of resource development at Lookout Shelter in the Downtown Eastside, also says the number of homeless clients they served this year is down. “I think there’s progress being made,” said Young.

Still, “There are 10,000 people, give or take right now, just from what Lookout saw in the last year, that needed a hand up, more than a handout.”

Lookout, which just celebrated its 40th anniversary this fall at its signature fund-raising gala, H’Arts for the Homeless,

pioneered the model of a full-services |shelter in the Downtown Eastside.

Executive director Karen O’Shannacery, who started the shelter in the early ’70s, was also recognized this year with the Or-der of B.C, an accolade which has raised the profile of Lookout.

“Karen has been an absolute warrior when it comes to going to battle for the rights of homeless people,” said Young.

From its humble beginnings as a one-room shelter on Vancouver’s Skid Row, Lookout now operates four shelters and seven housing projects all over Metro Van-couver, including more than 800 housing units.

Currently, Lookout is also partnering with BC Housing, the City of Vancouver and the Streetohome Foundation to build First Place, a 129-unit supportive housing project near the Village on False Creek that will open its doors in February, 2012.

“What we need to do is create neigh-bourhood affordable housing, to not ware-house people on the downtown eastside,” said Young. “To have a shelter and afford-able housing in every community, that’s integrated so you’re not going to get some kind of slum situation.” •

Dick Vollet, CEo of the Streetohome

Foundation, has already seen a

decrease in the number of homeless in

Vancouver

homelessness

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