A Note from the Executive Director

CanadaHelps welcomes a new Executive Director this January. Owen Charters joins CanadaHelps in this role after serving as Vice President, Development with Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre Foundation. With an MBA from York University and a Graduate Diploma in Nonprofit Management, he brings a wealth of nonprofit experience to the helm of CanadaHelps.

A New Year Brings Exciting New Changes to CanadaHelps!

The New Year brings many things to Canadians: new and exciting changes to come, a reflection of the past, and the famous "New Year's Resolutions". For CanadaHelps, 2007 has brought with it all of this, and more!

What better way to start off a new year than with a fresh new look! We're proud to announce a new and improved CanadaHelps website with a clean, streamlined look, brighter graphics, more readable text and more integration between our donor and charity service offerings. The sample screens below show some examples of the new look you'll start to see when we re-launch the website in the coming month.

Gift Card Screens

Charity Profile Screens

Giving Basket Screen

If you thought new staff and a brand new site launch would be enough for us, you'd be wrong! We're also planning an office relocation. We're moving in February to the Robertson Building at 215 Spadina Avenue, an historic factory/warehouse in downtown Toronto and home to a community of businesses, entrepreneurs and non-profits. It is also the location for The Centre for Social Innovation, a group of 15 organizations that work to catalyze, inform and support innovations that advance the social, cultural, environmental and economic well-being of Canadians. CanadaHelps is proud to be part of this new community of socially innovative groups.

As I take on the Executive Director's post, heartfelt thanks go to Jason Côté, outgoing Executive Director. For the past three years, Jason has been leading phenomenal change and growth at CanadaHelps, and has put it in good stead for the future. The board and staff join in extending their gratitude for Jason's incredible and diligent work.

The new year is proving to be a busy and exciting one for CanadaHelps, which in turn should help both donors and our charity partners. It goes without saying that our resolutions this year are to provide a great service to both, and continue to grow charitable giving in Canada to new heights. And as always, we'll continue to make giving simple.

Sincerely,

Owen Charters,
Executive Director

An Outstanding Holiday Season!

Our thanks to all of the donors who used the CanadaHelps website to support their favourite Canadian charities this holiday season. The holiday season, and the month of December in particular, always sees a generous increase in donations, and this year was outstanding! In December 2006 we facilitated donations for 4,556 charities and 679 of these were first-time recipients of donations from CanadaHelps.

We're thrilled that so many donors are coming to CanadaHelps to make their donations - in fact, of almost 19,000 donors in December, over 12,000 were new users to the site.

The response to our Gift Card program shows we are on the right track for offering great ways for donors to give the gift of giving to friends and family. Over 2200 Give the Gift of Giving™ charity gift cards were purchased in December 2006, 350% increase over December 2005!

The beauty of our Gift Card program is that the cards can be given in both large and small donations. This year we saw the full range of giving, from a $10,000 gift card to $5 gift cards. Large or small, when it comes to gift giving, a CanadaHelps gift card donation is always the right size, colour, and style for any recipient!

Other interesting donation statistics from December:

• The largest Giving Basket totaled $42,510 and was distributed to 6 charities; the average giving basket size was $160
• The largest single donation to a charity through CanadaHelps was $38,000; the smallest single donation to a charity was $1.00 (every little bit helps!)
• December 31, 2006 was our busiest day ever, with over $800,000 going through the site, a 74% growth over last year for the same day!

We're thrilled to have been such an instrumental part of providing donations to the thousands of charities across Canada this holiday season, and a reminder that the next (in this case "unofficial") holiday is right around the corner
- Valentines Day!

What better way to celebrate your love for a partner, friend, or family member than to give with your heart - send a CanadaHelps Valentines Day Gift Card to your intended, supporting the charity of their choice!

Donor Profile

Donor: Gary Mitton

Gary Mitton has a golden rule about charity donations - he'll only make his donations online. "I donate to various charities about twenty times a year, when I switched over to making my donations online with CanadaHelps, I couldn't believe how much easier it was to keep track of the paperwork, I used to spend hours several times a year trying to locate and organize my donation records, track down receipts etc. Now, with CanadaHelps, everything is automatic and immediate, and you can donate any time, day or night." An avid volunteer in his community, the time Gary used to spend on the administration of his donations is now being put to good use in additional time spent volunteering.

CanadaHelps was also instrumental in helping Gary locate charities in the communities he wanted to reach out to. "I worked for CN Rail for 30 years and spent a great deal of time traveling across this country, I wanted to spread my donations to benefit some of the specific cities and regions I worked in and spent time in throughout my career with CN." Regardless of whether a charity is large or small, or where they are located in Canada, CanadaHelps provides access to all of Canada's 80,000 registered charities.

Gary is so impressed by his experience with CanadaHelps that he recommended the service to one of his favourite charities, Maison de la Famille Mosaik, and asked that they register with CanadaHelps. If you are a charity, or a donor who wishes their charity would register with CanadaHelps, please visit http://www.canadahelps.org/charity_start.aspx for more information.

After traveling across Canada for over 30 years, Gary is happy to have finally settled in one location. Thanks to CanadaHelps and their online donation portal, his donations can immediately reach communities both near and far, without Gary having to ever leave his home.

Connect With CanadaHelps

CanadaHelps is the only online portal that provides access to all of Canada's 80,000 charities. From national organizations like national cancer charities to smaller groups like local animal shelters and soup kitchens, CanadaHelps reaches all Canadians who want to give and connects them with their charity of choice.

Help us keep you informed as we engage donors and enhance the fundraising potential for charities. Subscribe to the CanadaHelps newsletter and/or forward to a friend, colleague or charity who you think would benefit from the knowledge and experiences CanadaHelps gains each month from both donors and charities.