Times Change Success Story

➡️About Times Change

Times Change is a Toronto-based charity that has been at the forefront of women’s employment services since its founding in 1974. As it celebrates its 50th anniversary, Times Change continues its original mission: helping unemployed women find meaningful, sustainable careers that empower them to support themselves and their families.

They support women from diverse backgrounds, including single mothers, newcomers to Canada, those seeking more stable work, and women navigating career changes. 

“Our mission stays the same as what it was when we started 50 years ago—to help unemployed women find meaningful careers so that they can support themselves and their families.” –  Katie Didyk, Communications Specialist / Manager, Times Change.

➡️Relationship with CanadaHelps

For the last 10+ years, Times Change has relied on CanadaHelps as a central pillar of its digital fundraising strategy. CanadaHelps has not only streamlined administrative workflows but has also helped Times Change build a more consistent, data-driven, and donor-centred fundraising approach.

Times Change began using CanadaHelps in 2015, transitioning from a manual system that relied on PayPal, mailed cheques, and hand-written thank-you notes.“Now, CanadaHelps takes the stress out of fundraising. It’s like having another staff member on my team,” shared Katie.

Times Change uses CanadaHelps for:

✓ Custom donation forms

✓ Monthly and one-time donor campaigns

✓ Automated tax receipts and thank-you emails

✓ Donor management and reporting

✓ Campaign performance analysis

Since implementing CanadaHelps, Times Change has seen an 82% year-over-year increase in donations, enhanced donor engagement, and other strong results—enabling their team to accomplish more with fewer resources.

“Using CanadaHelps has absolutely streamlined many of those time-consuming administrative tasks that were related to setting up forms, processing tax receipting, and donor data tracking. It’s freed me up to be able to do more of that deep diving into who our donors are, what they are looking for, and focus more on the relationship building, the storytelling, and stewarding,” shared Katie.

As a smaller organization with a big mission, Times Change appreciates CanadaHelps’ unique combination of power and simplicity. 

➡️ Meet the Team

Katie Didyk, Communications Specialist / Manager

At Times Change, Katie steers fundraising for the charity. This includes managing all initiatives, from digital campaigns and in-person events to donor stewardship and communications. She also manages the organization’s website, social media, and public outreach, ensuring every message reflects their mission and values.

Gaeby Abrahams, President, Board of Directors

With a background in arts administration, events, and media and a deep connection to Times Change as a former client, Gaeby brings strategic thinking and data expertise to the board. She provides hands-on support to the team, including analyzing fundraising trends and campaign performance, helping to drive informed decisions.

➡️ Challenges Before CanadaHelps

❌ Manual Donor Tracking and Stewardship: Times Change initially had an internal database, and all donor activity was being tracked using spreadsheets and physical files. This made it nearly impossible to get a clear picture of donor history or personalize follow-ups. Stewardship was limited by how much data could be manually collected, managed, and leveraged.

❌ Inefficient Payment Tools: The organization primarily relied on PayPal or mailed cheques for donations. While functional, these tools did not offer any built-in donation management, messaging, or reporting tools. Cheques also often lead to delays increased administrative load, and lacked scalability.

❌ Manual Tax Receipting and Acknowledgements: With no platform for donation processing, the charity had to create and send tax receipts manually. It was a time-consuming process that took resources and time away from relationship-building and growing the donor base.

❌ Lack of Donor Segmentation for Tailored Campaigns: The team was unable to easily segment donors based on past behavior, gift size, or engagement frequency. This meant difficulty in cultivating major donors or identifying those likely to become monthly givers.

❌ Lack of Branded, Professional Donation Pages: Times Change previously used basic, unbranded forms that lacked consistency and professionalism. These experiences were less engaging for donors and may have contributed to lower conversion rates.

➡️ Digital Fundraising with CanadaHelps tools

With CanadaHelps, Times Change found a comprehensive solution that addressed these fundraising needs. 

1. User-Friendly Donation Forms ✅

CanadaHelps’ customizable donation forms (CDFs) have empowered Times Change to create a cohesive, branded giving experience. These forms are easy to embed on their website and reflect the organization’s look and feel, which has furthered credibility and trust for a widening donor base. 

The team appreciates how easy it is to design and implement these forms, complete with branding, automated thank you emails, and tax receipts, and being able to embed the forms directly on their site to improve the donor experience. 

“The customized donation forms CDFs allow us to have that creativity of tailoring what we want our brand to look like, to be able to embed it directly on our website… It gives a polished professional look without feeling like I need a dedicated tech team to create something. It is efficient and easy for donors, which is really important on the other end,” Katie shared.

2. Automated Receipting & Emails ✅

With CanadaHelps, Times Change can send automated CRA-compliant tax receipts to donors, which has saved the team valuable time and resources. They noted that this has been a game-changer, especially for a smaller team with limited bandwidth. This automation tied to their CDFs frees up time for deeper relationship-building and allows Times Change to thank donors meaningfully and promptly, reinforcing goodwill.

“I am a big believer of thanking donors and what we refer to as stewardship, but really about showing the impact and making them feel appreciated for what they’ve contributed towards,” shared Katie.“I believe that while you may only ask donors to donate one time in a year, you need to engage them up to six times throughout the year. And so, for me, having that opportunity to thank donors as soon as I receive a donation…is absolute gold for me. That kind of stewardship matters, and CanadaHelps makes it easy.”

3. Powerful Data & Reporting ✅

Access to robust donor data has transformed the way Times Change understands its donor base. CanadaHelps’ custom data exports help the charity track giving patterns, analyze campaign performance, and identify major gift prospects. Both the team and board members have been able to leverage these reports to showcase an increase in fundraising year over year. 

These insights have not only informed campaign timing, donor segmentation, and growth strategies but also provided a resource to build tailored invite lists for events. “I was running a donor event, and it’s an exclusive and intimate event. And the way I was able to figure out who was going to be my first tier of invites was through CanadaHelps by diving back to see who has donated how much to Times Change, how long they’ve been supporters of Times Change, etc.,” shared Katie.

“We doubled our revenue in 2023 compared to 2022. Having access to clear donation data helped us prove what worked,” shared Gaeby. “To be able to have that information as proof of our successful fundraising efforts felt incredible. It proved that what we were doing was working.”

4. Personalized Donor Stewardship ✅

Times Change leverages details submitted by donors on the forms to further personalize donor communication. For instance, the donor-submitted notes often reveal personal stories, dedications, or connections to the cause. Katie uses these details to personalize thank-you messages and deepen donor relationships.

“If someone mentions a counsellor by name, I tailor my thank you to them in response to what they’ve said to me. My thank you is so personal because of that note that I’m able to read through CanadaHelps,” shared Katie.

Donor feedback has helped shape Times Change’s use of the tool. One donor mentioned the need for a more flexible dedication message option—something CanadaHelps’s custom fields accommodate. 

5. Support for Monthly Giving Strategy ✅

CanadaHelps supports the growth of monthly donations, which have enabled Times Change to prioritize monthly gifts as a reliable source of revenue. This includes leveraging monthly-first donation forms, being able to sort and search all monthly gifts, quickly cancel, pause, and resume monthly gifts, receive automated reminders about monthly donors, and access monthly donor reports. 

Inspired by CanadaHelps data, Katie made monthly giving a key focus of Times Change’s recent campaigns, identifying and converting one-time donors into long-term supporters.

“What we’re seeing in the nonprofit sector in fundraising is that there’s a need for more monthly donations because it is a more consistent way to plan for our future. Knowing that we’ve got consistent monthly donations leading up to a year and being able to simply automate that monthly donation is very helpful for us. And that consistent money is coming in with CanadaHelps,” shared Katie. 

6. Intuitive for Staff & Volunteers ✅

Even new and part-time staff can quickly learn how to use CanadaHelps. Katie says she rarely needs to do in-depth training because the platform is so intuitive. This usability is crucial in the nonprofit sector, where turnover and lean staffing are common.

 “I find the platform user-friendly. When I have part-time staff members that I supervise, I don’t have to provide too much training on how to use CanadaHelps. I don’t have to offer a step-by-step training beyond showing the platform, where things are, and having the confidence that they’d be able to learn and navigate the platform very quickly,” shared Katie.

7. Compliance & Security ✅

As one of the only donation-processing organizations that offers CRA-compliant tax receipts to donors, CanadaHelps provides both donors and the charity with easy access to these tax receipts during tax season as well. The Times Change team appreciates the peace of mind that comes with this.

➡️ Results from Using CanadaHelps

Since starting with CanadaHelps, Times Change has seen a significant and consistent increase in online donations year-over-year. This upward trend highlights the effectiveness of CanadaHelps’ platform. 

⬆️ 121% Increase in Donations From 2021 to 2022

⬆️ 82% Average Increase in Donations YoY 

⬆️ 2x Increase in Corporate Sponsorship Funds Paid Through CanadaHelps

⬆️ 71% Increase in Donors From 2022 to 2023

⬆️ 52% Average Increase In Donors YoY

1. Significant Growth in Donations 

With CanadaHelps powering its campaigns, Times Change has achieved year-over-year increases in both total revenue and number of donors. 

In 2022, Times Change saw a 121% increase in online donations from the previous year. It continues to see an average of 82% increase in digital fundraising revenue year-over-year.

Times Change has also seen a 2X increase in corporate sponsorship funds paid through CanadaHelps. These contributions are outside of the revenue listed in the YoY increase and were major boosts to Times Change’s revenue through CanadaHelps.

2. Increased Monthly Giving 

Times Change appreciates the donation form features that enable it to leverage monthly donations, which are now a key revenue stream for them. By emphasizing recurring donations in its forms and campaigns, the organization has seen a steady rise in monthly contributors. 

These gifts provide predictability and help the team plan ahead. Apart from their always-on donation campaigns, Times Change also use targeted campaigns during the Christmas and winter season to leverage year-end giving. 

“This year, I made monthly giving more of a prominent feature on our forms. And that was based solely on the donation reports, which showed that we could really increase the monthly donation target,” shared Katie.

3. Improved Stewardship & Donor Engagement 

With donor notes, automated thank-yous, and clean reports, Times Change has been able to tailor communications in a way that feels authentic for their donors.

Katie regularly references donor messages in her responses, and the result has been more repeat donors and more advocates for the charity’s mission. “It enables me to engage and continue the stewardship and make sure that they donate to us next year by making it as personal and as authentic as possible. It makes donors feel seen, and I love making my donors feel special,” emphasized Katie.

4. Higher Conversion with Embedded Forms 

The ability to embed the donation form directly into Times Change’s website has helped enhance the user experience by offering a seamless and integrated process. Donors can contribute without ever leaving the website. 

This has been crucial for retaining potential donors who might abandon a more cumbersome process and increased form completion rates, especially during high-traffic periods like end-of-year giving. 

Plus, with embedded forms, Times Change saves 0.25% in transaction fees for every donation made through its website. The organization has these embedded CDFs across the different pages on their site.

5. Confidence in Increased Fundraising Targets 

Times Change doubled their fundraising target this year—a deliberate shift to a more ambitious goal based on several factors.

“Over the past year, we saw stronger engagement from our community, improved storytelling, and increased confidence in our ability to mobilize support through CanadaHelps,” shared Katie. “Encouraged by the success of previous campaigns and inspired by our 50th anniversary milestone, we recognized an opportunity to expand our impact and challenge ourselves to aim higher. The increased target also reflects rising program needs and a desire to build momentum around our legacy and future vision.”

➡️ Why Times Change Recommends CanadaHelps

Times Change remains a strong advocate for CanadaHelps, emphasizing its transformative digital fundraising capabilities. The charity has consistently seen numerous benefits for using the CanadaHelps platform to grow, including:

✅ Ease of set up and use

✅ Significant increase in revenue and donors YoY

✅ Excellent donor stewardship opportunities

✅ Access to a mine of donor data and reports

For the Times Change team, what sets CanadaHelps apart is that it adapts to the charity’s unique needs without demanding significant time or technical expertise. The platform gives the team everything they need to run effective, donor-centred campaigns.

“To small charities not using CanadaHelps, I ask, ‘Why not?’ You’re missing out on some pretty important data that could be very useful for you. It takes the stress out of the donation management, launching a campaign, accepting monthly gifts, and more. And for a small charity like ourselves, where I am the only fundraising person, CanadaHelps is like my team. It’s like having a part-time staff member. It’s a total game changer, particularly for small charities,” shared Katie.

For any nonprofit looking to grow digital fundraising, Times Change wholeheartedly recommends CanadaHelps as an essential partner and looks forward to continuing this partnership.

➡️ Goals for the Year Ahead

As it celebrates 50 years of supporting women and their career growth, Times Change has a few major goals they are working towards.

✓ Expand Corporate Partnerships: Building on existing relationships, Times Change aims to secure additional corporate sponsors. They are looking to leverage their learnings so far, media assets, and donor impact stories to make compelling pitches to potential partners.

✓ Launch a Legacy Mini-Documentary: Times Change is working on releasing a professionally produced mini-documentary that chronicles its 50-year journey. Premiering at a special donor recognition event, this video will also serve as a year-round tool for fundraising, corporate engagement, and onboarding new supporters

✓ Grow Donor Base: Monthly giving will remain a key focus. Times Change plans to experiment with form designs, smart-sum prompts, and donor segmentation to encourage more supporters to switch from one-time to recurring donations

✓ Cultivate Major Gifts: CanadaHelps’s data has helped define what a major gift looks like for Times Change. In the coming year, they will develop strategies to identify, engage, and upgrade mid-level donors into major donors through targeted outreach.

✓ Expand the Culture of Philanthropy: Times Change is looking to continue building on the culture of philanthropy at the recruitment level. They recently conducted a fundraising workshop to align the team on what this culture means. Moving forward, they are looking to launch a fundraising toolkit and host another annual workshop for their board members, ensuring they feel confident and equipped to support fund and resource development in hands-on ways.