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Under the Tree

Economic woes, the Grinch in the corporate machine, and a little bundle of hope
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What to give? What to give? It’s the question of the season, and the answer has at last been revealed, stockings-over, with a traditional Boxing Day shopping frenzy set to resolve any dissatisfaction with gifts or giftees…

If only non-profits had such an easy solution.

As the business pages continue to throw ashes, wear hairshirts and beat the doomsday drum at the tanking economy, corporations, community endowment funds and private philanthropists are posing another question: whether or not to give at all.

On December 16 the Community Foundation of Whistler’s board members met over troubling balance sheets and elected not to gift any grants from their endowment funds for 2009 in an effort to protect the capital which has seen an 18 per cent loss in the market.

The collapse of the BCE privatization deal also saw some major potential gifts of securities evaporate. “That was particularly unfortunate, given the recent financial climate and the increased need for as many donor dollars as possible,” says Kerry Chalmers, Executive Director of the Foundation.

The municipality is making noises that the Community Enrichment Program fund will be allocating less to community groups in 2009, and the Live Nation contribution to Pemberton has all been allocated, with a return of the Festival and its Coldplay-fuelled injection to non-profits looking increasingly unlikely.

As for corporate giving, adopting a “philanthropy aesthetic” is just another marketing line item that’s on the chopping block, along with Christmas parties and sponsored athletes, all the more vulnerable for its lack of measurable ROI.

Food banks and front-line social service providers are reporting that demand is up, even as they’re enduring break-ins and robberies and funding uncertainties.

The situation report, then, reveals a somewhat shriveled Christmas Giving Tree under the tarnished star of 2008.

But on closer inspection, though the piles of presents may be smaller and less blinged out this year, there is cause for hope. There is reason for thanks. There is even evidence, dear Virginia, that Santa may be alive and well and wading back across the iceberg-melt to the North Pole.

Charity begins at home

Just 50 hours after executing a major lift evacuation procedure, the members of the Blackcomb Ski Patrol were back on deck to manage another emergency – rallying to a fundraising benefit for fellow patrollers Heidi and Neil Wynn.

The benefit took place at Merlin’s on Thursday, December 18, and was initiated by the Wynns’ fellow patrollers on Blackcomb with the goal of generating enough funds that Heidi would not have to work this winter, and could focus her energies on her family and on spending time with Neil, who has been suffering with cancer for four years.

The grassroots benefit began with modest goals, but quickly snowballed as word of mouth spread across the province and donations of items to be auctioned or cash started to arrive. In the end, the benefit raised almost double the amount targeted.

Says assistant patrol manager Scott Hepworth, “People were very, very generous. I don’t think the generosity had anything to do with Christmas, but that everyone has had someone in their life affected by cancer. There was so much stuff (donated for the silent auction), we had no idea if we could sell it, and then envelopes started appearing in my office, with no name identifying who it was from, with “Wynn fundraiser” on the front and money slipped inside. It was very affirming.”

Heidi Voelker Wynn was able to drop in to the event, but Neil wasn’t well enough. “It’s been a rough go for four years for them,” says Hepworth. “Neil is only in his mid-30s and he really hasn’t had his kick at the can. They have a young daughter and his synopsis is so poor, but it’s really important to both of them to know they have this network of support. They were both pretty astounded.”

Grassroots giving doesn’t just happen at the ‘dirtbag’ level. Every Friday morning, Monica Hayes, Director of Communications and Advertising at the Westin Resort & Spa Whistler sits down and takes a look at the requests for donations and funding support that have come in over the week. The following week, each one of those solicitations will be responded to.

“We average 200 requests over the course of the year, and I would say we average (providing support to) 60 per cent. I can’t even begin to name all the causes we’ve supported,” says Hayes. “I think hoteliers have always been a giving group. I think it’s inherent — the reason we picked this business is because we love taking care of people.”

Sometimes the assistance involves providing a room night gift certificate for auction. Sometimes, it’s more involved, as with the Mountain FM Toy Drive on December 4, which followed hard on the heels of the Whistler Health Care Foundation’s Indulge benefit which raised $50,000 for emergency medical equipment.

It was a busy week for Hayes, who also serves on the Indulge Committee — “How can you not be on a committee with Marnie Simon involved? She’s dynamite in a small package.” She was on-hand from 6 a.m. to personally greet every single breakfaster who arrived with toys, non-perishable items and cash contributions for the food banks in Squamish, Whistler, Pemberton and Mount Currie, to say thank-you and enjoy the chef’s buffet spread.

“Are the times tough to give? Absolutely,” says Hayes. “And we have two tough winters ahead. No question, in 2009, we’ll have to adjust our give and there will be things to which we’ll have to say, ‘We’d love to help, but we can’t.’ But we will still give. If it makes the community better, then we’ve got to do it. We help out those in the backyard, because it makes us who we are.”

A free place to play

Throughout the holidays, Sue Eckersley, Whistler’s guru of events and director of Watermark Communications, plays Captain Bouncy Castle, providing refuge from the Arctic frost to families desperate for a free place indoors for their little whirlwinds to burn off some energy. The Whistler Holiday Experience started up last winter in the Conference Centre, providing a reprieve to hundreds if not thousands of families.

Despite suggestions that most folk would be willing to pay to play, Eckersley is adamant that it should remain free. “It’s supposed to be about a ‘thank you for choosing Whistler’”, she told the Pique, allowing that if donations were made, they would be directed to Playground Builders.

Eckersley has also designated Playground Builders as one of the TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival’s official charities, alongside WAG and Zero Ceiling.

A locally-based non-profit, Playground Builders provides children’s playground equipment in war-torn countries. “A hundred per cent of the funds raised for Playground Builders goes directly to their projects, because the management is voluntary as well,” says Eckersley. “That made it attractive for us to support.”

Eckersley shudders at the suggestion that strategic philanthropy can help connect a corporation with its target market. “I don’t like that corporate paradigm of asking ‘What’s in it for me?’ With respect to the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival, I’m not supporting charities for marketing relations. Giving a $5,000 Festival prize package to be auctioned off to a lot of older people at the Health Care Foundation Gala is of zero marketing value to us. Where we support things, it’s not strategic. It’s community-based and related to what groups do with us. So we sponsored the Writers Select Writing Awards and the B Grade Halloween Horror Film Fest, because writers and filmmakers are a part of our event’s immediate community, and because their pool is limited. And those of us in their pool should step up and support them.”

The only thing that’s strategic about Watermark’s giving, she concedes, is how you define your pool. “I’d rather support the Whistler Children’s Centre than the Canadian Cancer Agency, because the Whistler Children’s Centre has zero chance of fundraising outside this community. Same with the Whistler Health Care Foundation. It’s all about the pool you swim in. And as a business that runs events that reflect the community, we believe we should be reflecting the values of the community in terms of giving back.”

The community piggy bank

Community values drive Kerry Chalmers straight to the business pages these days. “Often people don’t realize the extent to which the corporate world is linked to our day to day community world,” she says.

Despite the loss in value to the Community Foundation of Whistler’s portfolio, and because of those business headlines, this “community savings bank” that supports groups from the Whistler Adaptive Ski Program, Search and Rescue, AWARE and the Arts Council to First Nations communities in the region, it is still worth roughly $2.9 million. “That’s extremely phenomenal in just 10 years, especially when you look at other community foundations.”

The Board’s decision not to grant from their endowment funds for 2009, to protect the capital investments, mirrors a call made by many of the 165 community foundations across the country. The Community Foundation of Ottawa, which gave out $5.4 million in grants last year to Ottawa non-profits, has cancelled its 2009 grant-making program; the Victoria Foundation announced it would cut grants in half.

For Whistler groups, the CFOW does have some funds in place that will enable them to continue to grant through many of their regular programs. In 2009, the Community Grants Program,
the Jill Ackhurst Social Action Grants Program, the Whistler Employee Fund Grants Program, and the newly established Kathy Barnett Memorial Leadership Grants Program
will all continue as usual.

Most impacted will be several scholarships and the Environmental Legacy Fund. Chalmers says, though, “While we will not grant funding from the ELF endowment fund, we are currently working on some alternative sources of funding that would perhaps allow us to make ELF grants in 2009.”



So it seems, despite the Grinch breathing down our necks, people are still giving. The instinct to give appears to be a deep one, and not so easily blown away at the first sign of market turmoil. At least, it is for some.

Notes Chalmers, “One of the biggest motivations for giving is believing that your contribution makes a difference. At the CFOW, we have always said it doesn’t matter what you give, it’s the act of giving that matters. Be it $5 or $5,000, it will make a difference in the community. For many people, the motivation to give is often a cause that’s important. The CFOW is in an easier position (than some other non-profits) because we work with so many aspects of the community – we can connect a donor with a cause that is personally meaningful for them.”

For others, philanthropy is inspired by a sense of obligation arising out of doing well in your own field, the obligation to send the elevator back down as the late actor Jack Lemmon told his protégé Kevin Spacey. When times are tough, that sense of good fortune in finding oneself on the top of the heap is heightened.

Vancouver philanthropist Harvey McKinnon, and co-author of the new book The Power of Giving: How Giving Back Enriches Us All, argues that giving is good for your health and even helps people lose weight. “We’ve written a diet book,” he joked to the Georgia Straight earlier this year, but his book gathers up scientific research that correlates living a more other-centred life with having a richer sense of self.

The compassionate eye

For Whistler photographer Kevin Arnold, a giving opportunity arose that didn’t ask him to do anything more than go about his usual business. Arnold, an adventure and lifestyle photographer, is also a Getty Images photo-stock contributor. Last year, at the Summer Solstice, he joined a critical mass-style one day photo shoot that saw more than 100 photographers and their crews around the world take photographs, and divert their royalty revenues from those images to the Compassionate Eye Foundation.

The initiative was started in 2006 by Vancouver commercial photographer Robert Kent with 11 photographers and crews, including models, lighting technicians, and stylists, volunteering to take part. Over 200 photos from the day’s efforts were uploaded to Getty Images on January 29 2007, and by February, the first two images had been sold and revenues for the foundation realized.

The initiative quickly spawned chapters in London, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Toronto – the 2007 shoot saw 50 photographers participate and by Solstice 2008, 100 photographers were on board.

Now, the Compassionate Eye Foundation boasts a photo well of 1,400 images, and has raised over $100,000 for educational projects in Guatemala and South Africa.

Says Arnold, who will help coordinate the Vancouver chapter of the Foundation Solstice 2009 shoot, “It was easy. I’d never been a ‘philanthropist.’ But all I had to do was go to work for the day.”

One star at a time

Tourism Whistler members took the same approach earlier this month in fulfilling the Christmas Wish of nine-year old Adrielene Soriano in CTV’s recent Christmas Wish series, when they rallied to provide a three day Whistler getaway for the girl’s family. Said Tourism Whistler’s Manager of Corporate and Member Communications, Jeff McDonald, “The call went out and in no time at all, we had members responding with a resounding ‘yes’ to our request for support. There were so many that we couldn’t accept them all.”

It makes sense. After all, it’s the heart of the business that Whistler Blackcomb, the Pan Pacific Whistler Village Centre, Earl's Restaurant, ZipTrek Ecotours Inc., the Mix by Ric's, Solarice Wellness Spa, Teppan Village, the Squamish Lil'wat Cultural Centre and Pacific Coach Lines are in.
Showing someone a good time is not really a stretch.

Scott Hepworth, when discussing the Wynn fundraiser, reiterates the simplicity of giving. While acknowledging the amount of effort people put in, donating, amongst other things, hand-made quilts or care-given art creations for auction, he notes, “It was pretty minimum effort on our part. It’s so easy to bend over and help someone out, easier than stepping around them. After all, we’re all just a few shoe sizes away from being in that pair of boots.”

A philanthropist, according to an Imagine Canada report, is not so much a ‘donor’, but a champion, an advocate, or a volunteer. “Philanthropy is about more than money,” states the report. “It is also about time, passion and selflessness.”

As concludes Kerry Chalmers, “There has been a big shift in our world in the last three months. That shift is impacting people of all shapes and sizes in a variety or ways, but we’re a community, and we’re all in this together, so it makes sense to ask how can we give back? That’s cheesy. But hey, it is Christmas.”



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