{"id":799,"date":"2016-12-02T14:41:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T22:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/id2.ca\/HARMONY-new\/?p=799"},"modified":"2021-09-28T15:10:22","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T22:10:22","slug":"strengthening-canadian-charities-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/id2.ca\/HARMONY-new\/strengthening-canadian-charities-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Strengthening Canadian Charities (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u2014 What Can Individuals Do to Better Support Charities? <\/strong>
Lanlin Bu, Michael Bloomfield, and Adrian Southin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowledge is power. Tell your friends and colleagues about the problems highlighted in our recent paper \u201cUnleashing the Power of Canadian Charities<\/strong>\u201d, and encourage government and corporations to remedy those problems. At the same time, we can all take actions to directly help charities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can we do in our own life to help charities?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Re-examine our giving.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On average, Canadians donate $531 (CAD) 1<\/a><\/sup> to charity, while Americans give $1,201 (USD). 2<\/a><\/sup> Many of us can afford to give more support to the charities that keep our water clean, help those in need, run our hospitals and fight for social justice. Even if you can\u2019t give more, you can help in other ways. Learn more about the charities you\u2019re supporting and get involved. Online resources like the CRA database (http:\/\/www.cra-arc.gc.ca\/chrts-gvng\/lstngs\/menu-eng.html<\/a>) provide financial and operational information for many charities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Volunteer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Volunteers are essential for many charities to delivering their services. More volunteers mean that charities can offer more benefit to your community and all Canadians. Contact an organization you support directly, or find a listing for volunteer opportunities online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Consumer Awareness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s important to support companies that invest in society and are good corporate citizens. Just as we expect corporations to respect human rights, maintain safe workplaces and protect the environment, we also should expect them to generously contribute to the arts, education, and social wellbeing. After all, through our tax dollars, businesses are given lots of support including research and development grants, training and access to infrastructure. It\u2019s only fair that Canadians and the communities they live in get a return on their investment. RBC\u2019s Blue Water Project 3<\/a><\/sup> is a good example of an effort to improve the world, where self-promoting schemes like Amazon Smile 4<\/a><\/sup> take away from sincere giving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A strong civil society is vital to a healthy democracy, giving voice to concerned Canadians. These voices help ensure fairness and justice for all. Let\u2019s make sure these organizations are well equipped and not being held back from achieving their potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charities are too important to be put at risk by short-term political or economic trends. Governments, corporations and the public need to be more supportive in meaningful ways if we truly value the many services charities provide to Canadians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full research paper \u201cUNLEASHING THE POWER OF CANADIAN CHARITIES<\/strong>\u201d from http:\/\/harmonyfdn.ca\/?page_id=2756<\/a><\/p>\n

  1. Canada<\/em>. 2015. 4.[↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  2. Link to: http:\/\/nccs.urban.org\/nccs\/statistics\/Charitable-Giving-in-America-Some-Facts-and-Figures.cfm<\/a>[↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  3. Link to: http:\/\/www.rbc.com\/community-sustainability\/environment\/rbc-blue-water\/index.html<\/a>[↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  4. Link to: http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/brady-josephson\/why-amazon-is-smiling-and_b_4360405.html<\/a>[↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \u2014 What Can Individuals Do to Better Support Charities? Lanlin Bu, Michael Bloomfield, and Adrian Southin Knowledge is power. Tell your friends and colleagues about the problems highlighted in our recent paper \u201cUnleashing the Power of Canadian Charities\u201d, and encourage government and corporations to remedy those problems. At the same time, we can all take actions … <\/p>\n

    Read more “Strengthening Canadian Charities (Part 2)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/id2.ca\/HARMONY-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/id2.ca\/HARMONY-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/id2.ca\/HARMONY-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id2.ca\/HARMONY-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id2.ca\/HARMONY-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/id2.ca\/HARMONY-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":807,"href":"https:\/\/id2.ca\/HARMONY-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions\/807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id2.ca\/HARMONY-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/id2.ca\/HARMONY-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id2.ca\/HARMONY-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id2.ca\/HARMONY-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}