An exciting new chapter begins for Canada Gives
If you’re visiting our website for the first time, or the first time in a while, you’ll notice more than a few changes. In recent months, our team has been working overtime not only helping you or your family manage their charitable giving portfolio, but also embarking on an ambitious reimagining of the Canada Gives brand.
Our mission as a registered charity is to ensure the greatest flow of donations to the charitable sector as possible. Doing so requires building and maintaining strong client relationships, while running a tight administrative ship. But our long-term strategic plan is to steadily increase our giving footprint by bringing on new clients, strengthening ties with existing ones, and solidifying partnerships with third-party referral sources such as accountants, lawyers and financial planners. Many of our best relationships have been developed through referrals from friends and advocates of our organization.
Along the way we realized that for us to achieve that goal, our brand would need to evolve to better reflect our reputation as a leading boutique service provider in the industry. More importantly, we understood that helping our clients create meaningful change in the world meant positioning our organization for future growth and success.
So, we embarked on an extensive research process, interviewing clients and partners to better understand what Canada Gives means to them, and seeking new ways to serve them better. What they told us is that we provide the flexibility, accessibility and accountability they need to build high-impact foundations designed to achieve their long-term charitable goals. In other words, we make giving easy, so they can focus their attention on creating a lasting legacy.
Simple, powerful philanthropy
We asked them to help us highlight why working with Canada Gives makes sense. They explained how important it is that Canada Gives helps philanthropists establish a foundation in only a day, compared to nearly a year if they tried to set up a private foundation. They love the fact that our Global Giving program allows them to support their preferred causes abroad, not to mention the fact that we handle all administrative duties associated with managing a Canada Gives Foundation account, including disbursements. They can also reap instantaneous tax benefits when setting up a foundation. Best of all, they can choose who manages the assets in their portfolio, such as their personal accountant or investment manager.
We encapsulated all of that valuable feedback in a new tagline:
Canada Gives—At the heart of your philanthropy
We believe it sums up our mission, our role in helping philanthropists achieve their goals, and it’s also short and sweet enough to fit neatly on a business card. What more could we ask for?
A revitalized look and feel
You’ll see that our website offers a fresh new user experience with a focus on simple navigation, condensed information and calls to action to help philanthropists connect with our team members as they take the next step in their giving journey. We’ve retained our trademark maple leaf imagery—because an organization with ‘Canada’ in its name is really best defined by our national emblem—while also incorporating classic 18th and 19th century botanical imagery. Why, you might ask?
Because part of being a philanthropist means not only growing assets in a foundation, but also growing as a person or as a family. It’s about enjoying the personal rewards that come with giving back and watching your donations transform the local community, and beyond. We felt that imagery denoting both plants taking root, and bearing the fruits of the planter’s labour, were an effective way to convey that message.
The future is bright
Stay tuned for a lot more in the months ahead. We’re in the process of building an entirely new social media presence, as well as a news and insights page on our website where we’ll be posting more articles such as this one. We’ll be offering our thought leadership on everything from donor advised fund structures and tax planning for entrepreneurs, to advice on navigating the complexities of international philanthropy and updates on legislative developments that may impact how, when or where you give. What excites us most is the new platform we have to tell our clients’ stories. We’ll be creating content that reflects their philanthropic work and how it’s benefited the causes closest to their heart.
For us, a new look and feel, combined with a re-energized communications effort, is all part of a dynamic initiative to help our existing and prospective clients become even greater at doing good. It’s about reminding them that smart philanthropy can deliver real results, and that our platform can be their foundation for creating real, meaningful change.
It’s an exciting time here at Canada Gives, and we can’t wait to take the next step in our journey as an organization.
Denise Castonguay, President
Canada Gives
