The Robertson Building

CanadaHelps (Suite 330) is about creating innovative ways to connect donors with charities so that Canadians can do their part to help boost organizations working to improve the community for all of us. We sat down with Executive Director Owen Charters to find out how last year a staff of five was able to get a whopping twenty million dollars into the hands of charities.

The secret seems to be a combination of innovative technology and a handful of dedicated people who not only keep the well oiled machine running, but constantly develop new ways to make giving as easy and fun as possible.

The whole operation got started when three creative students at Queen’s University with business and web development backgrounds applied advanced software tools to the act of charitable giving. As Owen recounted “there is a legend behind the founding, we’re not sure whether it’s true or not, that one of the students was sitting in church and the collection plate came along. He didn’t have any coins and thought this is crazy, the world is online why couldn’t I give online? That was where the concept came from: why not create a portal online that lets you give to any charity in Canada.” The founding team was able to convince most of the major banks in Canada that this was an idea worth backing and with their support got the project off the ground. The basic concept of giving online wasn’t necessarily a brand new idea, but the difference was that it would be executed by a non-profit organization and the list of Canadian charities would be completely comprehensive.

CanadaHelps works closely with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and within a month of a charity registering with the CRA they are downloaded to the CanadaHelps database. The charity is then immediately included on any search done by a visitor to the site making them accessible for online donations. Charities can also register on the site and access their own listing to create a profile and increase the amount of information posted. As Owen explains “that is part of the secret right there, the democratization of giving. You can give to any charity - there are no limits.” CanadaHelps creates no restrictions to who is listed on the site and this level of inclusiveness makes the online giving experience really unique.

Not only can donors find the charity they are looking for, but charities can find each other. With over 83,000 registered charities in Canada, the landscape can be hard to navigate and a common criticism of the sector is that there are often overlaps in services and efforts because people simply don’t know what’s out there. Owen suggests that the site is also used by concerned folks who are considering starting a charity and want to know if in fact there is a way they can become involved in their cause of choice without necessarily having to reinvent the wheel.

Another key difference between CanadaHelps and other online donating services is that they are themselves operating as a charity. “We turned the model upside down. Everyone else who was providing services to this sector were for-profit companies who were in it to make money. Their fees were higher because they had to fund a large sales force of people to sell their product. As a charity we’re cheap and based on an accessibility model, the whole idea is just to cover the cost necessary to run the site and manage the transactions.” In the first year of operation, the site pulled in $150,000 in donations. As it grew, and technological requirements increased, CanadaHelps hired a professional staff to manage the growing operation that was quickly achieving overall donations in the millions. There is now an Executive Director, the website development is managed in-house, and there is someone working full-time on outreach.

CanadaHelps has carefully crafted their site to be completely self-serve -you don’t need a large sales force to sell what we do. You can do everything you need to do and it’s designed to be accessible and convenient. We’re always trying to improve on that model and keep to those principles. Once certain charities got into it and saw that it was successful for them, it just snowballed.”

The site has increasingly grown in popularity with little traditional marketing in place. It has clearly struck the right chord with the public and in making the experience truly interactive with features like gift cards and peer-to-peer giving people are becoming excited about going online and spending their money on something that matters. Furthermore, giving online in general has increased in popularity in the last few years being endorsed by politicians and utilized for huge disaster relief programs after incidents like 9/11. Owen explains that “the growth we are seeing is representative of the trends that we’ve witnessed in the US and elsewhere, which shows online giving going through the roof. People are starting to trust it and see that this is really the easiest way to give the gift.” The trends are also showing that although there was more charitable giving last year than ever before, fewer people are actually giving. Huge donations are being made to major institutions and the challenge for CanadaHelps is to be sure that the smaller grassroots organizations are getting the representation they need to draw from the pool of donations.

As the holiday season approaches, CanadaHelps is working on getting the word out about the Gift Cards feature of their website. Instead of trying to figure out what charity a colleague or client might support they are given a gift card that can be donated to the charity of their choice. It’s like a community-minded shopping spree. It is also a good indication of the kind of development the organization will be working on as they move forward. “Our future is all about building new tools and ways of keeping people engaged in the act of giving. We are always coming up with new ideas of how the site could be used and our development team is running to catch up with our dreams.”

Photo Caption: CanadaHelps staff (left to right) Systems Architect Rene-B Ramkhelawan, Executive Director Owen Charters, Director of Program Development Zenia Wadhwani, and Charity + Donor Liason Kirstin Beardsley.

www.canadahelps.org