Getting Real about Online Giving and Advisors

For the last episode of our Summer Series, Ed and Lisa are joined once again by Peggy Killeen. The three of them dive into the topic of donating online, and recent reports that indicate online giving is increasing. Ed breaks down why that might be, and the pros and cons of online donations vs mail donations. Later in the episode, Ed, Lisa, and Peggy discuss different types of advisors that fundraisers work with, and the role they play in the world of planned giving.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:10

All right, Peggy and Ed, sharpen your pencils here. I have a stat that I want to share with you. In the 2026 edition of the Canada Helps Giving Report that came out just in the last couple of weeks, uh, Canada Helps was giving an update on how online giving is continuing to evolve. And here is the stat that they shared up front that donations through Canada Helps, which is Canada's largest online giving platform, uh reached $529 million in 2025, which is up 10% or $47 million from the previous year. And they frame that further by saying this is the largest increase since the pandemic surge. So that's interesting. That's an interesting kind of leadoff number when we're talking about online giving. And I'd I'd love to hear what your kind of knee-jerk response is when you hear that for uh 2025 and amidst you know additional reports of declining generosity among Canadians, this seems to defy that that that in this aspect giving is increasing. Um and actually, so let's let's just talk about this before we go into some of the other comments that that the report makes about online giving. So um, Ed, what do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Well, I think it's interesting, and there's a couple of things that that are are I think this reflects, and some of the context, having not read the report, but having some of the context around it would be important. What I do know is that through 2025, and in fact, all the way back to 2024, there have been ongoing postal disruptions. Uh, which and one of the things that we do know about these ongoing postal disruptions, and this is the other context, is I understand that that has accelerated our movement away from utilizing direct mail engagement and people giving in that way. And we've seen it as well, rises in engagement through digital, um, digital activity, particularly in closed communities. And what do I mean by that? So there's the open community concept, which is you're you know connecting digitally through Facebook or Instagram, and you're just pushing content out. The closed community, people who decide, hey, I please send me more information. They actually give you their email address and say, send me more. And I think that that's likely is where we're seeing a rise in giving. Uh, people have not, you know, been trusting Canada Post. The fees are increasing in terms of utilizing Canada Post. I can quickly go online. Um, and there's two things about it, and I'll talk about the negative in a second. You know me, I've always got to bring a little bit of the rain on a sunny day, right?

SPEAKER_03 3:23

That's all right, I go.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

But you know, the the the fee for giving online is not noticed to us, right? If we want to send a hundred dollar check, we have to put it into an envelope and put a stamp on it. So there's a minimal fee to us, and that's been going up. Um, you know, first class stamp now. I think I can't, I don't even know because I don't use them, is over a dollar. Is that right for a free? Yeah, at least so but that's my fee. It's a hundred dollar donation. That's my fee. When I go online, I don't see that fee. I think it's free. Of course, it's not free. A quick calculation of $529 million given online, utilizing sort of the top-end credit card fee. It's probably a little over $15 million in fees were count were collected in all of those, uh, in all of those transactions, but the donor doesn't see it. So it feels better to the donor. The charity sees it on that that end of things. So uh this doesn't surprise me. Uh, I guess one last context I'd like to know is how does it fit within all of the other giving? Because of course, we've had this kind of up and down giving information generally across the board where people are donating more and more. You know, that's always been optimistic, even in the pessimistic side of this, right? Which is fewer donors are giving. And then you know, Lisa and Peggy, you've both heard me say, I don't believe that for a second. I think everybody gives, they're just not using their tax receipts, or they're not even asking for tax receipts. Um, so uh I but I do think it it's absolutely 100% the way the trend is going. Everything's going digitally, and I think that Canada Helps has been a wonderful resource for our partners in the charitable world to allow that to happen. There's no doubt about it. So I, you know, I'd love to see more information, but this is a great indicator that this is the way Canadians are going with their donations.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

Peggy, any any thoughts on that that you'd like to add?

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Well, I was actually just thinking a very uh like personal story. I have a uh a good friend um who's much older, um, will be you know in his late 80s now, and I he gives, I've known him for 15 years. He always gave by check. He and he still does to an extent. He will actually give a like give it to you personally to give to a charity or go there and and visit them, which I think is great. Then the pandemic happened, so then it was mailing checks, obviously. But then the like Ed said, the postal strike happened. And I remember saying to him, why don't you move to Canada Helps? He does use a computer, he does. So we set up an account for him, and since then he's done that, but he still insists on doing the big gifts with a check and going, this is local in Montreal, so he can actually go and visit their office and hand it to them because of exactly what you're saying, Ed. But I think this is the generation, of course, that's moving out. So the next generation, um, yeah, they're not gonna bother to do that, and they don't even want to get mail. I mean, he doesn't stop, he doesn't stop getting the mail. Half of what I do with him is just go through all the stuff that people send. It's incredible. But I think if you take him and he's quite a major donor, and I think of the fact that that he did nearly all these donations last year online through Canada Helps, I I can see why that it was much easier for him, and he really did not want to miss it with uh with the strikes. I'd also be curious, I have a question. Um, you know, how many how many donors is that, right? So it's amount of money and then the amount of donors. And I don't know whether they so so to to to what Ed was saying about we're supposed to be going down, at least from a tax receipt point of view, there's supposed to be less donors, right? So how many of those are high-end donors that maybe were giving by check, like my friend, and are now giving, doing even that big donation online.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Yeah, interesting. And and of course, Canada Health does have the full expanded report that they provide a lot more of the um data-driven detail. Um, I am definitely bringing forward kind of the key findings or the key headlines that that you know they're putting out there to start the discussion. And anyone who's interested in in diving deeper and getting some of the more detailed nitty-gritty, um, I think we can provide the link, you know, in our uh information of this episode to to help people locate that um for sure. So um I don't know exactly uh how you know it depends on on what data you want to pull exactly, but there is a lot more on the on the full expanded report.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

You know what I think everyone just again and Lisa, you're always bringing us back to the group that's perhaps listening to us, our colleagues working for charities. I I urge them all to do their own research. And I know that they are following the stats, but you know, how are people, how are your direct mail versus telemarketing versus digital going? Um, you know, are you seeing an increase in average gift digitally versus most of you are doing that, most folks are doing that. Um, a lot of times, though, it's being done for them by external vendors. Uh, do it yourself, kind of take a look, see and see how that's going. Keep a chart, keep keep um regular records of how this is going up and down. Um, and because I think uh and I think it's really a good idea simply because there are pressures on every charity. There are pressures to reduce costs, there are pressures to make sure that the return on investment uh remains the right uh level or the cost per dollar raised. And um there is resistance to move away from certain things, uh, like the most expensive way of raising funds through telemarketing, if you're doing well there, where perhaps digital engagement of this kind would be better for you, right? And I I guess what I mean by that, a lot of times charities are like, well, that's great for Canada Helps, and that's great for everybody else, but it won't work here. This is how we have to raise money. And uh follow your own stats, follow uh and test and all those sorts of things, because I do think it's a trend that we cannot deny. And um, and it's a this is a wonderful source of uh um, you know, for the sector to rely on, just so that they see the increases here.

SPEAKER_03 10:22

And I I'd like to just direct back quickly before I move on and and share another piece of the um of the report that stood out to me is Peggy's comment, and I think it's very accurate, and again, it it doesn't seem like rocket science. We're talking about the movement of generations of boomers and you know, Gen X coming behind and so on. Of course, this is you know, this is underway, this is happening, and there's implications of this across the board in terms of who uses what channels and and how that all um you know impacts giving. But just as I was thinking myself about checks, Peggy, like what amazes me is in how short a time it is that a check as a form of payment, whether it's a charitable donation or otherwise, has become almost redundant. You know, my daughters who are now 20 and almost 22, they've never had a checkbook. They don't even when when uh one of them got asked by their work for a um for a a check to use to set up their payroll, she was like, Mom, I don't what? Like what what is why would I have a check? Like who had you know, I really had to explain to her that, you know, in as recent as when they were younger, I still was using my checkbook all the time for things. And now I'd have to really go digging to find my checks. And I I just think it's such a tangible example of of a change, a culture shift um that has impacted philanthropy that has impacted, you know, it's it's just it's it's amazing and the shortness of that time frame, honestly. So so you you think of that in a in a 10-year, you know, time frame. What is this going to look like in another 10 years when that generation who were used checks and as a form of payment for most of their life or cash, you know, what does that mean to those channels?

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Who wanted checks? So the only check I made in the last like five or ten years, maybe every year, and and was my dentist. And he's just because he wanted a check, and he's retired now. So I haven't now I thought about it, I don't I don't think I've made a check.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

I will say that also that there are a lot of our charity partners out there, very sophisticated organizations raising lots and lots of money through sophisticated means, including securities gifts, who pay by check, who not their employees necessarily, but pay vendors. I know this, being a vendor to some of them, right? They still pay by check. So, yes, look, I mean, the postal disruption, and and I'm always you know aware we shouldn't necessarily call it a strike because it wasn't just the strike period, it was all the other disruptions that were going on. It was over 18 months, accelerated things. But it's up to our colleagues to understand this that this were disruption, there's no going back from it. That was something that happened, and of course, you know, some of the things that have signaled from Canada Post since then is you know, the end of door-to-door mail delivery uh is coming. Um, it now is the time to embrace the digital world. Now, I will I will say this on the digital side, which is um 20 years ago, 25 years ago, when we started talking about email as a way to kind of engage or digital to engage, particularly email, universities were always at the greatest advantage. They had, or independent schools, private schools at the greatest advantage. They had lots of email addresses, but others didn't. Now they've all caught up. They have all caught up, which is wonderful. Uh, and so there's there's a moment here where all the signals are in front of you. Time to move away from a certain type of engagement with your donor and move into a different type. Um, so and again, thankfully, there are folks out there like Canada Helps and various others who are providing us regular updates around how this is going and um and food for thought for for the whole sector about what we ought to be doing about this.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

100%. And I'm gonna I I know we could end there, but I I have one more thing I'd just like to share with the two of you and and just see what you think of this because Ed, you mentioned securities and Peggy, you mentioned numbers of donors. So here's uh another fact they shared that ties in both of those um factors. So uh under kind of the headline of the power of the few comes gifts of securities. And here's what was something that they noted that uh in the Canada Helps kind of giving bucket, less than half a percent of all donors, so less than 0.5% of all donors contributed more than $83 million in security gifts that accounted for 16% of the total giving on Canada Health. Okay, so and they identify this as being one of the most significant shifts in online fundraising, and they go on to talk a little bit about that. But I find that interesting, and and as you were doing a a very tidy wrap-up that I just ignored and kept going with, um, you know, what what does that say, you know, to our charity partners who aren't maybe perhaps part of the Canada Health platform because they have their own in-house things? But what does that say about a shift or attention being given to this previously considered more like really alternate way of giving? I mean, it's a very small percentage, but it's a very large piece of the pie, potentially. So is this something that you're seeing Ed? Like, is this, you know, were you prescient? Did you know that I was gonna come at you with this?

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Well, I there's a couple of things. So let's let's go back in history here. So in 1986, I joined uh a small army of university students who worked down on Bay Street who were couriers delivering stock certificates. And they were actual paper certificates, and they were given to a courier who walked from one building in downtown Toronto to another building in downtown Toronto with those stock certificates. Now, I I went there a long story, but I went there to get that job. I ended up not getting that job, getting a job on the options desk. Okay. I was an history, political science, and English major, and for some reason, within two or three weeks, I was involved in options trades on the U.S. market. Okay. That can still happen today. But the point is, not why I went down. I went down to follow these, and it was like there were cages, and these cages held these certificates. My God, it was it was like, I don't know, uh it was like working on the railroad or something, it was very archaic. Uh, at the time it was seemed very sophisticated, but it's now we think, oh my god, how did that happen? Fast forward to today, all of those transactions are done um instantaneously, and they're done digitally. And I think again, there's been a lag times, and I want to take us back to 10 years after uh say 1886.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

That's a lot of 1886, good.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

1996, when the Paul Martin government brought, or Paul Martin as finance minister, brought in this notion of gifting highly appreciated securities in Canada and being able to offset the capital gains tax and also receiving a tax receipt for the full value. Major gift people and charities generally wanted nothing to do with it. And this was handed over to plan giving professionals at the time because we were the asset people. We knew all about this. We got taxes. We don't, you know, the major gift folks were like, I don't know anything about this, keep it away from me. Again, fast forward 30 years later, here we are. Those make up the bulk and have made up the bulk of uh major gifts from individuals, you know, high highly appreciated securities coming over. So, what's that all mean, I suppose? I mean, a while ago is the idea of using uh that sort of tool for an annual fund donation and also making our regular contributions is commonplace now. And digital is commonplace, just like you were talking about. So this makes perfect sense to me that more and more um organizations, uh sorry, or individuals giving to organizations are doing this. And what Canada Helps is main focus and main job has always been to provide a technical technical platform for smaller charities to receive gifts online and securities gifts. So again, kudos to Canada Helps. They're by virtue of providing this tool, people are able to articulate this. And a lot of charities are still lagging behind. They don't really have securities gifts on their line of sight, they don't think about it. And thankfully, Canada Helps is pushing this into the new era. So um, for me, this is a natural extension of everything that uh charities ought to be doing, and it does show how strapped a lot of us are, and a lot of charities are, because they're not paying attention to it. Um Canada Helps allows them to. So this is a wonderful signal. Um, that because I would imagine smaller charities are benefiting from these donations. Of course, almost every large, this would be an interesting thing. Let's kick all the large charities off again. Yes, right.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

If you're five million plus, I'm not sure they're using it. I think because I know just from having a very small client in Montreal, and they don't have an investment broker. And if they did, they'd have to pay those people. So they don't want to do that. And when Canada Help started doing that, that was a game changer for them because they had donors asking them to do it and they weren't going to get the gift otherwise because they had savvy donors who knew that they had uh appreciated shares, but they couldn't give the money. So the fact that that option is now there. Uh through Canada Helps is a huge thing. And so I'm hoping and thinking that it is the small charities because they couldn't do it otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Yeah, I agree. I agree with you. And uh, you know, everything you just said is spot on, right? And um, and I do think, and we talked about this actually, Peggy, a while ago when we were talking about credit card charges and uh when you were on for an episode, and you said most large charities or most charities with large donors say don't do it that way. Send us a check. And most of the larger charities are engaged directly with donors when they're deciding to make this. So let's hope it's it's moving forward in this way. Again, there is a hidden fee to those small charities that they do not see, the or the donor thinks it's not there. And so, and I think the charities are turning a blind eye to it. There will be a fee.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

But at least you know it's a charity that's benefiting from those fees and not a um private investment firm.

SPEAKER_03 23:01

And can it and Canada Helps invites the donor to offset the fee as well if they want to in their donation? So there's a few ways to navigate around that. So interesting. And I like that idea of signals. You know, when we when we hear these reports, when we get these, you know, studies, um, we can look at them as signals. We don't have to take them just at face value. We can discuss them, we can look at circumstances that that lead to that, and we can look at learning points within them. So um thank you for this uh discussion, and it'll it'll be interesting. Digital will continue to be an interesting space in its impact in philanthropy. So we're gonna take a break and we'll be right back after this. A podcast brought to you by Ed Sluga, PG Growth. I'm Lisa McDonald and of Hillborne Charity eNews. And our guest joining us today is Peggy Kleen, part of the team at the with the PG Growth gang. Ed, you are wanting to talk about advisor fees.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yeah, and so uh I think it's really um an interesting moment to talk a little bit about advisors, advisor fees. I had the opportunity recently to speak in front of a Humber College um uh class taking uh international development and a lot uh like a lot of professional postgrad professional courses in uh working within certain types of organizations, um, international development in this particular case, but social work and various other groups, uh, there's always a little bit of a, you know, you might you might have to deal with fundraising moment. And so I was brought in to talk a little bit about fundraising, a little bit about plan giving. And uh I was asked specifically to talk a bit about advisors and how do advisors work within the plan giving world and why should we know about advisors? And that prompted me to think about um our partners, the advisor partners, and talk a little bit about how we work alongside of them. And for plan giving, of course, there are some obvious ones. And the most obvious one is a lawyer who helps a donor who is their client create a gift in their will to um to a charity or multiple charities, and that's sort of the standard one. But there are lots of other advisors doing lots of other things, which reminded me of some um uh some comments I had read about uh from a uh an investment advisor, but also a thought leader in the investment advising world, uh Jeremy Schneider, around this. And we've known for years that there are different ways for advisors to get paid. Um, and one way, of course, is um to charge you for products that you buy from them. And what Jeremy Schneider talks about is this this really interesting thing where the person giving you advice is also charging you for the things that you buy from them. So it's it feels self-serving. It might also almost feel like a conflict of interest. Um, now no advisor would stay in business very long if they just kept on selling you things you didn't need, but that's the industry uh position on it. Don't know if that's necessarily true, but there you go. The other another way is um being uh remunerated with from assets under investment. So if a big pool of capital is under investment by this individual advisor or the group that they work with, um they take fees from that big group of funds. The bigger the group of funds is, the or the pool of funds, the bigger the fees are.

SPEAKER_03 27:21

And in this case, Ed, you're talking about financial advisors as opposed to lawyers that were in your financial.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yes, correct. Yeah, sorry if I hadn't been clear about that. Talking about financial advisors, of course, there's a final way that they get charged, financial advisors, is by just charging you a flat fee for advice, a flat fee to meet with them, or flat fee to be their client. They'll charge you X per year in that way. And it made me think about some of the ways that charities partner with advisors of this kind. And of course, these advisors are reaching out to us all the time, and we know lots of them. I have great respect for many of them. For some of them, I'm wondering about what's going on. And so here are two ways that they often reach out to us. One is um they provide a service where they'll give you, you know, or come into your organization and do a uh an estate planning or financial planning seminar or webinar. And I, you know, there's a reason why they keep coming and talking to your charity about this. It's because they are trying to uh engage, yes, with your donors, and then hopefully they will become their clients. So just remember that. I'm gonna talk a little bit more about that in a second. The other area, of course, is donor advice funds. And most of the people who are working in both of those areas are getting paid in one or the other of the two ways that Jeremy Schneider says you should try and avoid. Either they are charging for transactions or they are getting fees from an accumulated pool of assets. Sometimes they're getting paid in both ways. And so it's important for us as charities when we're thinking about financial planners, financial advisors, and that group, that we do our due diligence. We find good people who understand what their role ought to be. And we also partner with them in a really incredibly um transparent way in telling them what we expect from them and actually getting from them commitments about what we expect that we'll give to them and that they'll get back from us. And I think that this is not done to the greatest degree that we can in charities. We often just um default to the financial planner that is either most persistent or, and this is an unfortunate situation, that might be on their board of directors. Um, and that is in a tremendous conflict of interest. And I won't go too deeply into that, but just remember that financial advisors, they want to get paid for the work that they're doing, and they should get paid for the work that they're doing. There's no doubt about it. But it does lead to circumstances that we've talked about before. Um, most recently, an exchange I had, and I mentioned this before with Malcolm Burroughs through LinkedIn. Malcolm Burroughs, head of and founder of the Aqueduct Foundation, talking about how donor-advised funds held within private foundations, particularly from some of the bank-run private giving foundations, do not have any regulation on them. They do not have to give dollars away. A lot of them are taking great pains to make sure dollars are given away. But what was missed in the fine print of Malcolm's statement was a lot of chair, a lot of those private giving foundations find it administratively difficult to actually um disperse gifts. So they don't. So they might default to a moment of feeling it's complex and complicated and not worth their time. So it's just when we're working as charities, and and just one final note around that you are seeing greater gifts from donor advice funds, and they're working harder to engage with them. And I do think there are good actors out there in the marketplace who are doing their best to be engaged with those charities. But just remember how they're all paid and make sure that we're aligning with the group, the folks that make the most amount of sense for our charity. We did in a previous segment talk a little bit about Canada Helps and their approach to giving and the comfort that we can all take from the fact that um they're a charity themselves, and they're governed as a charity, and they're the support, so uh support the charitable sector. So um just remember that there are there are alternatives out in the marketplace that we can trust as a charity, be proactive and engaging, understanding, um, understanding the way financial planners are and those associated with them are remunerated. Make sure that we've got the best people on our side, not the newest people, not the loudest people, not the most persistent people, but the best people for our charity. Uh, no matter how those financial planners are connected with us, and I can go all day into the conflict of interest I've seen out there over the course of the years. Uh, we need to do what's right for our donors and what is ethically and morally the best position as well. So again, I think that um uh fundraising is becoming more complex uh around this. Uh and I think it's more and fundraisers have to be better situated to deal with these ever-growing complex and overlaying issues.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

That's my I I feel well, I and I have some thoughts. I feel like that's you've just delivered a bit of a public service announcement, Ed, just as a reminder, you know, of doing our due diligence and and you know, making sure we're understanding all the fine print, as you say. But I before I kind of jump in with what I'd like to comment, I'm I'm wondering just Peggy, what your experience has been. You've you know, you're you're on the boots on the ground working with a lot of small charities and others and and you know, managing relationships, liaising, you know, with advisors. What what's your experience been? Or what do you what do you think about Ed's comments in this you know context?

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Well, I think there's a couple of things. One is my direct experience when I was working at a charity, and that I'll now use when I'm talking to people who work in charities as a cautionary tale, is that um, you know, often um these kinds of uh advisors, whether they be legal or financial, are the ones on your board. They're often recruited onto boards, as Ed said, but they're also the ones who want a gift, uh a plant giving committee, right? And uh, you know, we won't even go into plant giving committees. I'm not crazy about plank giving committees. Um, but one of the things is to be able to sort of stop people in their tracks is to say, that's great. Uh, you know, that as an advisor, you won't be able to work with any of our donors because that is a conflict of interest. So making that clear right from the beginning and having it as part of the understanding of your board members' role and having your executive director understand that they have to say that. It has to be said so that you don't offend somebody later when you tell them. So say it up front, and suddenly there's not so much interest in that kind of work. But uh for sure that that's that's one of the things. Um, and then gift acceptance policies, which as Ed knows, we're we're very um interested in people having very thorough gift acceptance policies, especially around um legacy gifts, because of you know the the complexity sometimes of them. But in those policies, we can also put things about um fees, finders' fees. There was there's all sorts of issues around um commission and fees, but we could also we could also be more diligent about what we put in our gift acceptance policies and how we work with our donors and what we advise our donors. Um the third thing would be that um Ed, you were talking about the DAFs, and um you know that the CRGP Foundation did put out a report on DAFs, but one of the things that they do recommend, and again, all we can do is recommend, but the more that we advocate for this, the better, is that um that I'm gonna just read a bit, is to be transparent. So this is two, this is uh uh the the two-pager that's actually directed at professional advisors, financial advisors, um, disclose benefit fees or other forms of compensation to donors, so asking that that you you disclose everything, um, that you avoid commission-based structures that could influence your advice, and you address potential conflicts of interest and provide clarity, especially when acting as the investment manager of the DAF for the DAF Foundation while managing a client's assets. So, an acknowledgement that that is happening, um, but you know, uh, we want to try maybe later on we get we have uh you know, we have the ethical AFP has ethical um guidelines, CHP has ethical guidelines, maybe we want to, you know, develop further.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

And if I can jump into that, and I I totally understand and agree uh with those ethical guidelines and that transparency, but I will be clear and and I think obvious here that the charity has nothing to do with what's going on here because it's the charities if the if someone were to come to me and I was working at a charity and they said I'd love to start a DAF for the charity. Um do you who do you which advisor would you suggest? I would say, why don't you just endow it here? You know, why would you do that? Um, now of course, some of the DAFs are as low as $10,000, which endowment we have standard charities. Endowments tend to be $100,000 plus because the administrative fees. And by the way, that's the onerous part of some DAFs not dispersing out because the administrative reporting fees are expensive. And for a $10,000 DAF, it's not quote unquote worth it to the DAF holder. So that transparency that you're talking about, uh Peggy, is absolutely important. But it I have to say, we have to assume that charity has nothing to do with that conversation. That's a financial planner speaking to their client, and the donor, if it's brought the charity, if it's brought up in the conversation at all, uh, would be you know driven by the donor. I'd like it all to go to XYZ charity. Um so, so what I you know, and I hopefully lots of our financial planning and financial advising uh friends and colleagues are taking that on, and I they probably are taking it on.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

Well, that's the hope. I mean, I think it's advocacy amongst those people, and we've always said the people we normally work with as you know, gift planners are hopefully the kind of people who will do the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Uh yes, they they are. I I agree, they're probably the kind all the all the kind of things. But that's why we need to keep advocating.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

We need to do the and we need to do the same with charities and have our charity people understand that you can't bring a person, your board, you know, your uh leadership that you can't bring board members on who are financial advisors and then use them. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

That's why I'm trying to talk about the things we can control. We can't control that conversation that happens between the between the financial advisor, no matter how they're remunerated, and their client. We have nothing to do with that, nor should we. That's that's a no-go. But what I'm talking about is just make sure that if we're partnering, if we're connecting, if we're allowing into our into our um into our private data, frankly, and our our relationships with our donors, that we're doing it with the right folks who are remunerate remunerated in the way that we believe will be best for our group. And um, you know, that's that's something that's really important. Look, I won't get into the fact that um, you know, this conflict of interest, as you say, Peggy, rightly, almost every board has at least one, if not many, um, professionals who are not in direct conflict of interest, but are representing organizations that could, you know, that have their own charitable number, essentially. And if we would said, you know, we're the hospital foundation, so I want the executive director or fundraiser from another hospital foundation to be on our board, we would say, no, they can't be. They're in conflict of interest. Now, why are they in conflict of interest? Because they have their own charitable number and they want those donors there. That's true of anyone that's got is connected to a place that's got its own charitable number. That's an interesting moment and and one that we're not going to tackle today, nor will we tackle anytime soon, um, for lots of different reasons. But um, yeah, it's it's what can we control, make sure we control it in and and I can talk about organizations I've been in where the opposite is in in fact the reality, that the the professionals have lost control and it's in the hands instead of of uh professional advisors instead of the professional managers and fundraisers of the organization.

SPEAKER_03 41:48

Well, this is what I would say, my my little comment or bird's eye comment on on this discussion was going to be is that I find it um a very interesting kind of uh continuum of communication, collaboration, and partnership that has happened, again, even over the last 10 years between philanthropy, charitable organizations, and professional advisors. You know, um 10 years ago, a lot of the communication I was I was working with organizations who were trying to educate professional advisors about philanthropy and how to get engaged. There was some recognition that that there was, you know, benefit to this type of marriage or partnership between the two, because there was a common aim in terms of clients and fulfilling their you know philanthropic dreams and their legacy and all of that that that seemed like a natural fit between the two. So, so 10 years ago, eight, seven years ago, with those were some of the tone and tenure of conversations, how the two fit together. Well, now here we are. And particularly in, you know, the world that you, Ed and Peggy are working in, um, there the the collaboration is there, the marriage is there, the partnerships are there, and now we're trying to establish, you know, the the ground rules and and make sure that everyone is playing, you know, ethically in the sandbox and uh all of that. So, you know, these we aspire as a sector to form more valuable partnerships, to lean on collaborations towards the bigger good, to leverage, you know, the kind of knowledge and and uh audiences for the good of the clients, the donors, and and philanthropy in general. But it's it's not it's not without its challenges, is it? And and that's Ed, where you kind of had brought the the point to, because um, there is a matter of trust as always that exists in philanthropy. And there is trust around the table that people are coming and and doing their part to maintain the ethical considerations of what is happening. And trust becomes more tenuous when there's money involved. And that uh is is just a fact.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

Yeah, and I think the other part of this, and and getting back to Jeremy's kind of point about this, right? Which is, and look him up, he's a really interesting guy. He's got a uh a firm that actually connects uh fee-based advisors, not transaction-based, but fee-based advisors with with clients called Nectarine. Um, and uh, you know, the the point is about trust, and the point is about understanding. And um, you know, there are more and more organizations on the financial side seeing the opportunity when it comes to donor advice funds and rushing into the space, and it is going to be more and more prevalent, and um, they are going to be coming to more and more charities and offering their service to speak to their donors so that they can turn them into their clients. And um, we need to be um not I will pull back and say a lot of times a lot of these financial professionals can seem extraordinarily sophisticated, super smart, very flashy, and they and they present to a lot of our charity colleagues as someone who is uniquely qualified, very sophisticated, understands the financial sector, and perhaps um out of our league a little bit, right? And this is what you and I, Peggy, talked about with some of the presentations we talked about, being at the table. A lot of advice other advisors, if we're a charitable advisor to the individual, a lot of the other advisors don't want us at the table, right? Um, and partly it's because they don't feel that we have the qualifications to be there. Of course, we do have the qualifications. Not everybody does, just like a lot of those advisors don't have the qualifications to be there. Um, and we kind of defer to them on occasion. We can't, we can't do that. And we have to present ourselves as full partners and equal partners and in control of the relationship uh with our donors, right? There are lots of ways for them to get to our donors. They can go to our annual report and look at all of our major donors if we've listed them there and just give them all a call. We don't have to offer introductions to them unless it's right. But there are more and more charities feeling this pinch, and I think there's more and more charity uh reality out there, which is it's something we have to go along with. Um, and and by the way, we don't, I mean, we can we can bring these folks into our sphere in on our terms, and for me, that's the most important part of the learning from from Jeremy Schneider, his and his thoughts around all of this. And by the way, find fee-based advisors, ones who will charge their clients a flat fee for advice, and then bring them in, and it solves the problem. Not well, not that there will be a problem, it solves any potential problem by saying this will no one's trying to sell you anything, people are trying to help you with your own vision for the future, getting right back to something we talked about earlier, which is about legacy. How do we help them with that?

SPEAKER_03 47:55

And on that note, I think we will call it a day. Thank you, Peggy Colleen. Thank you, Ed Sluga. It's always a pleasure to have these discussions. We are we are getting real on a bunch of topics um that have to do with philanthropy in Canada and working at charities in Canada. And uh it's really it's always interesting to unpack some of these uh ideas and some of these topics and and uh get the feedback on how this impacts those who are working in it, those who are donating to it, and those who aspire perhaps to um to get more involved and and see where they can make a difference.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

Thank you, Lisa. Thanks, Peggy.

SPEAKER_03 48:38

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

Thank you.