That's my normal style. Can you tell that I have a little passion for what I get to do every day? I will slow down, sorry.
We have an 84% brand recognition. ParticipAction is a Canadian icon, and it is an amazing iconic brand.
Let me tell you about our more recent history. When I took over ParticipAction, it was just about to be relaunched. We had no employees, no office, no processing systems, and no strategy. In two years, we have taken something that was simply a brand and have recreated an organization. We have achieved several successes, and I'd just like to go through a few of those.
We've raised in excess of $10 million cash from the private sector and therefore leveraged the federal government moneys. We've raised in excess of $20 million of in-kind moneys from the private sector, again leveraging federal moneys. We've touched over 10 million Canadians.
We have established a ParticipAction partner network. I believe this truly should be our legacy. In my sector, there's a lot of competition, as opposed to working together to marshal resources to work most efficiently together. So we have been working with organizations right across our sector so that we actually take one plus one and come up with 10.
We have been able to deploy programs to over 1,000 communities. Our job is to use our iconic brand to attract dollars to our sector. We deploy resources and dollars back out to the sector, to the community organizations from coast to coast to coast where the expertise and the passion exists, and we really help create demand for programs that currently exist.
We have been in every one of the 13 provinces and territories. I know that lots of organizations say they're national. We truly are.
One of our programs, for example, is youth-based, the most vulnerable population when it comes to physical inactivity. I would be sitting with kids in Iqaluit, saying, “You know what? You can carry the torch in the 2010 Winter Olympics.” We've been able to leverage the Olympics. ParticipAction is involved with that. We have worked with blue-chip organizations--Sun Life, Loblaw, Wilson, Forzani, Coca-Cola--to leverage those.
Quite often when I have conversations with folks from the federal government they ask me, “Well, if you're so good at raising private moneys, why do you need the federal government?”
I can tell you that I've met with the CEOs of several of these blue-chip companies, and they always ask, “Are you endorsed by the federal government?” They need to know that we are in fact endorsed and funded by the federal government. The $5 million will be a reduced percentage of our total budget, but we need long-term sustainable funding from the government in order to attract those private sector dollars.
The last point I would make is that clearly I have passion. I love what I get to do. I'm very proud of the team that I get to work with every day. We would work our tails off, just as we have for the last two years, to make the federal government proud as well.