Finance committee  So I'm not sure that any of us could bring....

Finance committee  It's putting the pressure on the organizations to raise more money and to diversity and be more creative and innovative and to employ out-of-the-box thinking on how they're going to raise money, yes.

Finance committee  I think Dennis—

Finance committee  Of course, the definition of charity is embedded in the income tax law and there are four heads to that: relief of poverty, and—

Finance committee  I would reiterate my earlier anecdotal comment about the United Way of Calgary and the immediate effect that the elimination of capital gains had on its campaign. It reached its goal in a much shorter period of time. Up until late 2008, gifts of securities were very significant,

Finance committee  There's certainly more pressure on the charities to raise money from other sources to diversify their revenue base. Whether they do that through a combination of earned revenues, social enterprise, or philanthropic or corporate support, the broader your base, the more stability y

Finance committee  I don't see any disadvantages to using mobile giving. In fact we recently completed a study on fundraising practices and found that the vast majority of organizations use up to eight different methodologies to raise money. The reality is that people give in different ways. Some

Finance committee  I think the number would be very low because it's so new, but it is catching on.

Finance committee  My response to that would be that the stretch tax credit, which I'd like to go back on record as saying would be our first choice, would benefit small to medium charities more than it would benefit the larger, well-known charities, such as hospitals and universities. The removal

Finance committee  Unfortunately, we don't have quantified numbers on that, other than knowing that a study was done in the year after the capital gains was completely lifted, and the number of gifts of securities doubled and the value of those gifts far more than doubled. Anecdotally, in my own

Finance committee  No, I don't. I think the costs would decrease. It's not about efficiency; it's about effectiveness.

Finance committee  The question about how much charities spend to raise money, is that what you're really getting at?

Finance committee  I'd like to be able to say it's x%, but it's much more complicated than that. The CRA has come out with fundraising guidelines. They may look at anything over 35%. There are all kinds of qualifications that even they recognize around that. It's just simply the maturity, the size,

Finance committee  Actually, no, I don't think they are. I think that incentivizing any kind of giving is a positive thing, because increased philanthropy encourages more philanthropy. In fact in Canada in the text-giving scenario, we're way behind Europe and Southeast Asia and any of those countr

Finance committee  I can comment on the Gift Aid program. One of the reasons, and probably the essential reason, it has been very successful is that it's done through payroll tax giving in the U.K. It all comes off at source, so it's very different than the taxation system that we have here in Cana