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business elite canada
H
JUNE 2014
or approaching people for
donations, often to give to
charities of which they have
never heard of before. Bea-
ton acknowledges this is a
daily dilemma that interferes
with the free spirit of giving
to a worthy charity.
“We’ve all been ap-
proached at the cash register
at some point while making a
purchase to give to a charity
that we often haven’t heard
of, and must make a quick de-
cision about giving, for which
there will be no way to receive
any tax benefit – although us-
ers of course feel good about
donating something. This hap-
pened to me one time, and I
saw it as a great opportunity
to talk about the ChangeIt
program to the cashier. She
was very intrigued by it, and
told me that she disliked ask-
ing people and they didn’t
like being asked. This is a clas-
sic example that most North
Americans can relate to.”
On the tax side of things,
there is a real benefit in the
ChangeIt system for donors
and charities.
The 2013 Polaris study also
indicated that 71 per cent of
Canadians said they donated
money to charity; however
there was an alarming statis-
tic published from the Cana-
da Revenue Agency suggest-
ing that less than 24 per cent
of Canadians file charitable
donations as part of their an-
