Following my Father’s Plan

Laurie Ball feels a deep sense of responsibility towards charitable giving. Because of her father’s failing health with dementia, she has taken on the responsibility of managing his legacy of generosity alongside her own donations. Managing her father’s financial affairs is a big responsibility for Laurie, but her father prepared her well. In addition to his engineering career, he invested in the stock market.

“A lot of people don’t feel comfortable investing in stocks, so I feel really lucky my dad got me interested early on,” says Laurie.

The Ball family had a tradition of giving back, and Laurie’s father often discussed donating publicly traded securities to charity. “My dad always talked about donating shares and said the government had an excellent program I should look into,” says Laurie. She did not immediately follow her father’s advice, but as time went by, she realized the value of it.

When Laurie became her father’s Power of Attorney, he walked her through his investments and charitable donations. At tax time, she worked with an accountant to prepare her father’s income tax return. He had significant capital gains, so his accountant recommended donating publicly traded securities both to save on taxes and to continue her father’s tradition of charitable giving.

Making a Generosity Plan

“That was how I found Abundance Canada,” says Laurie. She worked with Abundance Canada to create a Generosity Plan™. “My experience with Abundance Canada was very professional and supportive. It was almost like they held my hand throughout the whole process,” says Laurie.

On behalf of her father, Laurie suggested that his Generosity Plan support charities he had personal connections with. After her father’s diagnosis, the Alzheimer’s Society had been especially influential, and a family member with autism motivated ongoing support for special needs charities. Laurie and her dad even got to witness the impact of their donations when a new program opened at their local Alzheimer’s Society branch.

Having seen how the Generosity Plan was helping her father give more effectively, Laurie reached out to Abundance Canada and set one up for herself as well. 

Having a Plan Makes a Difference to Those We are Supporting

Though Laurie is still volunteering for hospital auxiliary groups and constantly responding to charity appeals, having a Generosity Plan has changed how she thinks about giving. She says, “I’m used to writing cheques, but those are small amounts and they’re so irregular. I feel that when we can donate stocks and have a giving plan, it makes a lot of difference to charities.”

“I would encourage people to look at their charitable giving,” she recommends. “Think about planning forward and see what they can do to help other people.”

When asked if she thinks her generosity will change the world, Laurie says humbly, “I don’t even feel that what I give is all that generous. To me, this is just sharing what I have. It’s being grateful… I just want to see the money put to good use helping people, and I think that’s how my dad feels too.”