Generosity Lives On (Part Two)

Mike and Carol and Kids

In Part One of this blog series, we looked at the advantages of giving to charity in your will. Part Two explores how one couple’s carefully planned legacy of giving is teaching a new generation to be generous. Throughout their 53 years together, Mike and Carol Dempsey* nurtured strong family ties with their children and…

Read More

Generosity Lives On (Part One)

Mike and Carol

Warren Buffet once said, “If you’re in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%.” Hearing this from a billionaire philanthropist may prompt comparisons that make it difficult to think of ourselves as the ‘luckiest’, but an annual net income of $41,800 CAD is…

Read More

Minimizing Taxes, Maximizing Generosity

Two men meet over coffee

Ralph lost his wife to cancer. When he stopped into our office with a cheque to top up his Gifting Fund™, he was still working through the tangle of emotions and practical tasks such life events bring. I invited him into my office to have a coffee and catch up. As Ralph and I chatted,…

Read More

Upsize Your Giving: 5 Ways You Can Make a Bigger Impact

Upsize your giving

Anna* was ready to downsize a lot of things in her life. At 75 years old and widowed, she knew she was better off making changes while she could still manage everything. After some careful planning, she began scaling back her house, her vehicle, and even her extensive volunteer commitments. Meanwhile, her charitable giving happened…

Read More

Dream Big…And Then What?

Couple excited about their dream

Is It Enough to Dream Big? The night before bone cancer took his right leg, Terry Fox lay in a hospital bed reading a magazine article about an amputee running the New York Marathon. That night, he dreamed of running across Canada and beating cancer forever. And what a dream it was. Thanks to Terry’s…

Read More

How to Make a Bigger Impact

farmer with corn

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year, he won the award for the best grown corn. One year, a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about his growing practices. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbours. “How can you afford to share your…

Read More

Landscaping Your Generosity

chestnut tree

The light streaming through a crack in the shades woke me earlier than I would have liked. I padded downstairs and brewed some coffee. The bright sun was already heating the house, so I took my cup to the backyard in search of some shade and a bit of breeze. The best I could find…

Read More

Spring Forward Your Giving

Spring Clock

Despite our very snowy and cold weather of late, turning my clock forward on Saturday was a nice reminder that Spring is actually on the way. That means it’s almost time to tackle those jobs around the house I often put off. Cleaning out the garage. Painting the living room. Organizing the digital photos we’ve…

Read More