give til it hurts and then give some mo'

Realtor Bob Rennie was a little reluctant to discuss his decision to give quietly to charity rather than host a swank Christmas party for clients. (Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun)

Seasonal giving goes beyond presents for family, friends

It's a phenomenon of Christmastime that the Vancouver Foundation sees an uptick in the number of people wanting to park $10,000 or more there to start a donor-advised fund

The Vancouver Sun

Thursday, December 28, 2006

By Frances Bula

Four Christmas-party seasons ago, Bob Rennie hosted a cocktail party at Morton's steakhouse for 275 of his closest clients.

The bill was $35,000.

Not that much money for the man whose name is synonymous in Vancouver with sold-out condo towers bearing swish one-word names.

But Rennie, a kid from the east side who still occasionally seems like an outsider at the rich people's ball, decided he'd like to redirect that money. Not that his clients weren't nice people, but they could probably afford their own steaks and wine.

So instead of the client Christmas parties this year, Rennie has given instead thousands of dollars to the institutions that mean something to him: the Contemporary Art Gallery; Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design, where his $12,500 will be matched by the school to help pay tuition for a few students; BC Children's Hospital; the University of B.C., where he sponsors artists' talks; and the high school he almost graduated from in 1974, Vancouver Technical.

The $5,000 a year he gives there is for principal Dave Derpak to use for special needs that fall outside what the school board will pay for.

Rennie doesn't have much to say about why he decided to change his approach. I have no sentimental quote here from him about wanting to give back to the city or looking for deeper meaning in life.

(In fact, he's mildly uneasy that I've wormed this information out of him and wants me, in the interests of full and frank disclosure, to state that he still buys presents for the people in various clients' offices who help him throughout the year, that he has $15,000 worth of chocolate sitting in a warehouse waiting for delivery, and that he still hosts non-spartan staff parties at Christmas.)

But his impulse to give quietly to the more needy rather than the less needy, and to do a little more of that towards the end of the year, is far from rare, although Rennie may have a bit more cash to spread around than some.

I know I started my own little end-of-year distribution a few years ago. I'd started giving more to charities after we all got our fabulous tax cut.

And as I gave back my tax cut, I wanted it to go to people or local institutions that I knew personally: a friend's daughter doing volunteer work in Africa; the local neighbourhood house; an inner-city school. It was like my Christmas present to myself to choose a few special places for my money to go.

At the Vancouver Foundation, it's a phenomenon of the Christmas season to see an uptick in the number of people who come through the door or pick up the phone to say they want to park $10,000 or more with the foundation. The $10,000 is the minimum the foundation needs to start what's called a donor-advised fund, a fund where the foundation staff help donors work out a plan for which services or particular groups they'll support.

Last year, 45 people started funds in the first 101/2 months of the year. Another 21 showed up between Nov. 12 and Dec. 31.

"Sometimes it's a question that people collect their thinking about their donations just at year end," says Lisa Pullan, the foundation's vice-president of donor services. "Also, that's when the needs are brought to their attention. It's much more in your face at that time of year."

The pattern seems to be on track to repeat itself this year, with perhaps even more of a year-end bulge, thanks to the Conservative government's new policy that eliminated the capital-gains tax on gifts of securities to charities.

People come to the foundation because it acts as a screener for them, giving them some confidence that the groups getting money have been checked out. That's something Canadian donors to charity seem to want. We give ($8.9 billion in the most recent yearly stats) and we want to know that our money is going to a trustworthy organization.

"Donors these days want to be much more involved in their giving. They like doing the research and knowing the projects," says Pullan.

And they're giving more.

"Because government funding has been reduced, fundraising has become much more tangible for people."

Of course, some people do their research and donate in much more direct ways.

Karen O'Shannacery has been running shelters and drop-in services in the Downtown Eastside for 30 years, although Lookout Emergency Services has also spread out to Mount Pleasant, New Westminster and North Vancouver in recent years.

"We get the majority of our donations in December," says O'Shannacery. "It starts when the first real cold weather hits."

And they come from the wildest variety of sources. Some people drop off $5. Others donate their book collections. One Iranian man walked in to the society's Alexander Street office last year with $5,000 cash in his pocket and handed it over. Nervous staff counted the money three times.

Another man came into the downtown shelter four years ago, wearing a nice suit. He handed O'Shannacery a cheque and then said, "You don't remember me, but I stayed in your shelter 15 years ago and you really helped me. I'm married now, I own a house, I have a family."

He had come down to the shelter in previous years, driven around, but been too embarrassed to come in. That year, he made it.

Those donations, $442,000 last year, make up five per cent of Lookout's budget and allow the staff to buy all kinds of small items that are no longer covered by government grants.

"If we didn't have it," says O'Shannacery, "we'd be dead in the water."

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Wet, windy, snowy B.C. tops year's weather list

Thursday, December 28, 2006 | 5:42 AM PT

CBC News

British Columbia suffered — and suffered and suffered — from the weather in 2006, Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips says in his annual roundup of top weather stories.

"It was almost as if Nature had this area in its crosshairs," Phillips told CBC News on Thursday.

The province took the top two spots in his Top 10 weather stories for the year, and also nailed position No. 9.

B.C. was very wet, excessively dry, battered by storms, snowed on and frozen, and in Vancouver, approached a record for the most consecutive rainy days.

The consequences were dire, from a widespread and lengthy boil-water alert, to hundreds of thousands left without power, damage to hundreds of homes, trees down in Vancouver's Stanley Park, extensive wildfires and the depression that comes from 27 wet days in a row.

But it wasn't all bad in 2006, Phillips said.

"This year we were spared devastating hurricanes, severe drought and plagues," he pointed out. "There were no summer blackouts, and we experienced less weather-related personal injuries and fatalities."

His Top 10 are:

1. Early November storms in B.C. brought so much rain, "every river in the Lower Mainland, the South Coast and the southern half of Vancouver Island rose close to or above flood stage." A Nov. 15 storm toppled power lines, leaving an estimated 200,000 people without electricity. The rain caused landslides into reservoirs that serve Vancouver, forcing two million residents to boil their water. Later in the month, snow and freezing temperatures hit Vancouver.
2. Vancouver Island and Lower Mainland residents suffered three storms in five days in mid-December, with violent winds leaving a record 250,000 without power.
3. Three summer windstorms cut swaths through central Ontario and Quebec, starting on July 17. In Ontario, two people died and 250,000 were left without power. Two weeks later, tornados smashed cottages and trees in Ontario and left 450,000 without power in Quebec, where two were killed.
4. It was the second warmest summer on record, with temperatures more than three degrees above normal near the Northwest Territories-Nunavut boundary. Southern Manitoba suffered record dryness.
5. In parts of the Prairies, hail events set a record, with 221 in total, compared to the 179 record set last year. Calgary was hit with golf-ball-sized hail in July, then in August, a storm in central Alberta dropped hail as large as tennis balls. In Springbrook, "damage to 400 homes reached into the millions of dollars." In Manitoba on Aug. 5, a tornado devastated Gull Lake, uprooting trees, flipping vehicles and destroying small buildings. One person was killed.
6. January delivered a flood of mild Pacific air across the country. December to February proved to be the warmest winter season in almost 60 years.
7. "The Canadian wildfire season began early, ended late and was extremely active." Between late June and early July, more than 2,000 people north of La Ronge, Sask., were evacuated from their homes.
8. It was an average hurricane season, though the Atlantic region saw heavy rains, winds and some damage. On Sept. 13, tropical storm Florence toppled trees, knocked out power and flooded property in Newfoundland and Labrador.
9. Vancouver suffered 27 days of rain from December into January. "Residents of the Lower Mainland came to calling it the 'Lower Rainland' following never-ending downpours that were wearing out umbrellas and spirits." In Tofino, usually one of the wettest spots in Canada, there was no significant rain from July 14 to Sept. 16, and the town declared it was running out of water.
10. Pundits predicted voters would stay home because of cold and storms in the first winter election in 25 years, on Jan. 23. But it was unseasonably warm.

The rankings are based on the impact of the weather, the extent of the area affected, economic effects and how long the event remained as a top news story.