April 2002

Western Region: Alberta South

Calgary City Centre Chooses a New Charity

How does a women's club with twenty strong, opinionated, active, involved members choose one charity that the entire club strongly supports?  Easy - you make the decision with your head not your heart.

With a million 'great causes' out there, everyone will have different thoughts on where the most need is.  The criteria for choosing a charity will differ from club to club as will the reason.  Your club's mandate might be to raise awareness for Progress or to find contacts and/or skills that will complement those currently in your club.  Calgary City Centre's objective for choosing the 'right' charity for a main fundraising event was to form a partnership between the charity and the club.  The City Centre club sees fundraising as a business and in business you need good partners in order to be successful.  Success is definitely in the cards as the club has its sights set on raising $50,000 on their first annual Reindeer Doo.

There are a million great causes but how do you choose a great partner?  The process used by the City Centre to make the recommendation of one charity to its members was key in getting complete support.  The reason City Centre got complete support was that the committee did its homework and the members felt they had been heard. It was easy for members to see that the recommendation being made was a good one.  The recommendation was based on facts, not feelings.

Three key factors in finding the 'right' charity:

1. Give the club members a voice.

   • Each member of the club was asked to submit their 3 favourite charities;

   • The list was collated and sent out to all members and each member was asked to vote for only one charity on the list

   • The results of the voting clearly outlined 3 charities supported by our members.

2. Due diligence

   • Research more than one charity and make the criteria measurable.

   • A committee developed a list of key elements that were important to the members as outlined in the vision and mission statements

   • A list of questions were created to cover these elements

   • The questions were then used to interview the 3 charities

3. Compare the charities objectively based on pre-defined key elements.

   • The answers to the questions were scored on a point system

   • Members of the committee interviewed a charity that they didn't necessarily support

An interesting thing resulted from the process for City Centre.  Each of the committee members strongly supported one particular charity before the process began.  After the interviews with the charities, these same members now supported the charity they interviewed instead of their original charity of choice.  Once the process was finished, all of the members on the committee strongly supported the one charity that none of them supported at the beginning.  This had a great impact on club members when making the presentation and recommendation.

February 2002, Calgary City Centre chose the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation - Alberta Chapter as their new fundraising charity.  City Centre continues to strongly support Canadian Progress Charitable Foundation (Special Olympics) and Big Sisters and Big Brothers, as well as being hands-on with many other organizations throughout Calgary.