Gena Rotstein's blog

This past week the Calgary Foundation received a very generous legacy gift from the late Doc Seaman.  This is the largest foundational gift in the history of community foundations in Canada.  The question now becomes, what will the Calgary Foundation do with this investment?

I have been in Las Vegas for the Advisors in Philanthropy conference. I was presenting on Philanthropy in A Digital Age with my dear friend and mentor, Lori Stewart.  The irony isn't lost on me that we are talking about philanthropy and wealth in a city that has been hit hard by the economic downturn and has a tourist culture of excess and consumerism. But is this very thing that is attractive for someone like me who explores complex issues and looks for ways to address the complexities through social enterprise and venture philanthropy.

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This week I have been attending SugarCon2013 in NYC.  SugarCRM is an open source CRM platform that is expanding its market share in the CRM world.  Capitalizing on the elasticity of cloud computing and the open source community of developers, Sugar has created a culture of client-centered solutions for contact management. 

What does this have to do with social change and social capital?

By guest blogger: Adam Aptowitzer, LL.B.

Despite bearing relatively little news for charities this in itself is probably good news for charities.

I am on a flight back from Ottawa as I write this.  The past 48 hours have been very insightful regarding how Federal funding into Canada's business sector is allocated.  The timing of my visit was perfect as the budget is dropping on Thursday and in previous budgets Stephen Harper committed $400MM into R&D for Canadian companies.

I just finished presenting to the ACGC group in Edmonton on social media and the non-profit sector with Arleigh Vasconcellos from The Agency.  There was interesting conversations around the recent budget announcements from the Alberta Government on cutting support to foreign aid organizations (from $1.5MM to $750K) and the ripple effect this will have on Albertans.  It's so easy to divorce ourselves from the global marketplace when it comes to foreign aid - as it is; we have our own "poor people."

I took the last couple of weeks off... Well not exactly "off" but I was on a holiday in Guatemala where I was volunteering for a wonderful NGO - Dentistry for All.  You can read about my trip and the people that I met on my Calgary Herald blog.  There are four articles posted in the Calgary Herald along with photos from Brodie Wilkinson and Hope Photography.  Read more »

Guest blogger: Meghan Somers, Social Media and Marketing Coordinator at The Agency.  The Agency provides the marketing and PR support for Dexterity Consulting and Place2Give.

We often call Place2Give.com the eHarmony of charities. Then we get the inevitable follow up question: what do you mean by that? In honor of Valentine’s Day we thought we would share the Place2Give.com story and the rationale behind the claim that we are the eHarmony/dating website for charities.

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In early 2012 I joined a group of women who are leaders in their industry in the creation of WINK Calgary (Women Investing in Knowledge).  Over the course of six months we planned a year-long series of presentations targeting professional women in areas of finance, law, philanthropy, business and entrepreneurship, personal growth and life balance.

We are almost halfway through the presentation series for 2012/13 and I've noticed a theme emerging - that all of the conversations come back to the participants' identifying their core values.

This is the 1cent post.

I was thinking about how the little penny can do so much when combined with a bunch of other pennies.  Leveraging.  It's what strategic donors want to see happen when they invest their charitable dollars.

And along came Andrew & Sarah Sheperd and their mom Karen.  Andrew and Sarah are kids who were inspired by We Day that occurred in Calgary a few months ago.  Within days of returning home, Sarah had recruited her brother and a group of their friends to solve a water and sanitation problem in Ngosauni, Kenya.  They designed a website to tell the story and through the power of their social network have been actively raising... PENNIES.  Yup, those little copper coins (that aren't really copper).  Their goal - 1Million pennies or $10,000.  And they are well on their way.

By linking their networks to other networks and encouraging people to open their wallets of their loose change these two young philanthropists and social change agents are changing the lives of children and their families on the other side of the world.

Got a Penny is more than fundraising for a cause.  It is a movement.  Care to join?