Fellow
Optimists,
Over the years, or at least since 1989, people have begged,
pleaded, coerced, challenged, strong-armed, or used some other
method of getting money out of us for the Optimist International
Foundation of Canada. In some cases this has worked…and
in some cases this just made us resist with greater determination.
So I have been asking myself, why do people resist. There
are many reasons, but three reasons stuck out as the most
likely.
Reason One: I’m broke…
I
don’t have any more money to give. Well, I can’t
argue with that one. If you don’t have it, you cannot
give it. But you can still help with fundraising from those
that can afford to give…and be assured that it will
be appreciated and it certainly is needed.
Reason Two:
I
don’t understand why I have to pay dues and give to
the Foundation as well. Would it not be simpler to just give
once to ‘whatever’ and let them sort it out?
This is a two-part question and I want to answer the second
part first. Sure it would be simpler and hopefully in the
not too distant future that may be a reality. A reality where
your donation to the Foundation will be sufficient to cover
the costs of running our organization and preclude the need
for dues. And give you a tax deduction for your donation.
So, if you got that bit sorted out, let me try and answer
the first part. It’s all about assets and liabilities
or to use an analogy, about building houses (bear with me,
I’ll explain that part in a moment). An asset is anything
that puts money in your pocket and a liability is anything
that takes money out of your pocket. Despite what your bank
manager tells you, for 95% of us a house is a liability. Even
if there is no mortgage, it will still take money out of your
pocket for taxes, insurance and repairs etc. But suppose you
had two houses and rented one out. If you rented that second
house for an amount greater than what it costs you to own,
then the second house would be an asset, because it puts money
in your pocket. Now think about the organization and the Foundation
as two separate houses. The organization is the one we live
in and takes money (dues) out of our pockets to pay for administration
and related costs and is therefore a liability. The Foundation
on the other hand is capable of putting money back in our
pockets, immediately in the form of tax receipts, and long
term in the form of grants and scholarships for clubs and
kids from investment return while covering its administration
and related costs at the same time. This makes it an asset.
It’s too bad that we didn’t start building this
house in 1919 but its never too late to start.
Reason Three:
What
do we need a Foundation for...what does it do? The simple
answer is to keep our personal cost of being a member as low
as possible. The Foundation can do this because it is a recognized
charity and operates under a different tax structure than
the organization, you and I, and it can issue a tax receipt
when you make a donation. All the scholarships that we award
each year and the programs that we support, and the material
that supports us come through the Foundation and if we didn’t
have this, our dues would most likely be three or four times
what they are presently. Unfortunately in Canada, we are still
working on money in, money out. To make it successful we need
to build a corpus. A corpus is the money that does not have
to be spent every year to meet program and scholarship costs
but can be invested so that the return on that investment
can start paying the costs. The building of this corpus will
need club donations in unrestricted funds, that is money not
directed to a specific purpose, just donated to the Foundation.
This is Canada’s Foundation and the money is spent only
in Canada for our children and our programs. It needs to become
our asset and it needs everyone’s help to do that.
With
sincere thanks,
Your
Optimist International Foundation of Canada
SWONT District Committee
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