Quebec has an enviable economic performance and we should be proud of it. But what about generosity? The reality is that we are behind at the Canadian level, even if we are generous when we are asked.
The issue is simply that we do not have a culture of solicitation worthy of the name! A culture of solicitation is based on three pillars: daring to address the question of “how much to give?” », to have a convincing answer to « why give? and encourage donors to become canvassers.
Let’s first talk about the elephant in the room, the principle of making donations when Quebecers are highly taxed and believe that it is the role of the state to cover all social needs.
The answer lies in the determinants of a responsible society. In a responsible society, the economic system creates wealth, the political system creates justice and the social system ensures the quality of life of its citizens. The social system enables immigrants to be better welcomed, enables young people from underprivileged backgrounds to be better supported, enables exclusion and isolation to be broken down, enables violence to be kept at a distance, in short, enables the worst off to improve his lot.
This system is 50% funded by the state through tax deductions on donations and is managed by thousands of autonomous NPOs to make any minister dream of decentralization, accountability and responsibilization. . Some skeptics of the need for a strong social system have often passed judgment without knowing or without wanting to know, and we must take the time to inform them.
Other skeptics believe in the superiority of the “every man for himself” or “when you want, you can” model, without having really thought about the four chances they may have encountered in their professional ascent.
In my case, I met the four chances, namely the chance of biology, the chance of being born in Quebec (living in a democracy and having had access to a higher education without going into too much debt), the chance of the entourage (having had support in difficult times. A less fortunate young girl once said that she felt like she was on an escalator, but it only went down…), and finally the luck of the time (the wage gaps between the different professions were relatively modest between 1930 and 1970 and have only grown since… and my profession is one of the lucky ones).
The lucky have an obligation to the less fortunate in society. Now let’s talk about “how much to give?” “. Large corporations in Canada have resolved this issue by giving themselves a precise definition of a giving corporation, which is to donate up to 1% of their pre-tax profits. Many citizens want to be generous, but need criteria to situate themselves. In 2012, I went to discover the most generous citizens by analyzing Statistics Canada reports to discover that these rare pearls belong to the fifth and last income quintile. People in this group who donate devote 2.4% of their income to it.
I therefore concluded that anyone with a decent income could make donations totaling 3% of their income and that the wealthiest could give themselves a target of 5%. The best safeguard for anyone who wants to be generous is to determine a percentage of their income to devote to donations.
Finally, let’s talk about the idea that a donor also becomes a solicitor. I know it sounds demanding, but we need everyone to challenge the non-donors and the unsolicited. A patron once said to me: “You didn’t come to see me because I have money, but because you know I give it away. »
It is true that a solicitor, for the sake of efficiency, will prioritize people with a good history of donations and that in the long run, we come to stop soliciting certain people. Each new canvasser, through his local network, can expand the circle of donors and this explains, in my opinion, the best philanthropic record in English Canada.
On the eve of a new year, this is a great opportunity to give yourself a philanthropic-type resolution for 2023.