A new made-in-Vancouver campaign is asking Canadians to forego a few drinks at the bar, consider a movie night in, or prepare two packed lunches per month in order to give one percent of their income to charity in 2013.
The One Year One Percent campaign is the brainchild of Sarah Shandl, a project co-ordinator for an events management company. To bring her idea to fruition she partnered with Jeff Golby, operations director with Charitable Impact Foundation (Chimp), a registered Canadian charity.
The aim of the campaign is to encourage Canadians to put more thought into which charities they support, and donate to them more consistently.
“A lot of people my age and in their 20s and 30s give to people to support their friends, not necessarily because they support that cause in particular or know much about it,” says Shandl.
“So we wanted to shift from that mentality to that of people actually setting aside money from every paycheque to give to charity, and to make it more of a habit than just a one-off.”
To take the One Percent challenge, individuals calculate their income on the campaign website, OneYearOnePercent.com, set the amount they would like to donate monthly by creating a “Chimp Fund” or personal bank account for charity, and then choose from a list of all registered Canadian charities that they want to donate to.
“You can actually research any Canadian charity and find out where their donation dollars go, and what percentage goes towards programs, marketing etc.,” says Shandl.
“So you’re able to do a bit more researching on that and finding causes that speak to you, because you can also search charities based on interest.”
Shandl adds interest-based giving is more likely to stick, as people will continue to support the causes they are most passionate about—whether it is clean water, education, or meals for the homeless.
The One Percent campaign also helps give charities more of an equal standing, especially those that have a small budget and are not often in the public eye.
“You can find new charities that you may not be familiar about, because a lot of the major charities have large marketing campaigns behind them. They’re more well-known than perhaps smaller ones that are really effective as well,” she says.
Shandl says that while the campaign has been received positively in the charity sector and is gaining ground with Vancouverites, she hopes to see it grow across Canada.
“The general audience [so far] thinks that the one percent is so doable that there’s no reason not to do it, which is kind of what we were hoping for,” she says. “We’re excited about it.”
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