All of siobhanbrenton's Comments + Replies

If you are a Canadian donor interested in giving to COVID response in India please email me at siobhan@rethinkprojects.org.

Update - Canadian donors can now support GiveIndia's O2 and Cash Transfers program through RC Forward here: https://rcforward.org/covid-19-giving/.

>How long can RC survive without additional funds? What is your typical runway (in months)?

RC Forward currently has a runway just shy of 10 months which would bring us to June, 2021. 

Our typical runway averages  around 6 months, though this has ranged from 3 months to 10 months in the past two years. Right now we are currently benefiting from the Canadian Employer Wage Subsidy (CEWS) program. Funding is not guaranteed and is applied for monthly, however this wage subsidy has allowed us to stretch our runway considerably. The program is available until December, 2020. 

While I think LaTeX is useful, it is not very intuitive or user friendly and posting long curated articles is quite tedious. It would be nice to have a feature like Elementor.

I think there would be a lot of value in a detailed how-to document for content creators explaining each step needed to go from a GDoc or WordDoc to a forum post. This would optimally include a directory for keywords like footnotes, typographical emphasis, Title/Header/Normal text functions, etc.

4
Will Bradshaw
4y
The reference to LaTeX here isn't very clear to me. Does Elementor provide an alternative equation-rendering system? Or did you mean something else?

The missing link seems to be on what the Income Tax Act defines as a qualified donee. As mentioned, the Canada-US Tax Convention opens up US registered charities as qualified donees provided they are a 501(c)(3) in good standing with the IRS. Using the 501(c)(3) registration as the backbone of our due diligence package ensures that the work we are supporting in the US is generally exempt from tax and would reasonably be considered tax-exempt in Canada. However, this convention only allows us to facilitate partnerships with US based organizations, or organi... (read more)

4
alistairclark
5y
Thanks for the response!

Article XXI of the Canada–US Tax Convention allows us to make this happen. The legal analysis is that a 501(c)(3) qualifies as a registered charity pursuant to Article XXI which reads: “For the purposes of Canadian taxation, gifts by a resident of Canada to an organization which is resident in the United States, which is generally exempt from United States tax and which could qualify in Canada to receive deductible gifts if it were created or established and resident in Canada shall be treated as gifts to a registered charity;”.

However, Canadians cannot d... (read more)

2
alistairclark
5y
Thanks for the reply! Everything makes sense up until this: This seems to contradict the Canadian Income Tax Act: Neither of these scenarios apply to what CHIMP is doing. Maybe I'm missing something? P.S. In case you were wondering why I'm digging deeper on this question, here is some context. I fully support donating to EA and RC Forward, but I recently read a number of problematic stories about the CHIMP Foundation (linked below). I'm curious what you / the team think of these allegations. * The Globe and Mail -- Inside The Charity Network That Has Helped Wealthy Donors Get Big Tax Breaks – And Their Donations Back * The Globe and Mail -- Ottawa urged to tighten charity rules after multimillion-dollar tax break revelations * Monkey Business at Chimp Foundation: Part 1 * Open Letter to Blake Bromley RE: Monkey Business at Chimp Foundation & Affiliated Charities

1. Thanks for pointing this out! I agree and I think that there is a large market of Canadians wanting to donate effectively that have not yet been reached, or have not yet heard about high-impact giving. We are working on ways to take over more of the Canadian donor market share in 2019 and this would be impossible without tax incentives like the ones we have provided.

2. I don't believe there is an easy way to give to EA Funds at the moment, but we are constantly adding more options for effective giving. Since CEA is a registered 501(c)(3) in the Uni... (read more)

Allan, thanks for your support! Canada has a very complicated system when it comes to registering charities. Not only can it easily take over a year working with the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) to get registered, but the annual upkeep needed by professional accountants and lawyers will likely not make it worth while for many high-impact charities as it would cost more than our platform. It is likely, however, that in other countries with different tax structures that the reverse would be true.

As for our value add for Canadian-registered charities, our p... (read more)